“Great. His name is William Moore.”
The man paused. “Why do you ask?”
“I’m just checking to see if he was at work Monday. Could you tell me if he was?”
Again, silence. “Does this have to do with his police record?”
Cathy hesitated. “Sort of. I’m investigating a case. I just need to know if he was at work Monday. That’s all. Yes or no.”
“Yes, he was,” he said. “He was working on a job on location, building a deck.”
“And you’re sure he was there all day?”
“I think he was,” he said. “I sent him and two other guys to work on it. Nobody told me he didn’t show up. I think I would’ve heard it from the client.”
Another dead end. “Okay, that’s what I needed to know. I appreciate it.”
“But if he’s up to something no good I need for you to tell me. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, but I don’t want some guy working for me who can’t be trusted.”
“I’m not saying he can’t,” she said.
“So is he a suspect in another crime?”
Again, guilt stirred through her. What if she suggested he was, and he wound up losing this job? What if he, too, was innocent all along, and her blogs had ruined his life?
She rubbed her temples. No, that was crazy. She’d thoroughly investigated. All signs pointed to him. The police and district attorney had believed he was guilty. She wasn’t wrong.
Still, she tried to backpedal.
“I don’t know that he is. He probably isn’t. I’m just checking a few leads in a case I’m working on, trying to rule people out, and thought I would ask.”
“Will you let me know if something comes up about him? I’m trying to do a good thing by letting him work here, but if he doesn’t deserve it …”
“He’s probably not involved in the situation at all. I’m just trying to see who might have been in the Panama City area this last Monday.”
“Panama City?” the man repeated. “Actually, that’s where he’s building the deck.”
Her heart jolted. She sat straighter. “Okay, so he could have come and gone from that job?”
“Yes,” he said. “He may have taken off early. I can check with his co-workers and call you back.”
“Yes, if you learn that he did take off early, would you let me know?” she asked.
He agreed that he would. Cathy hung up and stared at her notepad. Moore could possibly be the perpetrator since he was in Panama City at the time the murder was committed. So he was still on their list.
Her computer beeped, indicating that she had email. She ran her finger across the track pad, brought her email program up. Then she saw it. Another message. The From line said New Friend. Catching her breath, she opened it quickly.
Dear Curious Cat:
Funny that you haven’t been blogging about your brother like you would any other random suspect. But I didn’t think you would. Doesn’t matter. It’s all over the news.
I love how it’s bringing up all those old memories. Joe Hogan … Leonard Miller …
Such fun.
Your New Friend
Cathy stared at the email. Was this just an angry reader, or the same person who’d sent the other messages? There was nothing overtly threatening or even incriminating in this. But in her gut, she knew it was the same guy. He’d referred to himself as “Your New Friend” in all three notes, and now they could trace it back to a server. It was a clue, if she could keep the police from dismissing it.
She forwarded the email to Michael, then printed it out. Sliding her chair back, she grabbed her purse. She would call Max, see if he could meet her at Michael’s. If he balked, she would just have to play to his ego by shaming him for blowing off evidence. But that wouldn’t guarantee he’d follow the lead.
CHAPTER 28
Max was at Michael’s office when Cathy pulled up. When she went in, he was already reading a copy of the email that Michael had printed out. “I don’t like the reference to Joe and Leonard Miller,” he said without greeting her, “but really, anybody could have written this.”
Cathy dropped her purse and keys on Michael’s desk. “But Miller’s back in town. This is too coincidental. Have you been able to find him today, Michael?”
Michael sat low in his chair, his feet propped on the desk. He looked weary. “Yes. He’s staying at his mother’s, along with his two brothers. They went out around lunchtime and got burgers. He didn’t drive. Doesn’t look like he has a car here.”
“He could have borrowed or rented a white pickup truck,” she said.
“But if he ordered the clown suit, why would he have it sent here? Why wouldn’t he ship it to the town he lives in now?”
