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“I guess we’re done here. You’re wasting my time.”
“If I hear anything that will point you toward the dead women, I’ll call you. But if it could also lead to Whiskey... I can’t. I’ve worked too hard. Lost...too much.”
His life? His soul?
Callie? John’s stomach knotted.
He stood. “Don’t let this job turn you into one of them, Greg. Callie wouldn’t have wanted that.”
Greg circled the rim of his glass with his index finger. “No,” he murmured, “she wouldn’t. How’s Stella? She must be how old now? She was just a baby at the funeral.”
“Almost four. Growing. Sassy like her mom. Curious about everything.” He hated being away from her. “See ya, man.” Once he was out of the bar, he called his sister to check in and to FaceTime with his sassy, inquisitive kiddo. It lifted his spirits, and he remembered why he was here. To make the world a little safer for his own daughter and to get justice for her mother.
By three o’clock, he made it back to Slate County and Crow’s Creek. He called Violet to find out where the team was and what she’d been doing the past two hours. He hated dipping out during their lunch and briefing, but he’d hoped this would be more important.
“Did you find anything useful from your undercover agent?” Violet asked.
“No. Well, not about Whiskey.” He relayed the information about Earl Levine and Tillie LeBeau. “Could be him. Rejected. Got rough. Kills her, then Whiskey kills him. Got rough with Atta too.”
“Tillie’s sister came in an hour ago. Only family. Lives in Bowling Green. She couldn’t identify the body, obviously, but they showed her some personal effects. She recognized her necklace. Gave it to her for Christmas last year. And we got dental records back for the second victim. It is Darla Boone. Waiting on dentals from Tillie to make it official.”
Well, at least they knew.
“What do we know, if anything, about these women?”
Violet heaved a breath, and it filtered through the Bluetooth in the car. “Other than they all lived in the holler and cleaned houses, Tillie LeBeau was twenty-eight and hung out at the Black Feather.”
Same bar the anonymous call to the State Police came from.
“Asa and Fiona are talking to Tillie’s sister then going to interview employees and the manager. Darla Boone was twenty-five, also cleaned homes. And that’s all we know right now. How far out are you?”
“Thirty minutes.”
“When you get back, we’ll visit Darla’s and Tillie’s homes. Talk to Darla’s roommate, Amy.”
“One other thing,” John said. “About the department.” He relayed what Greg had told him about some of them being involved and others turning a blind eye and John’s possible theory about why the women ended up dead.
Violet’s end of the line was silent for a few moments.
“Well,” she said, “since we don’t know which ones we can and can’t trust, then we have to go in not trusting any of them. I think we might need to create a command post at the B and B. For things we don’t want them to see. I’ll talk to Asa.”
“But Regis Owsley has access to the house. For all we know, he has keys to every room.”
“True, and I don’t like that place to begin with. It’s like someone is watching our every move. Did you get any creepy vibes last night?” she asked.
“No. But to be honest, after a hot shower, I was out. We’ll need to be careful with what we say at the SO and with what we put on the board, then at the B and B, we watch our backs.”
“Yeah, because I got a sick feeling someone wants to stab them.”
Tuesday, October 17
4:04 p.m.
Darla Boone’s trailer was probably decades old but was tidy inside and smelled like cigarettes and cinnamon. An ashtray with a handful of butts, a few coated in lipstick, sat on the glass-top coffee table.
Darla’s roommate, Amy Miller, sat on a late-eighties model couch, tears forming a curtain over her big brown eyes. She was rail thin, but not unhealthy, and her hair hung loose around her shoulders.
Violet sat on the club chair next to the couch, and John stood leaning against the wall that led down a hallway to Darla’s bedroom.
