Intervention

  The neighborhood where Tredwell lived was run-down, in a part of town that got a lot of police calls. Kent had been to this area at least twice to investigate domestic homicides. Tredwell had a yard full of trash, and his grass was a foot tall. As they approached the house, Kent scanned the unkempt bushes, the dirty windows, the houses on either side and across the street.

  “Looks quiet,” Andy said.

  “Maybe they’re sleeping.” It was always good to catch someone asleep. They’d be groggy and their guard would be down, and they wouldn’t have their act together enough to plot an escape. On the other hand, if the man and woman were still riding the high of the large amount of drugs they’d bought with all their pawned goods, this could prove difficult.

  A cruiser came up behind them as they pulled to the curb, and two other backup officers came from the other direction. As they got out of the cars, they fanned out and surrounded the house to keep anyone from escaping.

  As Kent and Andy got to the door, Kent’s heart pounded. They just might find Emily right now, held here against her will. Not wanting to alarm Tredwell, he knocked gently.

  They heard footsteps across a creaky floor, then the door cracked open. The house was dark, and they could barely make out a woman’s eye and nose peeking suspiciously out. “Yeah?”

  “Are you Myra?”

  “What do you want?”

  “I’m Detective Harlan from the Atlanta Police Department, and this is my partner Detective Joiner.”

  She flinched. “I didn’t do nothing wrong.”

  “We’re looking for Gerald Tredwell.”

  She looked back into the house, then stepped outside and closed the door behind her. She was wearing the same outfit she’d had on yesterday at Sears. A raggedy T-shirt and jeans. “He ain’t here.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know. He went out for a while.”

  “Can we come in and talk to you for a minute?” Kent asked.

  “No, we can talk right here.” She looked like she was crashing from a cocaine high. If she did what most crack addicts did and loaded up with Xanax to cushion her fall, then her brain was sluggish. Dark circles were etched under her bloodshot eyes, and she looked even rougher than she’d looked in the videos. Her pupils were dilated and her lids were heavy. But it was definitely the same girl.

  “We’re investigating a homicide and wondered if you could tell us your whereabouts on Tuesday evening.”

  She stiffened out of her slump. “I was at work.”

  “Is there anyone who saw you there that night?” Andy asked. “Someone we could talk to?”

  She crossed her arms. “No, I was by myself.”

  “Where do you work?”

  “At the Quick Dry Laundromat. I do people’s laundry.”

  “So those people could tell us if you were there Tuesday night?”

  She stared at them for a long moment, as if she didn’t understand the question. “Actually, no. I mean, there were people, but I don’t know their names.”

  Success pulsed through Kent’s veins. They were getting somewhere. Her alibi was collapsing. “Doesn’t sound good. A woman was murdered, we know you were in the area, and you don’t have an alibi that we can confirm?”

  “And the funny thing is,” Andy added, “you were in possession of the dead woman’s credit card after the murder.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You’re out on bond, aren’t you? Who’s your bondsman? We might need to revoke your bond.”

  She stood at attention now. “No! I can’t go back to jail.”

  Now they had her scared enough to talk. “Myra, we need to talk to Gerald Tredwell. Tell us where he is.”

  She blinked and lowered her voice. “I don’t know. I ain’t seen him.”

  “In how long?”

  “Days. Weeks. I don’t know. We broke up.”

  She was making it up as she went along. “No, Myra,” Kent said. “We know that’s not true. You still see each other. You’re right here, in his house. You ride in cabs together, shop together, do drugs together.”

  She frowned. “Look … whatever he did, I didn’t know. He had that credit card. I had nothing to do with that.”

  “Where did he get it?”

  “At the airport. He was meeting somebody. He didn’t tell me who. He left me in baggage claim. Came back with her credit card. I swear, I didn’t have nothing to do with it.”

  “We understand that,” Kent said. “That’s why you’re not under arrest, as long as you cooperate with us. Come on, Myra, we know he’s in the house. Is he sleeping?”