“Maybe he never really left,” she said. “Granted, you haven’t been able to locate him, but maybe he’s just been keeping his head down and using another name.”
Max’s silence irritated her. She watched as he got up and went to Michael’s dry erase board. The disapproval on his face made it clear that he resented Michael’s work on this. Max’s insecurity would be inflamed if his brother had gotten ahead of him on the investigation.
“I’ve been making phone calls,” she said. “Of the three men, we narrowed it down to —”
“What three men?” Max demanded.
Michael pointed to the names on the board. “These three that Cathy’s written about.”
“Of the three,” Cathy repeated, “I think Moore is the most likely. He was in Panama City Monday building a deck. His boss thinks he was there all day, but he’s not sure. But Max, whether it’s Miller or Moore or one of the others, if this is the killer who wrote me, it proves that Jay didn’t do it.”
“There’s no evidence it is the killer. And the fact that this person mentioned Leonard Miller doesn’t mean that Miller’s involved or that he is Miller.”
Cathy paced the floor. “But don’t you see? It’s an opportunity, a simple opportunity to wreak havoc and play games with us. You’d think it was enough that Michael lost his career. You gotta figure Miller’s been celebrating over that. Maybe it gave him enough of a rush that he wants more.”
Michael’s feet came off the desk. “I didn’t lose my career because of him. I lost it because of me.”
Cathy hated it when Michael took the blame. “You didn’t bury evidence. You were trying to do the right thing.”
Michael saw Max’s jaw muscle constrict in and out, but he remained silent. He clearly felt the way his parents did — that Michael’s perjury charge had disgraced his family name and allowed Joe’s killer to walk free. “Max, you have to see that this isn’t just some random reader.”
“But this guy doesn’t even refer to Annalee’s murder or say he did it. He could just be a crackpot who heard about it.”
“That’s not true,” Cathy said. “He signed each letter the same way. No one else would know to do that. He warned me something was going to happen, before she was killed.”
“Same guy wrote all three notes,” Michael said in a flat voice. “Open your eyes, man.”
Max bristled. “I’m not the cop who makes fatal mistakes.”
Cathy saw the anger in Michael’s face … his ears … climbing in a red tint across his skin.
She tried to intervene. “Sniping at Michael isn’t helping, Max. You know Michael didn’t suppress evidence.”
Michael glared at his brother. So much water under the bridge. So much grief, pain, resentment …
“Of course we’re all sensitive,” Cathy said in a softer voice. “The name Leonard Miller is like sandpaper to all three of us. But now it’s my brother’s life we’re talking about, and my fiancé’s killer. Your brother’s. It should draw us all together, not push us apart.”
Michael had longed for closeness with Max and his parents since Joe’s death, but their silence on the subject was worse than his grand jury indictment. The fact was, he didn’t blame them.
He thought back to that awful day when his
brother was shot dead in the line of duty. Joe was part of a drug bust that had been planned for months, to take down a major source of the drug flow in the Florida panhandle. As the police went in, Joe had seen the perp attempting to flee. When he tried to stop him, the man shot him at close range. Michael was notified minutes later, and he met the ambulance at the crime scene. The perp got away, but several witnesses agreed that he was a white man with a shaved head and a tattoo of a bat on the back of his head. Michael rode with Joe in the ambulance, yelling at him to keep fighting as the life bled out of him. He was dead on arrival.
Later, still in a state of shock, Michael went back to the scene to see if they’d apprehended the killer. A crowd of neighbors stood watching the police activity, and an old woman came over to Michael and claimed she had seen a black man shooting the cop. Her description was completely opposite from the one that most of the eyewitnesses had given — including the other cops on the scene — but he went back to her house with her, took down her statement, and had her sign an affidavit. He realized immediately that the woman had some form of dementia. She said the same things over and over and got confused when he questioned her.
