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“Johnathon White. His mother still lives in town; she’ll be devastated. Her firstborn son was killed a few years ago—he got tangled up in some criminal group. Johnathon was her second and only living son. Her name is Louise White.”
Mitch almost dropped the cup of coffee he was holding.
“Louise White?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper.
“Yes. You know her?” Angela asked.
“Somewhat,” he said vaguely. “How sure are you? The tips of the fingers that are missing... are you sure they are the fingers he cut off? That was a long time ago.”
“It was a long time ago, but I’ll never forget it. There was blood everywhere and he just screamed and screamed. It scarred me for life,” she said.
“Okay, I need that analysis ASAP. And thank you, you have no idea how helpful this is,” he said before ending the call.
Mitch put a call through to the team working on identification and asked them to prioritize the tests.
Louise White.
Her son had been caught in the act of murdering someone and was chased off a cliff, the night after Jessica was killed.
Then, a few days later, Louise White had found the murder weapon with Detective Taylor’s prints on it. The same detective who chased her son off the cliff to his death.
The facts spun around in his mind like they were in a clothes dryer.
How did the detective’s prints get on the knife, though? They’d checked the security system and it didn’t appear to have been breached, but Mitch knew that any system designed to be opened and closed, or turned on and off, could be broken.
But did Louise White have those skills?
Maybe she didn’t need them. If her son was connected to the Valley Kings, maybe someone had done the work for them.
Maybe she had really found the knife in her backyard; maybe her son had left it there, intending to get rid of it later but never had the chance. According to Bethenny, she was surprised Mrs. White had found it at all.
Which begged the question: howhadshe found it?
Mitch picked up the phone, calling Bethenny.
He tapped his heel impatiently as he waited for her to answer, but the call rang out.
He shook his head, ringing one of his officers instead.
“Hey, it’s Mitch. I need you to position a patrol car discreetly away from Louise White’s house, but close enough to watch if anyone comes or goes,” he said.
“Copy. Do you want us to check in with her first to make sure she’s home?” the officer asked.
“No—covert surveillance at this stage. I’ll let you know if you need to get closer,” he replied.
“Copy. We’ll head there now,” he said without wasting time with further questions.
Mitch appreciated his team. They followed orders, but could use their initiative when needed. That was rare.
He folded his arms over his chest and gave himself a few minutes to think, to let the facts—the pieces of the puzzle—move around in his head until he connected the dots.
He picked up his phone again. “I need you to look at the bank accounts and phone logs of the list of people Detective Taylor identified as having been in his house. I want to know if any of them received any money from Louise White, or if they made any calls to her cell, or landline—or this burner phone...” he said, giving them the number from the email Lachlan had sent him from The Joker.
If the alarm system hadn’t been over-ridden, then the cleaners were the only ones with authorized access to the detective’s house. They had only cleaned his house once as he was first moving in, though; if they switched the knife then, they had known who he was and had been waiting for this opportunity. That would mean framing the detective was a plan, months in the making, which Mitch thought unlikely.
His office phone rang, pulling him from his thoughts yet again.
“Mitch.”