  She drew in a deep breath. “Yes.”

  “Why don’t you let us in?”

  She let out a long, despairing sigh and opened the door. They followed her into the putrid house. It smelled like the toilets had backed up. Filthy clothes lay on the floor in piles, and he saw cat feces and spilled cat litter in a corner. Dishes with dried, caked food lay molding on tables around the room.

  And in the middle of it all, Tredwell lay sound asleep on the couch. The rising phoenix tattoo on his hand was clearly displayed.

  “Wake up, Tredwell,” Kent said, shoving him awake.

  The man woke up, groggy, and squinted up at him. “What the — ” He shot a look to Myra. “What did you do?”

  “They’re threatening to pull my bond,” she muttered.

  “Get up,” Kent said. “We’re taking you in for questioning in the murder of Patricia Massey.”

  Tredwell sat up, wobbly. “The what? I didn’t murder anybody. I don’t even know who that is.”

  “We’ll talk about it at the station.”

  “Can I at least get dressed?”

  He was already wearing jeans and a T-shirt, the same ones he’d been wearing in the video. “You’re dressed fine. It’s come as you are.”

  They escorted the dazed, sleepy man out to their car and put Myra in another car. It wouldn’t pay to give them a chance to compare notes as they rode to the station.

  Tredwell was silent as they drove him in.

  thirty-two

  We’re kind of under the gun here.” Kelsey Anderson, Barbara’s contact at the governor’s mansion, didn’t offer much hope for an extension. “We’re trying to get this thing done in record time so the mansion will be ready for the governor’s daughter’s wedding in six months.”

  “Six months?”

  “I know it’s a lot to ask, but you can see now why we have to get the designer chosen as quickly as possible.”

  “Then just choose me and get it over with. You’ve seen my work.”

  Kelsey chuckled. “If only we could, Barbara. We know the problems you’re having, so it was especially hard to have to notify you that we had to move the date up. We realize it may knock you out of the running.”

  She wanted to beg, to point out how hard she’d already worked on this, that the future of her business rode on this deal. But that would be unprofessional. “Who do I need to talk to to get more time?”

  Kelsey hesitated. “I guess you could talk to Mrs. Pearson.”

  The governor’s wife. “All right. Will you transfer me to her?”

  “Barbara, she has four speaking engagements today.”

  “Please, just ask her to call me.” She swallowed the lump blocking her throat. Mrs. Pearson was a mother too. Surely she would understand.

  Kelsey sighed. “All right, I’ll give her your number. She’ll probably call because she’s been very concerned about you. But I don’t know when it’ll be.”

  “That’s all I can ask,” Barbara said.

  “We’re praying for you.”

  Barbara hung up as resentment coursed through her. She was grateful for their prayers; she needed all of them. But saying they were praying for her, then deliberately making her life harder … the irony amazed her.

  She hung up and saw Lance looking at her, waiting for the verdict. “So you’re gonna talk to the governor’s wi
fe? Isn’t she, like, famous?”

  “She’s famous in our state.”

  “But you’re famous too. You’ve been on national news.”

  She didn’t want to be famous for having a notorious daughter. The phone rang, and the caller ID said State of Missouri. The governor’s wife, already? She picked it up. “Hello?”

  “Barbara, this is Olivia Pearson. As soon as Kelsey told me you’d called, I had to call back. We’ve been watching the news, and my heart just breaks for you. Is there anything we can do?”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Pearson. Yes, actually. You could give me a few more days to get my presentation together. I have a great construction crew, and with the right budget I can hire a lot more. We can get it done by your daughter’s wedding.”

  “But what if this drags on with your daughter? What if you can’t come home and work on it? It’s really risky right now.”

  She drew in a deep breath. “If I go under, I’ll have a missing daughter and no job.”

  The moment she got the words out, she hated herself for it. She didn’t want Mrs. Pearson to give her the job because she was in financial trouble. How could she convince her that she was the best one for it?