He gave her middle-aged daughter a copy of the affidavit, then promptly forgot about it. Thinking it a waste of time, he didn’t bother to turn it in to the detectives on the case. Later, they caught Leonard Miller, the guy with the bat tattoo, and several witnesses gave a positive identification. Since he was one of the men they’d been investigating, it was easy to make a solid case.
But who could have anticipated that when they came to trial that woman would return to haunt him? The defense attorney called Michael to the stand and asked if he’d ever buried evidence in a police case. Michael said no, he hadn’t. Had he covered up evidence concerning his brother’s case? the defense attorney asked again. Thinking he was answering with complete honesty, Michael repeated that he had never done that.
Then the old woman’s daughter was called to the stand, and she told how her mother had given evidence disputing the identity of the perpetrator, but that Michael had never followed up. When the defense attorney brought Michael back to the stand and asked him about the affidavit, Michael had to admit that he hadn’t given it to the detectives on the case. The lead went nowhere, and the woman had dementia.
But the damage was done.
The defense attorney exploited Michael’s faulty memory, making the trial and the media circus focus on him and the “corrupt police department” rather than the accused.
The defense attorney rested his case soon after questioning Michael, leaving his contradictory statements burning on the jurors’ memories. When the jury found Leonard Miller not guilty, Michael was left with the stunned realization that his own failure had enabled his brother’s killer to walk free. When the trial was over, Michael was charged with perjury. Though it was a felony charge, he didn’t fight it. Even though he hadn’t meant to withhold evidence, that was exactly what he had done.
And felons couldn’t carry guns or serve as police officers. Everything he’d worked for was gone in one afternoon. While he’d grieved over his brother’s loss, he’d had to forge out a new life.
“I’ve just now gotten my bearings,” Cathy was saying. “Just now been able to stop dwelling on what happened, thinking about him every day, every hour … and now, it’s all dragged back up. I know it’s the same for both of you.”
Max ignored her confession. He was not a touchy-feely kind of guy. “Michael, I don’t want you getting in the way. Let us investigate this case.”
Michael shook his head. “Seriously? You didn’t find the clown suit. You wouldn’t know Miller was back in town if it wasn’t for me. You haven’t even paid attention to the letters to Cathy. Why would I pull out and trust you to get it right?”
“Don’t go off half-cocked, Michael. Oh, wait, I forgot. You can’t carry a gun.”
The comment hit home. Michael resented the condescension, but they weren’t getting anywhere. He forced himself to lower his voice. “I never go off half-cocked. I know what I’m doing. My training didn’t evaporate just because I turned in my badge.”
“Max, get off his case,” Cathy said. “Let him do his work. My brother is innocent. Somebody has to care about that.”
With an exasperated sigh, Max got to his feet, pulled his phone out of his pocket, and took a picture of the dry erase board.
“What are you doing?” Michael asked.
“Taking your notes so I can follow your leads.”
That released Michael’s tension as if Max had opened a pressure valve. “Good. We help each other, we get the perp off the street sooner.”
When Max left them alone, Michael looked at Cathy. Her eyes glowed with suppressed rage. “I don’t get why he’s still mad at you. Your family knows you didn’t deliberately do anything wrong. Everybody in town knows that. How could he treat you that way? Who does he think he is?”
“Max and the rest of my family will always hold it against me.”
“Well, I don’t.” She got up, walked to the window, crossing her arms. “If I were you, I would probably have done the same thing. The woman had dementia. There was nothing you could do. Her testimony wasn’t helpful, and you had a lot on your mind. Your brother had just died. It’s no wonder you forgot about it.”
“Yeah, but that’s the thing. Law enforcement officers don’t have the privilege of forgetting about testimony,” he said.
She turned back to him, met his eyes. “Everything that happened in that case was a travesty. Joe getting killed, Miller walking free, and you and your career …” Her voice trailed off and she turned back to the window, looked out through the blinds. “I don’t understand how these things happen,” she muttered in a barely audible voice. “Especially to you. You’re a believer. You serve God. Why would he let this —?”
