AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No. Not for a long time. She stopped answering my calls a while ago. You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.”
“You said you worked with her. You didn’t see her around?”
Hiromu shook his head. “I’m the Associate Director. Joanne worked on the floor. I don’t see day-to-day stuff.”
“So how did you meet?” Ripley asked.
“Recovery meetings. She recognized me. We got to talking.”
Ripley noddedin understanding,accepting the explanation. She said, “Right. And your storage unit? Any details on that?”
Hiromu looked dumbfounded. “What do you want me to say? I needed a storage unit. Besides, it’s not even for me. It’s my daughter’s. She has the key to it. I’ve only been there once and that was to sign up. She did everything else. You can ask her.”
Ella stayed quiet, letting Ripley do the talking. Maybe her comment had been a step too far, but idle threats always worked in the past. Ripley must have still been pissed about her threatening to shoot a guy on the last case. Understandable, Ella thought, because she still felt bad about it herself.
“Mr. Takahashi, where were you on Friday between one and three p.m.?”
Hiromu’s jaw dropped an inch. “Why? You don’t think I could have hurt Joanne?”
“You can prove whether you did or not by telling me your whereabouts.”
Hiromu smiled. A winner’s smirk. Ella recognized it a mile off. “Recovery meeting. Smart Recovery at Saint Paul’s Church on Lichfield Street. Ask anyone there. There are cameras in the lobby too. They’ll have caught me going in.”
Ripley cracked her neck with a sudden jolt and said, “Thank you. We’ll check it. What about last night between eleven and midnight?”
The winner’s smirk returned. Ella’s heart plummeted to her stomach, a heavy stone sinking in an ocean of dread. She felt like she’d come first in a race of fools. Barely an hour ago, she’d idly praised herself for not giving into temptation and connecting dots that were barely visible. Now, out here in icy darkness, she found herself having done just that. Jumped headfirst into something she had no real evidence for, only to be proven wrong and sent back to the starting line with absolutely no new information.
“I was driving back from Ohio. My dash cam recorded the whole journey. I got home about half past one.”
“We’ll need that footage. Right now if you have it,” Ripley said.
“Agents, please, I have to be up early in the morning.”
RipleyleveledHiromu with apiercing gaze, like two icicles boring through his retinas into his soul. The stare that, if legend around FBI HQ was to be believed, once made a suspect confess to multi-homicide without any need for words. Two seconds later, Hiromu was at her mercy.
“Fine,” he said.
“We’ll have a police officer out here within the hour. Please have it ready for them.”
Looked like Ripley had resigned to the belief that Hiromu Takahashi wasn’t their man. If the footage checked out, Ella would too. The revelation hit her like a stack of bricks to the heart. Back to square one. Ella prepared herself for a restless, sleepless night.
“If could ask your daughter if she knows anything, that would be a great help,” she said.
Hiromu continued, “I will, but she hasn’t been back there in a while as far as I know. Who was the person who got killed, anyway?”
“A local gentleman named David Harper. Recognize the name?”
“No, sorry,” Hiromu said. “What storage unit was it?”
“Number three-hundred, directly opposite yours.”
Hiromu’s expressionshifted from irritation to deep thought. “Opposite mine you say?”
“Yes.”
Hiromutappedthe stubble on his chin and said, “You know, I thinkhaveseen that fellow. About five-eleven, brown hair, looked like crap?”
Ella and Ripleysharedaknowing look. “Could be him,” Ella said. “What did you see?”