  She shook her head, trying to change gears. “You’ll love my plans. I’m putting an elegant bathroom in each of the bedrooms, and giving each one some modern touches that fit with the architecture and style of the home. We’re naming each of the bedrooms after a former governor who’s made an important mark on our state. And wait until you see what I’ve done with the ballroom. The fabrics are unbelievable, and the layout will be much more versatile than you have now.”

  She wasn’t sure if it was wise to tip her hand that way just yet, but the first lady seemed intrigued. “I can’t wait to see them.”

  “I’m in the process of trying to acquire antiques and memorabilia from the family of each of the former governors we’ll feature. I promise you’ll love what you see. It’s very classy and grand, yet it all has a modern touch that will make it much more comfortable than it is now. Mrs. Pearson, we can make the mansion gorgeous for the wedding, and build in accommodations for future events like that.”

  There was a long silence. “All right, Barbara. We’ll go back to the original deadline. I do want you to have a shot. But no more time than that. My husband was very emphatic that we have to get this underway immediately.”

  Well, it was something. “Thank you. I really appreciate it.”

  “And Barbara, please let us know what we can do for you from our end. We can use whatever resources we have to help with your search.”

  “I’ll remember that, Mrs. Pearson. Just for the record, my daughter isn’t a killer.”

  “We didn’t think she was, Barbara.”

  She knew that wasn’t true, but she was glad she’d said it anyway. “Thank you for the extra time. I won’t let you down.”

  When Barbara hung up, she almost wilted.

  “She liked the idea?” Lance asked.

  “I think so.” But the thought only made her sadder. “Isn’t it just like my life?”

  “What?”

  “To have an opportunity like this, knowing that I probably can’t pull it off because of some crisis I can’t control.”

  “Maybe it’s God’s way of keeping you humble.”

  She couldn’t believe her son had said that.

  He laughed as she stared at him. “Hey, you said that to me when I didn’t make the baseball team.”

  “Did I? Would I really say something that stupid?”

  “Oh, yeah. You would, and you did.”

  “Then please accept my apology, and don’t ever say it to me again.”

  She sat down on the bed and looked out the window. There were dark clouds coming in from the west, and weather forecasters predicted a plunge in temperatures as autumn took hold. Were storms coming? Would Emily be dry … sheltered?

  She looked back at her son, trapped with her in this dilemma. He should be in school, thinking about girls and friends and football games.

  Not here, unveiling nightmares.

  thirty-three

  Tredwell clammed up when they got him to the police station, refusing to talk until he got a public defender. Kent called the judge and asked him to appoint one as soon as possible so they could interview their main suspect. The judge agreed to issue arrest and search warrants, so they could search Tredwell’s home.

  As he hung up, Andy came over with some papers in his hand. “Fax for you,” he said. “From AT&T.”

  Kent stood up and took the paper, read over it. “This is on the phone Emily’s text came from. Says that call pinged on a cell tower in Dalton.” Dalton was two hours north of Atlanta, up in the foothills of the Appalachians. “Emily was in Dalton when she sent the text.”

  “We need to find out what connection Tredwell has to Dalton,” Andy said. “Parents, grandparents, siblings, old girlfriends … Any property he or his family might own up there.”

  “Can’t talk to him until his attorney gets here. But we can go by the judge’s office and pick up the warrant, then go search his house.”

  They headed out with crime scene investigators. It didn’t take long to confirm that there was no sign of Emily in Tredwell’s house. They spent the next three hours searching the place and found a bag of syringes and other paraphernalia, plus dozens of sample packs of anxiety medications.

  Finally, Kent got word that Tredwell’s attorney had shown up. While the CSIs kept working, he and Andy hurried back to the jail, pulled Tredwell out of the holding cell, and took him into the interview room. Kent gave him a few minutes to speak to the public defender. The judge had appointed a guy named Bud Allen, who had shoulder-length white hair and a handlebar mustache. As freewheeling as Allen appeared to be, he was a good lawyer who made things tough for the police.

