17
Doe Run Road
6:00 p.m.
“She’s not home.”
Tony ignored Joanna’s statement. He would keep looking for Martin or Houser or whatever the hell her name was until he was ready to call it a night. He pounded on the door again. The dog, Brutus, sat directly on the other side staring at them. Wouldn’t he bark if his master wasn’t home? Then again he hadn’t barked the last two times Tony dropped by. What kind of guard dog didn’t bark?
What if Martin was already dead the same way Conway had been?
“I’m going in.”
Joanna stepped back, arms folded over her chest. “Breaking and entering will get you arrested and it would be a waste of time. She. Is. Not. Home.”
Irritation burrowed deep into the back of his neck. He rubbed at the tension. “You don’t know that.”
“She has a security system. I saw it blink when we were here last time. Her car isn’t here.”
“Her car could be in the garage.” Tony turned on the woman staring at him then. “Why are you so fucking calm?” He shrugged. “I mean how often do you see a dead man with blood all over the place? Aren’t you the slightest bit upset?”
Maybe that was why he was so worked up. Her reaction to the scene had been bugging the shit out of him since they found Conway’s body. She’d seemed surprised when they discovered the bastard sprawled naked in a pool of his own blood. Surprised but not shaken and she’d recovered in record time. Tony might have fucked up his personal life and his career, but he did read people accurately more often than not.
Doubt poked at him. He ignored it. Joanna Guthrie was hiding something besides her tragic story from eighteen years ago and that scrapbook she’d been keeping for years.
“What time did you leave my room this morning?”
Her jaw dropped. “Seriously? We’re going to have that conversation right now? Here, on another person of interest’s porch?”
“You’re so certain she’s not home, what difference does it make?”
He had her there. She glared right back at him, her stance defiant, but he saw the way her throat worked as she struggled for a comeback.
He shook his head. “Let’s go.”
With a final glance at the statue-still dog, he headed back to the car. He waited until she was seated on the passenger side and he slid behind the wheel. Dusk had eaten up the last of the daylight as he rolled away from Martin’s home.
Goddamn it! He needed a break here.
Right now, the woman in the passenger seat was the only one he had. “What time did you go for breakfast?”
She exhaled a big breath. “It was before seven. I didn’t exactly check the time before I walked out the door.”
“So you left before seven and you went where? Exactly?”
“I drove to the McDonald’s over on South Wayne Street. It shouldn’t have taken long, but traffic was backed up at the Hancock intersection. There was something wrong with the traffic light.” She shoved the sun visor up. “I had to wait forever. Once I could make that turn, it took me maybe five minutes to get to Mickey D’s. I probably waited another ten or fifteen minutes in the drive-through line. Then I drove straight back to the inn. I didn’t go via Macon and kill anyone if that’s what you’re asking.”
Tony wished he hadn’t drunk so much last night. Maybe he would have roused when she left the room, and then he wouldn’t have to wonder. It was in his nature to be suspicious.
Do you really believe she did what you saw in Conway’s apartment?
If she had driven all the way to Macon, had sex with and murdered Conway, and then drove back those thirty miles that would have taken at least two hours. The scenario was unreasonable.
She’d left Tony a note, which confirmed she hadn’t expected to come back. Maybe the note was just in case she didn’t make it back before he woke up.
“Are you still weighing the idea?” she demanded. She shook her head and stared out the window. “Remember, I’m the one who shared who I really am with you. You. No one else. Why would I do that if I planned to commit murder? Why would I even connect with you? I would have stayed anonymous. You wouldn’t have even known I was here.”
He stopped for a traffic light. Stared directly at her. “To tell the truth, I don’t care if you killed him. My single goal is finding my niece and Vickie Parton alive. The rest—your tragic story included—doesn’t matter to me at all.”
“Wow.” She looked away. “Thanks. Of all the cops and feds involved in this case I’m really glad I picked you out of the herd.”
The idea that he felt guilty for saying what he’d just said made him even angrier. His phone vibrated and he fished it from his pocket. A local number. He was grateful it wasn’t Angie. She’d called him twice already. He wanted a better handle on how Conway’s murder connected to Tiffany’s disappearance—if it did at all—before he spoke to her.
“LeDoux.”
“We need to talk, Mr. LeDoux.”
Phelps. “I’m headed your way now, Chief.”
Joanna didn’t say another word during the thirty minutes that followed the call from the chief. She was pissed and maybe he didn’t blame her. He’d basically accused her of murder and told her he didn’t give a shit about her painful past. But he’d needed to know if she was telling the truth. Pushing her into a corner—hitting her where he suspected it hurt most—was the only way to get an organic reaction.
Was she lying to him? Frankly, the jury was still out on that.
Once they arrived at the Milledgeville Public Safety office he added insult to injury when he ordered her to wait in the lobby outside the chief’s office and not to move. He’d even gone so far as to inform the officer who’d let him into the building not to allow her to leave. Now she was really pissed. Fire sparked in her eyes but to her credit she didn’t say a word.
Tony kept his cool and let the chief kick off the conversation. After all, he was the one who demanded the meeting. Before getting around to whatever it was he really had to say, Phelps brought him up to speed on the investigation so far; that much Tony appreciated.
