As if he didn’t know. She’d said it to remind Jeff that Truman was involved.
Jeff’s face cleared. “You’ll never guess who she had multiple phone calls with.”
“Just tell me.”
“Two Rivers Correctional Institution.”
Mercy nearly rose out of her chair. “Shane Gamble.”
“The first call is from her to the prison in the evening of the day you visited him.”
“Something I said stirred him up.” Mercy spoke rapidly, lost in thought but with excitement growing on her face. “She said her source reached her through Twitter, right? Whatever he told her pushed her immediately into action.”
“What did you tell Gamble?” Truman asked. “What would make him reach out to a tabloid?”
Mercy stared back at him. “I’m not sure. It must have been something about the skeletal remains that meant more to him than he let on.”
“But what was Tabitha’s purpose?” asked Jeff. “You said she didn’t have an official assignment here, so Gamble must have sent her on a mission.”
“I need to speak to him.” The determination on Mercy’s face told Truman she wanted to go head-to-head with the convicted felon again.
Jeff checked the time. “It’s too late today. Tomorrow you can drive out there. I’ll set it up.”
“I won’t let him in my head this time,” she promised.
Truman wished he could be a fly on the wall when Mercy told Shane Gamble the reporter had been murdered.
Did he purposefully send Tabitha to her death?
Picturing the close-range shot to the reporter’s face made anger burn through Truman. No one deserved that kind of death. Especially a young girl.
Shane Gamble has some explaining to do.
NINETEEN
It was the same interview room as last time.
Shane Gamble wore the same prison garb and rested his hands in the same way on the same table.
Mercy had fancied up a bit. A little extra mascara, a neutral lip pencil that she’d never used, long beachy-looking waves in her hair that took twenty minutes with a curling iron she’d had to borrow from Kaylie. White blouse, jeans, boots, and a sporty violet suede jacket she kept for special occasions.
The unusual sensation of the thin layer of color on her lips was distracting.
Am I trying to flirt? Hope I distract him and get him to spill his story?
She sucked at flirting.
But she’d use whatever weapons she had, whether they worked or not.
“Nice to see you again, Special Agent Kilpatrick.” The cadence of Gamble’s speech was still slow and relaxed, but she knew he considered every word before it came out of his mouth.
“Thank you,” she answered with a polite smile. “You’d suggested I return when we had an ID on the body.”
“You’re too late. I already heard from the news. Ellis Mull.” His look of contrite sorrow made her skin crawl. It felt rehearsed.
“Yes.”
“How long ago was he shot?”
“There was evidence that some time was spent at the cabin—sleeping bags, food cans—but the medical examiner backs up our theory that he was killed close to the time of the robbery.”
“That’s very sad. I wonder what went wrong.” The affected remorse stayed in place on his face.
“Did he have issues with the other men?”
Condescension replaced the remorse. “Now, Agent Kilpatrick . . . how do you expect me to answer a broad question like that? Unless we were miraculously in agreement on every little problem in our lives, of course we had issues. Who doesn’t?” The disappointment in his eyes at her question made her feel like a child.
“Issues that would cause one man to kill another,” she clarified, keeping her serene demeanor, while she mentally rolled her eyes hard enough to cause permanent damage.
“Ahhh.” Dramatic comprehension.
More invisible eye rolling.
Broadway has nothing on us.
His chains clanked and then stopped him as he tried to raise one hand to his chin. Fury flashed. Then the thoughtful, helpful convict reappeared.
He’s still dangerous.
For a brief second, she’d seen the man who’d killed another inmate. He was good at keeping his temper in check—in fact, he presented himself as a man without a temper. But she’d seen his truth.
Shane Gamble was a very angry man.
“I can’t see any personality traits that would have driven one of them to kill another,” he answered seriously. “Maybe he was killed by someone outside of our group.”
“Maybe.” Mercy removed some photos she’d tucked in her jacket pocket. One was Victor Diehl’s current driver’s license photo—the only photo they’d been able to find of him. Another was a recent photo of Gary Chandler—the guard who’d survived. She’d also brought photos of her father and Ben Cooley to create a lineup.
She spread out the photos. “Do you recognize any of these men?”
Gamble leaned forward, studying the photos in all seriousness.
Perfect.
She wanted him to feel he was of assistance, as if he had a little power over the interview.
He picked up the photos one by one, eyeing them as if they were precious jewels. “Obviously you’re asking if I knew these men when they were younger. Decades ago.”
“Yes.”
“That’s not easy. People change.”
“I know. Do your best.”
He laid the photos in a perfect line, paused, and then tapped a finger on Gary Chandler. “This is the guard who survived. Clearly he’s older now, but I’ll never forget those eyes from my trial. How’s he doing?”
She’d expected the answer.
“Do you recognize anyone else?” she asked.
He didn’t look down at the photos. “No.”
“The guard is doing just fine,” she lied.
His mouth twitched on one side. “That’s good. Having your partner die in front of you could scar some people for life. Really screw them up mentally and emotionally.”
She scooped up the photos. He said nothing about Diehl. Is he holding back or telling the truth?
Her gut told her it was the truth. Diehl’s eyes were the same color as Trevor Whipple’s, but the shape of the face was wrong.
“You’re thinking hard,” Gamble said. “Did I disappoint you?”
“No. Just thinking about other new leads in this case.”
He tilted his head in polite interest. “What kind of leads?”
“The usual. Claims of money being flashed around. Sightings of Trevor Whipple or Nathan May. Nothing has panned out yet.”
“That’s too bad.”
“I’d hoped showing you the photos would give us some help.”
Gamble went very still, his gaze locked on hers, and Mercy knew he wanted to see the photos again, wondering what he’d missed.
His reaction confirmed that she’d been right that Diehl wasn’t Whipple; otherwise his need to see the pictures again wouldn’t be flooding the air around them. Instead he would have apologized for being unable to help, keeping Diehl’s identity close to his chest.
“Not sure how you expect me to be of any help,” he said modestly. “I’ve been locked up for decades. Other than you, I haven’t talked to anyone about the case in years.”
Bingo.
“Then what did you speak to Tabitha Huff about?”
Until now, she’d never experienced the air being sucked out of a room. Every ounce of oxygen was drawn into the man across the table from her, fueling his anger.