  Hoping Tredwell was feeling chatty now, they went in. Tredwell still seemed groggy; his hands were trembling, and misery dragged at his features.

  “You gotta let me outta here. I have to go back to work Monday, and I’m already on thin ice. I have a good job, and I need to keep it.”

  “Where do you work?”

  “At Southside Medical Clinic. I’m a registered nurse.”

  “No offense,” Kent said, “but you don’t strike me as someone who could get through nursing school, with all your drug charges.”

  “Okay, I admit I have a problem.” The man slumped over. “But I didn’t have it until I got out of school and started working.”

  “So how have you managed to hold that kind of job with all these problems?”

  “I do good work, okay? I’m a model employee. You can call my boss and ask him.”

  “And that would be …?”

  “Dr. Greg Leigh. He’s a general surgeon. Best one around. Gave me a chance when nobody else would.”

  Kent made a note of the name. “Did the murder of Trish Massey have something to do with dope?”

  Bud bristled. “Come on, Kent. Don’t you want to rephrase that question?”

  Kent looked up. “Did you kill Trish Massey?”

  “Man, I didn’t even know her. Never met her in my life.”

  Kent had already checked to see if Tredwell had ever been a resident at Road Back Recovery Center. He hadn’t, and he had found no connection between any residents and Tredwell.

  Tredwell was sweating now. “Okay, look, I stole her credit card. I’ll admit to that. But I didn’t kill her.”

  Kent sat back, hands behind his head. He glanced at Andy, who was taking it all down. “How did you get the card?”

  Tredwell looked from Andy, to Kent, to his attorney. “I stole it at baggage claim. My girlfriend and I, we rode the MARTA train to the airport, since we don’t have a car. Our plan was to hang around at baggage claim, because we could go in there without worrying about going through security. While people were waiting for their bags, we could look for an open purse and steal a wallet or two.”

  Kent let his hand
s down and sat up straighter. “So you’re telling me you never got in her car?”

  “No, I stole it right out of her wallet, right there at baggage claim.”

  “All right, tell me about Emily Covington.”

  “Who?”

  “The girl who was traveling with Trish Massey. The girl you saw when she got into the car.”

  “I never saw her.”

  “He’s wasting our time,” Andy said, pushing back his chair and standing up.

  “No, please. All I did was steal her credit card. Myra got some lady across the room at another conveyor belt. Then we met up and took a cab away from there. No big deal. Just a robbery, not a murder.”

  Kent wasn’t buying it. He nodded at the tattoo on Tredwell’s hand. “Interesting tattoo. What is that?”

  Tredwell rubbed it, as though he could erase it. “It’s a phoenix.”

  “Oh, yeah. I see that now. Funny thing. Dude we saw getting out of her car? Same tattoo.”

  Tredwell squinted at him. “You couldn’t have seen that.”

  “Why? Because you thought you were blocked from the camera?”

  He scratched his face. “No, because I wasn’t there.”

  Kent tapped his pencil on the table in a staccato beat, and thought of that cell phone Emily had texted from. It had pinged in Dalton, Georgia. “Where are you from, Gerald?”

  “From here, born and raised.”

  “Got any family anywhere else?”

  “Some in Savannah. Some in Selma.”

  “Any in the Dalton area?”

  He met his eyes. “No, I don’t know anybody there.”

  “Ever been there?”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t have a car, so I don’t get out of this area much.”

  “I think that’s enough,” Bud said, checking his watch. “I’m advising my client not to say anything else until I’ve had more time to talk to him. Is he under arrest?”

  “Yes, he is. We got our warrant a few hours ago.”

  “And the charge?”

  “First-degree murder, for starters.”

  “What?” Tredwell said. “No way, man!”

  “What have you got on him?” Bud asked.

  Kent went over the facts of the arrest warrant, then left Bud with his client. He found the guard waiting outside the room. “Put him back in the cell when he’s finished with Mr. Allen. And call me if he wants to change his statement.”