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“Just a quick look,” Deckard said, hoping the promise he’d look into Mack’s cheating wife would work in their favor.
Mack looked around yet again. Nobody. “Okay,” he said, “but I never gave you this.” He stood and moved to a row of cabinets. It took a minute, but he fished it out.
“Here,” he said, flipping to the page in question.
Deckard skimmed the page, looking for Andi’s name. Harper watched over his shoulder.
“There she is,” Harper said.
Deckard scanned the line. It had Andi’s name, date, time, and an item number. “I’m assuming this number correlates to the evidence box from Anne Marlowe’s case?”
“I can look it up just to be certain.” Mack typed it in.Click. Click. Click. “Yes, that’s correct,” he said.
“Thanks,” Deckard said, then shifted his attention to Harper. “Does it look like Andi’s handwriting?”
“Yes ... but the item numbers are different from those of the time and date.”
Both he and Mack leaned forward, looking.
“You sure about that?” Deckard asked, not noting a difference.
“She crosses her sevens,” Harper said.
“Okay ... oh...” All the sevens were crossed, but the ones in the item number were all up higher on the stick part of the numeral. “Excellent job,” he said.
Mack furrowed his brow. “What am I missing?”
“They’re crossed in different places,” Deckard said.
“Are you sure she just didn’t get sloppy?” Mack asked.
Harper arched a brow. “Andi, sloppy?”
“Fair enough.” Mack’s cell rang. “Hang on,” he said before answering, then stood to take the call, shifting his back to them.
Deckard took the opportunity to jot down all of Andi’s information,along with who else was in and out of the evidence locker that day.
“Sorry about that,” Mack said, lifting the logbook, closing it, and returning it to the cabinet.
“Thanks for all your help,” Deckard said. “One more thing. Do you know when Randy will be in or how we can get ahold of him?” He could find it, but it would go faster if Mack just handed it to them.
“He moved,” Mack said.
“Moved to a new job?”
“In a way. He moved back to Boston, but you didn’t hear that from me. He didn’t tell anyone else where he was going. Just left.”
“When was this?” Deckard asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. I’d say about a week after everything happened with Andi.”
“Meaning, after I started digging into things?” Had Randy been spooked by it? Did he have something to hide?
“No.” Mack shook his head. “I’m pretty sure he’d left before you and that defense lawyer realized the shirt was gone.”
Ten minutes and a finished conversation with Mack later, Deckard followed Harper down the long rows of the storage facility, evidence containers piled high on the shelves, nearly reaching the ceiling.
“Wow,” Deckard said. “This is a lot of cases. A lot of crimes.”
