AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“How did you know who he was?” asked Mettner.
“The women in the line were fawning all over that jackass, that’s how.”
Noah changed the subject. “Are you married?”
The raspy chuckle came again. “Son, I wouldn’t get married if someone was gonna pay me to do it. People never hate anyone more than they hate their spouses. Now, are you three about done?”
“Almost,” said Josie. “We have a couple more questions. Have you been home all day?”
Archie sighed. “Nope, I surely wasn’t, but if you’re looking to make sure I wasn’t involved in whatever you got going on here, I was at Leo’s bar from about five till eleven.”
Noah said, “Before that, where were you? This morning between six and ten?”
“I was here, son. This is where I live.”
Josie asked, “What about last night? Starting around five?”
“Leo’s. Over on Stott Street. I go there every Friday after work and weekends, too.”
“Where do you work?” asked Mettner.
“I’m a carpenter, son. Don’t have a shop right now but I’m in the union. I go where they tell me when they can get me work.”
Josie said, “Do you live alone?”
“Sure do.”
Noah said, “When you were home today, did you hear anything?”
“You mean like if a woman crashes her car in the woods and no one’s there to hear it, did it really happen? Son, I’ve got twenty acres that span from that road there over to the next one. Like I told you, the vehicle you’re asking after is on state gameland. It don’t concern me, but since you’re asking, I don’t hear nothing but what’s right here in front of this house.”
Mettner said, “Are there any paths from here to that area that go through to the other side of the property? Over to Wertz Road?”
“You askin’ if I walked over to the state gameland? To this car you’re worried about? Or if I walked from the car to here?”
“Both,” said Mettner.
Archie smiled at him but there was a hint of menace in the way his eyes narrowed. “You askin’ if I had anything to do with…what’d you say earlier? A murder victim?”
Mettner answered, “Yes.”
“The answer’s no. I didn’t know a thing about any murder victim or cars on land that don’t belong to me until you all just showed up now to tell me about it. Now, you go on and handle your business over on the state land and get off my property.”
Josie stepped forward and handed him a business card which he took, squinting at it. “Quinn,” he read. “Seen you on TV, too.”
“Call us if you remember anything about Eve Bowers,” she told him.
He tucked the card into the crease of the chair where his other possessions apparently lived. Then he reached over and snapped off the lantern. As they turned to go, something pinged off the back of Josie’s calf. The cigarette butt. She stopped and looked down at it, watching its glow die.
Archie’s voice floated through the darkness. “You all be careful out there. Never know what can happen.”
TWENTY-TWO
Josie clapped her gloved hands together and then rubbed them as fast as she could, hoping to get some of her circulation back. Standing outside on the shoulder of the road for two hours in temperatures flirting with below freezing had numbed every part of her body. But she wasn’t leaving until Eve Bowers’s car had been put on the flatbed tow truck and transported to the police impound lot. Along the horizon, the sky was a deep cobalt. Stars glittered like jewels. The thick clouds that had brought rain the evening before now left a clear and unblemished dome overhead. Josie was grateful. Few things were more damaging to a crime scene than inclement weather.
Noah emerged from their vehicle, phone in hand. His cheeks were bright pink. “Why don’t you get in here for a few minutes? I’m telling you, it helps.”
Josie ignored him and looked back at the wide opening between one copse of trees and another through which a killer had driven Eve Bowers’s car. Through bare, gnarled branches, the bright white of an ERT member’s Tyvek suit flashed every now and then. One of them had put up lights around the perimeter of the scene and she could even see a small slice of the car’s silver paint. The killer would have had to walk out of there. Where did he go? There wasn’t anything for miles.