The Macon Police Department was all too willing to turn Conway’s murder over to Milledgeville. Phelps as well as Chief Buckley from campus security had sent lieutenants representing their departments to the crime scene. The two had introduced themselves to Tony. If he’d been smart he would have left after that, but old habits died hard. He was accustomed to taking his time and absorbing the scene as well as all the activities involved. He wanted to hear what the neighbors had to say about the vic, et cetera. Hanging around had ensured he was still there when the Bureau and the GBI had shown. The two agents who’d paid him a visit that morning had put him through the paces, and then issued another warning.
Milledgeville’s coroner had taken the body. Again, Macon PD had been only too happy to pass off the drain on tax dollars. Tony had been ready to go at that point. He hoped the chief would fill him in on anything he missed. Phelps, however, had other ideas on where this conversation was going.
“Walk me through one more time how you ended up at Conway’s door,” the chief said as he leaned back in his chair. “I’m having trouble wrapping my head around your story.”
Tony was well aware of the routine. Phelps wasn’t entirely sure Tony was telling the truth so he asked the same questions repeatedly in hopes of garnering a different answer.
“A club, Wild Things in Macon, was one of the last places my niece, Tiffany, was seen by any of her friends. The manager said that this Conway guy had been talking to her. Riley Fallon saw him in Tiffany’s Jeep with her just days before she disappeared. The first time I visited Mr. Conway’s apartment—yesterday—he wasn’t home. I decided to try again today. I knocked on the door and it swung open. I asked my girlfriend to wait in the car and I went inside to have a look.”
“You know, Mr. LeDoux,” Phelps said, his tone sounding somewhere between annoyed and resigned, “that would all be fine and good if you were an officer of the law. We could have justified your actions by pointing out some vague notion of exigent circumstances. But you are not an officer of the law. You are no longer a special agent for the FBI. You are a civilian. A civilian who trespassed on a murder scene. A civilian—” he pointed at Tony “—who has a potential motive for wanting Mr. Conway dead. This does not bode well, Mr. LeDoux. Not well at all.”
Tony hated the way he repeated Mr. LeDoux. “Agreed. But I’m human, Chief. What would you do if one of your daughters was missing? If you were lucky enough to find a guy who may have been the last person to see her, wouldn’t you do whatever necessary to speak with him?”
Phelps heaved a big breath. “Get out of my office, LeDoux. If I find you at another of my scenes, I will arrest you. Go take care of your sister and her husband and let us do what we need to do here.”
“Any update from the coroner’s office?”
Phelps glared at him, but he answered the question. “Murder weapon was definitely a broad blade knife—an old-fashioned butcher knife. They found the knife, by the way, in the second of the two Dumpsters belonging to the complex. It was in the one behind the apartment building. We think the killer parked there and came around the building. Nobody saw anyone and the building has no video surveillance.” He shook his head. “Anyway, the stab wound to the chest missed the heart. Too bad for the vic, it punctured a lung. But it was the second thrust of the knife that killed him. The blade went in just shy of the center and sliced right through the aorta. It was like our perp knew this and twisted the knife to open things up even more. Doc says he bled out in a minute or two.”
“Did the unsub leave any evidence behind?” No matter that Tony was leaning toward believing Joanna, he didn’t completely trust his instincts right now.
Phelps shook his head. “Not that they’ve found so far. She—and we’re assuming it was a she—was extremely careful. Your friends from the Bureau took the computer hard drives. They’re assuming some sort of internet crime considering the setup in the apartment. We found half a dozen hidden cameras in that bedroom.”
Tony expected that the Bureau would take exactly that action. He stood. “I appreciate the update.”
Phelps bobbed his chin. “Stay out of the way, LeDoux, and we’ll continue to be friends.”
Tony thanked him and headed for the lobby. Joanna still looked just as pissed as she had twenty minutes ago. “We can go now.”
She pushed to her feet. “Anything from the coroner?”
Tony shook his head. “Nothing we didn’t already know.”
She followed him outside and to the car. “Where to now?”
“We’re going to work.” He looked over the top of the BMW at her. “Before this night is done, I’m going to know everything about you, Miss Guthrie.”
“What about Martin?”
“Tomorrow. And after we find her and rattle that cage, we’re going to visit this Professor Blume you mentioned.”
“You found him?”
When they’d settled in the car he said, “I did. He’s retired now but he still lives in Milledgeville. Until recently he was still involved in a project at the old Central State Hospital.”
Joanna didn’t ask anything else. Instead, she stared straight ahead.
Before he did anything else, he had to talk to Angie. She would be walking the floors and cursing him.
“When we’re done for the day,” Joanna announced, “I’m heading back to my place.”
Oh yeah. She was not happy with him. Well, her displeasure was about to get worse.
“I think it’s best if you stay close to me for now.”
She scoffed. “I’ll bet you do. Not happening, LeDoux.”
Oh, it was happening all right. Somehow this woman was connected to whoever had taken Tiffany and he damned sure intended to find out how before he allowed her out of his sight again.