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GARY HADbarely sat at his desk when his phone rang.
“Detective? You have visitors. I’ve put them in Interview Room Two.”
“Do these visitors have names?”
“Only one of them gave their name. It’s Aiden Reynolds.”
Gary thanked him and finished the call. He glanced across to where Dan peered at his monitor. “You’re not going to believe this.” He stood and grabbed his jacket. “Mr. Reynolds wants to seeus.”
Dan blinked. “Then let’s not waste time. Let’s go see what he wants.” He pointed to the notepad on Gary’s desk. “Don’t forget that.”
They hurried through the hallways to the interview rooms, and when Gary stepped into Room Two, he came to a halt. Reynolds leaned against the table, talking to a woman Gary had never seen before. She wore a white apron over jeans and a blouse, and a black baseball cap that covered her hair, brown interspersed with strands of gray. She wasn’t smiling.
Reynolds scowled at Gary. “You’ve been checking up on me.”
“I said I would, didn’t I? How did you get to hear about it anyhow?” The light dawned. “You got a call, didn’t you?” It had to be the guy at the DFF office, the one who’d worked with Reynolds.
Reynolds grinned. “You bet I did. Marty rang to tell meallabout it, and it was a good thing he did.”
“Aren’t you going to introduce us to your friend?” Dan asked.
The woman snorted. “I’m not his friend. I wasn’t even that when we worked for the same company. I should be cooking breakfasts right now, but this asshole turned up and told me I had to give him an alibi.”
“Hey, don’t say that,” Reynolds retorted. “Just tell him where I was.”
“Okay, okay.” She rolled her eyes. “Keep your hair on—what you have left of it, at any rate.”
“Who are you?” Gary demanded.
“I’m Sonia Klopek. And on August twenty-eighth, 1992, I was on a date with this jerk.”
“Hey!” Reynolds glared at her.
Gary pulled out a chair and sat. “How convenient. I thought you had no idea what you were doing that day.”
“I didn’t.” Reynolds’s smug smile made Gary yearn to wipe it off his face. “But you know what jogged my memory? You getting them to check where I was working that day. As soon as Marty told me what he’d heard, I remembered.”
Gary gestured to the chairs. “Take a seat.”
“We’re not stopping. I’m here to tell you what you want to know, and then I’m outta here, and you’re gonna stop harassing me.”
“No one has harassed you,” Gary assured him.
“That’s whatyousay. Now, about that day… I went back to Lenox. We’d left a shitload of materials there when we finished the pool house. No one from the house had complained because they were all off on vacation someplace, and truth be told, I’d forgotten all about it.” He frowned. “The boss hadn’t, though. He told me to get my ass back there, then bring it all to the material store. So I did as I was told.”
“That was Friday morning?” Gary checked his notes.
Reynolds nodded.
“Did you see Cheryl?” Dan asked.
That scowl was back. “I didn’t seeanybody. I packed up my truck, then drove to Boston, to the office so I could hand over the list of materials. Didn’t want the boss on my back.”
“What time did you arrive at the office?”
Reynolds arched his eyebrows. “It was late afternoon. That’s all I can remember. And while I was there, I got talking to Sonia.”
“I was the receptionist back then,” Sonia explained. “And like I said, he asked me out on a date.”
