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Or not.
She couldn’t put any of this up on the whiteboard because she didn’t want Marcy or any other deputy to see her train of thought. It was probably nothing. Because no matter how Kara sliced it, Marcy’s motivation to bomb theWater Lilywas slim.
But it was possible...
Which was why Kara added Cal McKinnon’s comments about Marcy’s alleged stalking to her unofficial report for Matt. Just to cover all the bases.
She left a message for Marcy’s old roommate and went back to analyzing Neil’s notes. An hour later, she was too tired to process any other information and put the file next to Ryder.
“We need to find out who Neil was talking to in Seattle. He had a source for some of these notes. It’s a cop—just my guess based on how he worded things. But he didn’t put a name anywhere. We need to talk to that person.”
“Every time I think I’m making progress in retracing Agent Devereaux’s steps in how he was investigating this closed case, I end up with more questions,” Ryder said.
“Like?”
“His contact list. I’ve identified nearly everyone in his list. He has detectives in several Washington cities on the list, half the law enforcement here in the islands, dozens of FBI agents. I don’t know if these were personal friends, or if any of them—or which ones—were involved in helping with his inquiry. He has several people attached to the University of Washington campus police. Mott and Stevens went there, so I think that’s the most logical place to start. I’ve called the campus law enforcement liaison office and they’re looking into the names and will get back to me.”
“Yep, that’s being a cop. A lot of sitting around and waiting for people to call you back.” Kara stood and stretched. “I’m going to head back to the house and take an hour. If you get the emails back from Seattle, let me know and I’ll help you go through them. Match up some of these dates that Neil highlighted on the calendar.”
Catherine cleared her throat as Kara headed for the door. Catherine said, “Matt sent me your report.”
Kara figured he would; she’d given him a quasi-psych profile of McKinnon, but wished she’d managed to disappear before Catherine read it.
And where was Matt, anyway?
“Can we talk about it later? I’ve been in these clothes all day.”
“You should have changed earlier, before interviewing witnesses.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. Bombings have a way of messing with your schedule.”
Catherine didn’t avert her eyes, and neither did Kara. The woman was trying to play the superior game with her, and it wasn’t going to work.
Well, it sort of did because Catherine wasinand Kara was definitely not. But Kara wasn’t going to let on that she intimidated her.
Why do you let her? She’s doing it on purpose.
Because Catherine was a gatekeeper. Kara had recognized the trait on the first day they’d met. Even before then, when they’d only talked over a team conference call during the Triple Killer case.
She never did well with gatekeepers.
“You wrote that McKinnon had concerns about Officer Anderson following him but that he didn’t file a report.”
“Yep. He didn’t use the wordstalkerbut that was the vibe I was getting.”
“And this is related to the bombing how?”
“Don’t know that it is. It’s an outlier. Something we might need to follow up on. It might be a completely separate situation.”
“We should tell the sheriff.”
“No.”
“It’s not your call.”
“It’s not your call, either,” she snapped. “McKinnon never filed a report, has no intention of filing a report, and said he doesn’t want to make waves. He gets every cop here on his back because he accuses a cop of stalking him? It’ll be a mess, especially because this is a small town. He and his girl are back together, he figures no harm, no foul. If Marcy is innocent, you’ll screw up her life here. She’d be toast with something like this hanging over her head. And if she’s guilty? You give her the heads-up that we’re looking at her.”
“Guilty? Of the bombing?”