“Don’t go there,” Michael cut in. “I trust God.”
“Really?” She turned back to him. “Even after all this? Because I don’t know. I’ve believed in God since I was a little girl, but sometimes things happen no one can explain. Horrible things. And they happen to people who love and serve God as much as they do to others. What’s the point?”
It was the one thing about her that Michael wished he could change. Events in her life had shaken her faith. But how could he help her when he harbored his own bitterness? He got up and faced her, wishing he could banish the tears glistening in her eyes. “God is still there for us, Cathy. He uses everything. And I trust him no matter how this life shakes out for me.”
He didn’t know if her silence was contemplative or angry. Was she just biting her tongue, letting him believe what he wanted?
As their gazes locked, he took a step toward her, pushed the hair out of her eyes. The brush of his fingertips against her skin was like an electric jolt between them, and color climbed her cheeks. He put his hand back in his pocket. He should know better than to touch her. “I hope you haven’t stopped believing, Cathy.”
“I still have a few things to work out with God,” she whispered.
“I know,” he said. “It’s hard to see sunshine from the bottom of the pit.”
Michael hoped she would let him pull her out. But first he had to get himself on solid footing.
He held her gaze for a moment longer. Her misty eyes were a rich brown, sharp and deep. Misty. “Thank you for being such a good friend, Michael,” she said. “You’re always there for me.”
He swallowed. “Ditto.” That guilt rose up to drown him again. How could he have such strong feelings for his dead brother’s fiancée? It felt like a betrayal of Joe.
She broke their gaze. “Well, I guess I better go.”
He knew it. He’d made her uncomfortable. He stepped back to give her space.
“I want to try to see Jay before visiting hours are over. Now that I’m not his attorney, I have to go during visitation like everybody else.”
“Okay,” he said. “Let me know if anything happens.”
>
“I will.”
“And Cathy?”
She turned back to him at the door.
“Be careful. This guy is paying very close attention to you. Don’t let your guard down.”
“I won’t. Don’t worry.” As she stepped out into the twilight, he watched her look both ways. Michael wondered if the perp sat nearby, chuckling at the fact that they were all putting their heads together now, talking about him. The narcissist’s dream.
He couldn’t let her go alone. He got his keys and waited for her to drive away, then went out to his Trailblazer and followed her. He would watch over her whether she agreed to it or not.
CHAPTER 29
Cathy drove to the jail, pulled into the parking lot, and sat in her car for a moment. Her heart was still racing from Michael’s touch. What was wrong with her?
What would Joe think, knowing that she had feelings for his brother? Would it hurt him? Of course it would. She had no right. And Michael probably just saw her as a little sister, someone who needed protecting.
He had been there for her every day as she dealt with the shock of Joe’s loss. When she heard that her fiancé had been murdered, she’d retreated into her bed. Juliet, Holly, and Jay surrounded her, along with many of her friends. There was no shortage of food to eat, but she couldn’t swallow any of it. She wanted to be left alone in a dark room with the covers pulled over her head.
It was during those days that Michael was the only one who was comfortable to be around. He would come over and she would manage to get up for him. They spent so many hours sitting and staring at a TV screen, neither one of them registering what was on it. Silence cloaked them like a warm blanket.
Joe had been Michael’s best friend. They saw and talked to each other several times each day. The holes in his day were as gaping as those in Cathy’s. When Cathy wept, Michael wept with her. When he smiled, she managed to smile too.
There were days when he would come over and say, “Let’s go for a ride,” and she would get in the car with him. They would park at the beach, staring out at the ocean until the sun went down and the moon rose high in the sky, neither of them saying a word. She wasn’t sure when the grief had lifted, when that heaviness lightened and daily life began to overshadow the tragedy. It had happened for them around the same time, and eventually they began to laugh and joke and talk.