Elliot said unwillingly, “It’s possible.”
Pine swore. “Tell me you’re kidding.”
Elliot would have liked nothing more. But there had been that uneasy sense of not being alone when he had entered MacAuley’s residence. That feeling that he was missing something. A second intruder was a big-ass thing to have missed, and he hated to admit it was even a possibility.
He said, “I didn’t complete a search of the premises because I spotted Barro outside and gave pursuit. So yes, there’s a possibility that someone else was there.”
“For the love of...” Pine didn’t finish it. “There were two of them working together!”
“Someone needs to show a photo of Barro to Connie Foster, Corian’s neighbor.”
That, of course, led to a lengthy explanation of why Elliot had been visiting Corian’s property and chatting with his neighbors. Elliot glanced apologetically at his father, but Roland was flipping through the latest copy of CHARGE! and pretending not to listen.
“Lance thought the Foster woman’s story was credible?” Pine asked.
Had he? Elliot was not 100 percent sure he believed Foster was credible. She seemed credible, but she had been wrong about Greene Garden Landscaping.
“Not sure.”
A second unsub would explain a couple of things. But if there had been a second unsub, why had he not gone after Elliot when Elliot went after Barro?
Pine seemed to have the same thought. “You’re lucky this second bad actor didn’t cap you while your back was turned. He must have bugged out while you were chasing down Barro.”
Elliot said, “If Foster can ID Barro as Corian’s gardener or handyman, it gives us a little more of a foothold. But you’ve got to be careful not to lead her in any way. I’ve got a feeling she’s the type of witness who tries to deliver what she identifies as the hoped-for outcome.”
“Great.”
“She’s the best chance we’ve got.” Elliot cleared his throat. “Is there any update on Lance?”
“No. Tacoma PD is interviewing everyone connected with the car park. You know how it works. Process the vehicle, round up potential witnesses, interview friends and family.”
Yes. Elliot knew how that worked. As he’d told Roland, he had been interviewed first thing that morning by the detective in charge. Detective Fallis was probably competent—otherwise he wouldn’t have been assigned to such a high-profile case—but Elliot had not been impressed. And not merely because of the suggestion he might have offed Tucker in order to collect on his insurance policy.
“The security cameras—”
“The existing footage is re-recorded over every seventy-two hours.”
Elliot couldn’t find his voice to respond.
“Sorry,” Pine said awkwardly. “But the fact is by the time you knew for sure there was a problem, we’d already lost that opportunity.”
They talked a couple of minutes more, but that was Pine in the unfamiliar and uncomfortable role of trying to be sympathetic. He’d gotten the information he needed from Elliot and he did not have time to chitchat, and Elliot understood that, but as he disconnected, he felt like he was cutting his lifeline.
It was unbearable being on the outside, not knowing what was happening.
Roland’s voice cut into his thoughts. “What do you plan to do?”
Elliot had nearly forgotten Roland was still there. He raised his head, stared at his father. “What do you mean?”
Roland’s brows rose. He tilted his head. “I mean, what do you plan to do? And what can I do to help you?”
“I’m taking a few days to...” He didn’t bother to complete the sentence because the plan itself was not complete. He was going to try everything he could think of. As strategies went, that wasn’t much.
But Roland nodded as though that made perfect sense, was the obvious direction to move in. “Would you like me to talk to Charlotte about covering your classes?”
Elliot stared. “My classes? How would you do that? You’re retired. Could you do that?”
Roland grinned and pointed a thumb to his chest. “I’m a much-in-demand guest lecturer, I’ll have you know. Having your old man cover your classes is the coup of the academic year, kid.”
He wasn’t sure if what he felt was laughter or something else. “That would be great, Dad. That would be a lifesaver.”
“Then I’ll go have a chat with Charlotte. What else do you need?”
Elliot thought of Sheba, locked once more in the cellar and clawing at the door like a werewolf at full moon, when he’d left that morning.
“Do you want a dog?”
Roland’s brows rose. “What dog?”
Elliot explained briefly about rescuing Sheba, and Roland sighed.
“This sounds very familiar. You do know you’re too old to be dragging home stray dogs?”
“That’s why I’m offering her to you. Assuming I can’t find her owner.”
“How hard are you looking?” Roland asked drily.
Maybe he had a point. When Roland did finally depart to have his “chat” with Charlotte Oppenheimer, Elliot opened his laptop and started searching. He matched the phone number to the name “Todd Rice” and then searched for Todd Rice in Bellingham.
