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“Zero and nada.”
“Just thought I’d give it a shot.”
“Yeah, I would have, too.”
“Can you let me know what he says?”
“Within professional boundaries, yes.”
“Thanks.”
She clicked off and looked down at her hands. He was holding back. And she was holding back. And Gibson wasn’t sure where that would get either of them.
But you’ve been taking your own tack on this. And he knows nothing about Clarisse,or Langhorne’s cryptic message left with his registered agent in South Dakota. So just keep pushing.
She picked up the phone and called Earl Beckett. She told him about Daryl Oxblood’s being Bruce Hall.
“Jesus,” he exclaimed. “So he’s dead, too? We didn’t get an alert from the FBI yet.”
“And we think there’s a connection between his death and Harry Langhorne’s.”
“What kind of connection?”
“You tell me. Where were the Halls located when they were in WITSEC?”
“I don’t know that offhand.”
“Can you find out?”
“I could. But I’m not sure I can tell you.”
“Why not? They’re not in WITSEC any longerandthey’re all dead.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“You told us about Langhorne.”
“I told you when you were with Detective Sullivan. But on your own you’re just a civilian. And as a rule the Marshals Service doesn’t talk about WITSEC without serious justification.”
“Two people’s being murdered seems like justification enough for me. And all I want to know are two things: Was Bruce Hall his WITSEC name or his real name? And where were they located when they were in the program? That’s it.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” said Beckett.
“And were you able to find handwriting samples for Francine and Doug Langhorne?”
But Beckett had already hung up.
She sat back and fiddled with her pen.Okay, he’s clearly not getting back to me.
So who had the motive to kill Bruce Hall? Clarisse?
But why, if she and Julia Frazier were one and the same, would she go back to the scene of the crime? She had tried to erase the phrase on the wall, for sure. And she had looked at the comic book that Gibson now had. She was probably regretting that she hadn’t simply taken it.
But according to the neighbor Barbara Cole, Frazier had seemed shocked by the discovery of the body. And she had told Cole to call the police before hightailing it out of town.
If not her, then maybe Francine—if Clarisse wasn’t her—and/or Doug Langhorne had killed Hall. They could have also killed their father. Although Clarisse hadn’t said so, it might have been Doug visiting Langhorne shortly before he was killed, with Francine waiting for him in the car.
She thought it too improbable that former WITSEC members would just run into each other. But why kill Hall? Was he looking for the treasure, too? Did he know something, and Doug and Francine had tracked him down and silenced him after getting that information?
