Turning into the parking lot of a chain restaurant, Jason put the truck in park. “So you aren’t mad?”
“I’m not mad.” He shook a finger at her playfully. “But that doesn’t mean you have free rein. We might not be so lucky next time.”
“There’ll be a next time?”
She didn’t want to sit at home waiting for him to fill her in. She needed to be a part of this with an urgency that shocked her. After the attempted burglary or whatever it was last night this had become personal.
“I’m not letting you out of my sight so you’re stuck with me. Now let’s go have something to eat and call West. He should have the autopsy results by now. Then we’ll call Jared and have him find out about Trudi and this love triangle.”
That sounded like a good plan. She hadn’t eaten much this morning, still upset about someone breaking into her home. “What about Anita Hazlitt?”
Jason chuckled and reached under his seat, pulling out a tablet computer. “Let’s hope she doesn’t have an unlisted number.”
“And if she does?”
“That only means it won’t be easy. Are you ready to go inside?”
She was ready to get some answers. It was beginning to feel like the more they learned the less they knew.
Chapter Eleven
‡
Anita Hazlitt wasn’t going to be easy to find. A quick Google search didn’t turn anything up, but then they didn’t know her address or even the town she lived in. Jason needed to call Jared about doing a quick search for the woman. Unless she was deliberately hiding it wouldn’t take long to locate her.
Back in Tremont Jason was sitting at his kitchen table with a beer and a stack of mail that he’d neglected for too long. It was going to be another long night. He could already tell. With the television on and Brinley beside him on the couch he’d managed a decent amount of sleep. He doubted he would be so lucky again this evening. He was wide awake, his mind working on the puzzle of Roger Gaines. So far Brad Enright seemed the most logical suspect but it was still early in the investigation.
Brinley joined him in the kitchen, snagging the last root beer from the refrigerator. “Fran and Richard are sitting on their deck. I’m going to go say hello. I don’t remember if I even thanked them last night so I should probably do that too.”
She was spending the night with Jason again. She’d been disappointed when they’d driven up and her front door was still plywood. There had been a note on the porch that the handyman had to order a new one and it might be in tomorrow. Jason didn’t bother telling her that he probably would have made her stay in his home anyway. Somehow she was the key to this mystery and until he figured out why he planned to keep a close eye on her.
“If you wait a minute I’ll go with you.”
“I’ll be fine.” She put her hands on her hips and gave him a disgusted look. “I’m going two houses down. I’ll be within shouting distance. Do I have to be babysat every single minute?”
No, he simply liked her company.
“It’s fine if you want to talk to them. I have a phone call to make and then I’ll come down and join you.”
Visibly relaxed, she practically skipped out of the front door with glee, apparently fed up with only Jason for company. With a room full of kids all day long she probably needed more extrovert time than he did. As much as he liked socializing with people it also mentally exhausted him. He needed alone time to recharge his batteries.
Pulling out his cell phone, Jason punched in a few buttons and waited for West to answer.
“It’s about time you called me. I’ve been waiting to hear from you.”
And West gave Jason shit about how he answered the phone…
“It’s nice to talk to you too, bro. I’ve got information for you. What do you have to tell me?”
Jason heard West snapping at someone, his tone short and impatient. Whatever West had to say wasn’t good news. He would have made a terrible poker player.
“Roger Gaines died from a gunshot wound to the heart. Thirty-eight caliber. Coroner confirmed death to be around eight at night.”
“Nothing we didn’t know,” Jason observed. “Is that it?”
“Pretty much. Roger Gaines was in mediocre health for a man so young. His weight was too high, his muscle tone terrible, and his arteries already showed the effects of a junk food diet paired with a sedentary lifestyle. Add twenty years to his age and he would have been a ticking time bomb.”
Those facts went along with what they’d found out from Stuart Gaines. Jason quickly filled West in on what he’d learned today.
“What about forensics?”
“I don’t have it all back yet but I can tell you that you were right about one thing. The standard is for every room to have six plastic cups on the counter.”
“So he did have company. The killer was someone he knew.”
“Or he could have used the cups earlier and threw them away,” West pointed out. “It gives credence to your theory but it doesn’t prove it. I will concede that I agree that the killer was someone he wasn’t afraid of. He didn’t fight or struggle. As for finding any trash from the room in nearby dumpsters? We came up empty.”
Jason growled in frustration. “This guy isn’t stupid. I feel like he knew what he was doing. He planned it out. This was no spur of the moment thing.”
“But why would someone plot to kill some guy who is basically a nerd. The most dangerous thing Gaines did was read about murder from the safety of his brother’s home. That’s not going to get you killed generally.”
“What about fingerprints?” Jason doubted the killer had been that careless. He seemed to have covered all the bases.
“We got a couple of hits in the database but I was able to weed them from the suspect list. They both had solid alibis. One’s in jail and the other was at work a hundred miles away with about a dozen witnesses.”
Shit and double shit.
“So basically we got nothing. That’s great. I’m going to have Jared check out Brad Enright. He was supposedly Roger’s best friend from kindergarten but he admitted today that they competed with each other.”
“Nothing wrong with a little healthy competition. That hardly makes him a suspect,” West observed.
“It does if Enright married Roger’s high school sweetheart,” Jason laughed, remembering the car salesman’s expression when he’d revealed that little detail. “In my book that makes a possible motive.”
“So maybe Stuart Gaines killed his little brother because he was a huge sponge, living off Stuart’s hard work. Or perhaps Brad Enright killed him because of some jealousy thing. I’ve got to tell you it’s not much to go on.”
It wasn’t and that bugged the hell out of Jason. How could one man have so little contact with the outside world and still be physically alive? Somewhere there was a person who interacted with Gaines regularly – maybe even on a daily basis.
“Enright told us about a new girlfriend. She’s unlisted so I’ll have Jared take a run at finding her. Hopefully he can do that overnight so I can talk to her tomorrow.”
West sighed. “I’d love to shake loose from this case and go with you. Anything to get me away from the mayor. He called me six times today.”
Jason’s brother was working on the ritual-like murder of a teenager. Murders of kids trumped adults every time and this one was taking all of West’s attention, which was fine with Jason. He didn’t need a babysitter to do his job.
“About what?”
“Hell if I know,” West retorted, dislike in his tone. “To bitch, mostly. Election time can’t come too soon.”
“You could end up with someone much worse,” Jason warned with a laugh. “Maybe you should think about running yourself. The Andersons have friends in this town. You’d probably get some support.”