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“The investigator.”
“Yeah, him.” Carville’s lips tightened. “Nobody wanted to talk to him.”
McCrae could well imagine. Hurston had his narrative set before he started and was trying to make the facts fit it, not the other way around. “Anything else? Anything you can remember? Something small . . . an anomaly? Anything.”
“I’ve thought about it a lot. Tracy said she thought there was a guy who came in and looked at them but then left.”
“Tracy’s another employee?”
“She was only there a few weeks before I left. She kinda made up stories, so I wouldn’t put too much faith in what she said, y’know?”
McCrae recalled the staff very clearly, had committed their faces to memory as a means of preserving what he knew personally of the case. He’d been too much of a junior officer to be put in charge, and Quin was Bailey’s father, so Hurston had been plopped into the case. McCrae had planned to revisit it when he could, had expected it to be earlier than the five years that had passed, but at least he had some traction now. The problem was Corinne had sicced Hurston on him and Quin.
“Was Tracy the blonde or the one with the long brown braid?” McCrae asked.
“Long brown braid. Tracy Gillup. We used to call her
Giddyup.”
After that, Carville didn’t have much more to say. McCrae thanked him and slid off his stool, checking his texts and voice mail again. Nothing from Delta. He called Quin, who wanted to know every detail about what he’d learned, then informed McCrae that Hurston was at the station.
Jolted, McCrae asked, “How’s that going?”
“He wants to know about you. I said you were working on the Stahd case, which you are. I think he’s too busy campaigning to try to hijack it from us, but . . .”
“Yeah?” McCrae said when Quin trailed off.
In a low voice, he added, “He might be worrying that you and I haven’t given up finding Bailey’s killer.”
“I’m going to look for this Tracy Gillup next.”
“Good.”
There was a moment of silence between them, then Quin said, “And Delta called and asked when the clinic could be opened again.”
“I’ll look into it,” he said again as he hung up.
It bothered him that Delta hadn’t called him directly, but then Quin would be more likely to know the answer to that question, given that McCrae wasn’t around.
Are you being played?
The thought stuck with him all the way back to West Knoll. He’d been Delta’s champion, believing in her all the way. And yet what did he know about her really? He’d always liked her, but in truth he barely knew her.
He was pulling into the station around 4:00 when his cell rang. He braced himself, but once again it wasn’t Delta, it was Ellie.
“Are you going to arrest her?” Ellie demanded.
“I assume you mean Delta.”
“Is there enough evidence?”
“You should talk to the DA about it.”
“I’m onto something here, McCrae. I’ve got momentum going. I don’t need a whole ‘on camera’ interview with you; just answer yes or no. Are you going to arrest her?”
“You trying to make your move to anchor using Tanner’s homicide?”
“Yes or no,” she snapped.