He started with Facebook and found his quarry without difficulty, despite the number of Todd Rices with social media accounts, because Todd was using Sheba as his avatar.
Further indication he ought to be returning Elliot’s phone messages.
Elliot studied Todd’s very helpful profile page.
Worked at BP Cherry Point Refinery
Studied at Bellingham Technical College
Went to East High School
Available
Lives in Bellingham, Washington
From Salt Lake City, Utah
DO YOU KNOW TODD? inquired Facebook. To see what he shares with friends, send him a friend request.
Elliot considered sending a message, but it looked like Todd had not been active on Facebook for the past two weeks. That raised some flags. Todd appeared to be a pleasant enough guy, although the real star of his profile page was Sheba—there were several frankly adorable photos of her.
Todd’s social life seemed to solely revolve around hiking and his dog. He had twelve Facebook friends and they all lived in Utah.
Presumably someone at BP Cherry Point Refinery would notice if Todd went missing, but it didn’t look like he had a support network of local friends and family to raise the alarm if he didn’t come home from a hiking trip.
Elliot plugged Todd’s phone number into a couple of search engines and confirmed a Sudden Valley address that looked as good a place to start as any.
When his final class of the day was done, he grabbed the books and papers he might conceivably need over the next week and headed to Bellingham.
Todd lived on Lost Lake Lane. The house was a small redwood-colored structure surrounded by heavily shedding trees. A wraparound deck overlooked a tumbling creek.
Elliot parked in the leaf-scattered driveway, got out and walked up to the front door. He knocked and rang the doorbell.
No one came to the door.
Rain dropped mournfully from the eaves in slow and steady drops.
The blinds were up, so he walked down the narrow deck and peered in through one of the windows. The stove light was on, but there was no other sign of life. From where Elliot stood, it seemed to be a perfectly ordinary kitchen. There was a covered frying pan on the stove and a pot of dead basil in front of the window over the sink.
He continued to the back of the residence, where sliding glass doors offered a clear view of a dining and living room combo. The TV was off. He could see a newspaper lying on the coffee table next to a coffee cup and an Xbox controller. Again, all pretty normal.
Glancing around the deck, he spotted a covered barbecue, a wooden bench and two stainless-steel pet bowls. The bowls both held what appeared to be rainwater.
Once again, Elliot tried tapping on the glass door, but it seemed obvious that no one was home. That no one had been home for some time.
He left the deck and headed through the trees to the neighbors on the left, veering off course when he spied a row of old-fashioned mailboxes along the road.
Todd’s mailbox was stuffed with circulars and catalogs. There were also a couple of utility bills. That was it—and it was too much. Wherever Todd had disappeared to, it had not been a planned getaway. The overflowing mailbox along with the newspapers starting to stack up against the garage door underlined that fact.
There were no adults home yet at the neighbor house to the left, but the teenage sisters in charge of what appeared to be a day care center informed Elliot they hadn’t seen Todd for a few days. According to Dianne and Carli, Todd kept to himself and had horrible taste in music. They had to shout this info to him over the Taylor Swift playlist blasting from another room.
“Did he happen to leave an emergency contact number with your parents?”
“Nope” was the consensus.
“A key to water his plants or pick up his mail when he’s on vacation?”
That got a laugh. Todd, it seemed, did not “go” on vacation and had certainly not left a key with the parental units.
“What does he drive?”
Dianne and Carli silently consulted, and Carli informed Elliot that Todd drove a black Jeep Cherokee. License plate unknown.
Next Elliot tried the house on the right.
Matthew and Jaime Howard, the very helpful retired couple living in what looked like a gingerbread house—complete with plaster gnomes in the front yard—tried to lure him inside with the promise of coffee and fresh-baked Tollhouse cookies. Elliot resisted, and eventually they got down to admitting they had last seen Todd Saturday morning sixteen days earlier. He’d had Sheba with him and he had been going to camp at Lake Sawyer over the long Labor Day weekend.
As they had spent the holiday weekend with their married daughter in Portland, they hadn’t noticed Todd wasn’t around until that following Wednesday, when one of Todd’s coworkers had shown up to make sure he was all right. When the three of them had been unable to find hide nor hair of Todd, they had contacted the police, but the police had not been helpful. In fact, they had been pretty darned rude. Apparently they thought the Howards were a pair of nosy neighbors!
Sadly, the Howards didn’t have a key to Todd’s house, but they were able to supply Elliot with a license plate number.
Elliot thanked Matthew and Jaime for their time and left.