“That’s a bullshit small-town move, Blankenship.”
Blankenship shrugged.
“It doesn’t matter,” Mark said. “I don’t need the damn reporter. I’ve got witnesses. In the hotel, and in the restaurant just across the parking lot. Hotels have security cameras. I suspect the restaurant does as well. We can get video of this woman. So before you start spouting off about charges again, why don’t you do a little police work? Give me fifteen minutes of police work.”
Blankenship didn’t like that, but he didn’t answer right away either. Mark said, “You want her worse than I do, Sheriff. Let’s go find her.”
Blankenship followed him to the hotel. Mark had expected they’d ride together, but the sheriff said, “I don’t want you in my damn car until I can put you in the backseat in handcuffs,” and he’d slammed the driver’s door, leaving Mark standing alone in the snow on the sidewalk, marveling at the amount of rage Blankenship showed. It wasn’t his reputation that had taken the hit; it was Mark’s.
When they entered the hotel, the same young brunette who had checked Mark in the previous day was working, a sight he took in with relief. She’d been all ears for the discussion, enjoying the theater playing out in her lobby. She would remember enough to help.
“I thought I told you that we were—” Then she caught a glimpse of Blankenship’s uniform and stiffened.
“Don’t worry,” Mark said. “I don’t intend to ask for another room. Just tell the sheriff here what happened in the lobby not long after I checked in.”
“When the woman came by to get you?”
“Exactly,” he said, feeling better already.
“You were here for this?” Blankenship asked.
She nodded. “Yes. He’d checked in, and then she came in and asked me to call his room. She did the talking, though. I just handed over the phone. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with that.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Blankenship assured her. “I just need to understand what was said.”
“Well, she didn’t say a lot to me. But, you know, I overheard enough to get the gist. I could hear only her. Whatever he said on the phone, that was too quiet. But she said that she was a friend of Ridley Barnes and—”
“Wait,” Mark said. “No, no, no. She might have mentioned his name, but she didn’t say she was a friend, she said—”
“Let her talk,” Blankenship said, his voice weighted with warning. Mark lifted his hands in frustration and nodded.
“So she said she was a friend of Ridley Barnes, and, well, that kind of stood out to me,” the clerk continued. Her name tag identified her only as Lily, no last name.
“Why?” Blankenship said.
“Um... you know how Ridley was... well, what people thought about him when Sarah Martin was killed.”
“Yes,” Blankenship said coolly. “I know what people thought.”
“Okay. So I knew Sarah. We went to school together. Ran track and cross-country together. We weren’t, like, super-close, but we were teammates, so I knew her, and I followed the story, everybody did.”
Mark was already concerned about his eyewitness. Not only had she misunderstood the context, but he was certain that Ridley hadn’t been mentioned at all on the phone.
“Tell him who the woman said she was when I got down here,” Mark said. “You were taking that whole conversation in and didn’t pretend not to be. Tell him what she said then.”
“The same thing.” Lily didn’t hesitate, didn’t so much as blink. “You came out of the elevator and she thanked you for making time for her—”
“Thanked me? What are you talking about? She was furious with me!”
“Novak, you say another word and I will put you in the back of my car,” Blankenship said. “Let her finish.”
The clerk was rattled now, looking at Mark uneasily, and he knew he needed to dial down the anger — witness accounts were always varied and rarely accurate, but she was so far off base that it was hard. Her hostility from the previous night had bled over into lies, plain and simple. He exhaled and stepped back, trying to cool off.
“What did you hear her say?” Blankenship asked her.
“She told him that she appreciated him making time for her, and then she said that it was important for him to hear a different perspective on Ridley Barnes from what everyone else around here would tell him. I remember that, because I thought, Well, she must be willing to say something nice about him. Nobody else does.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Mark said. “If you didn’t actually hear what was said, then don’t make shit up! What she told me was—”
Blankenship put a hand on his arm, and the grip was not gentle. The sheriff’s eyes were locked on the clerk, and they were intense.
“Ignore him. Just talk to me. Did you happen to hear any reference to Diane?”
“Diane?”
“Sorry. To Sarah’s mother.”
“No.”
“You say you were teammates with Sarah in high school,” Blankenship said. “Did you know her mother?”
“Of course. Sarah’s mom was always around. Mrs. Martin drove our coach nuts because she loved to bake for us and he didn’t want us eating stuff like that.”
“So if this woman yesterday had identified herself at any point as Sarah’s mother, that would have stood out to you?”
“Are you kidding? Sarah’s mother is dead! Yes, that would have stood out to me.”
“She called Sarah her baby,” Mark said. “On the phone. She said, ‘What are you doing asking about my baby?’”
“I didn’t hear that.”
“Bullshit! You must have been standing right there! You handed her the phone! Why in the hell are you lying about this?”
“Novak—” Blankenship barked, but this time Mark cut him off.
“No, that deserves an answer! You tell me that Ridley is some sort of town pariah, but I’ve been here for twenty-four hours and it seems that plenty of people are willing to tell elaborate lies on his behalf. Aren’t you interested in why? Or do you already know?”
“Novak, get out. Now.” Blankenship’s grip tightened and he guided Mark to the front door and then pushed him through it, out into the blowing snow. “Wait here. If you so much as open this door, you’ll spend the night in jail.”
He went back inside and Mark stood in the parking lot and watched through the glass as the sheriff continued talking to the girl, who cast frequent, nervous glances at Mark. He stared at them, bristling with anger and fear and trying to fathom why she was lying. Had she been paid, threatened, what? Regardless, she’d been prepped. She had been as ready for this performance as the woman who’d impersonated Diane had been for hers. How in the hell had they put it together so fast? He’d chosen the hotel at random. Nobody had known where he was.
There were answers, but the sheriff wasn’t going to get them. Not from a girl who’d been either bribed or threatened. The answers would come from the people who’d started the game.
Mark left the hotel entrance and walked to his car. He was behind the wheel of the Ford and driving through the parking lot when the sheriff burst out of the hotel doors, shouting for him to stop. Mark ignored him and drove on, heading for Ridley Barnes and truth through any means necessary.
10
Ridley’s father had been a carpenter when he wasn’t being a drunk, and in those rare hours, he was both gifted and willing to teach. He had no interest in power tools; a true craftsman never used them and that, he claimed, was what separated a master from a journeyman when it came to woodworking. As far as Ridley and his mother and sister could tell, though, all it separated was men who didn’t have jobs from men who did.