Page 67 of Shadow Sabotage
I frowned. “What do you mean ‘the way she looked’?”
He sighed. “She was wearing heavy makeup, but it looked like she was covering up some bruises. And there were some marks on her hands that looked like defensive wounds.”
I didn’t bother to keep the edge out of my voice. “And you didn’t thinkthatwould be important for us to know?”
He glared at me. “She denied that anything had happened. Said she’d gotten into an accident. The way she was acting, I didn’t believe her, but you know as well as I do that you can’t force a victim to tell you something if they don’t want to. I tried to coax the truth out of her, but she stuck to that story.”
I opened my mouth, prepared to bite his head off, but he held up a hand to stop me.
“I followed up on it anyway. When I found out she was dating Tony Evans, I talked to himandhis dad about it. Tony said she’d gotten the bruises in a car accident. So I called Laramie PD. Sure enough, there was an accident report from a few days before their trip. She was taken to the ER afterward for bruising and cuts on her hands.”
I relaxed—slightly. “So the story checked out.”
He nodded. “It checked out.” But there was the slightest bit of hesitation.
I stared at him. “Why are you still worried it was more?”
He stared back at me for several long seconds before shaking his head. “I don’t know. It was just her manner, I guess. She acted like a victim.” He shrugged. “And to be honest with you, Tony had a history of getting forceful with his girlfriends. But the police report on the accident and the ER report on her injuries lined up with what I saw—and with her story, no matter what her body language said. She didn’t have a history of ER visitsfor injuries, and the police had never been called for a domestic. There was nothing else I could do.”
“You still should have told us,” I said forcefully.
“You’re probably right,” he said between gritted teeth. “But by that point, I’d convinced myself that I’d overreacted to the whole thing.”
I stared at him, unwilling to give him any grace on the matter.
He shook his head. “Look, you can think whatever you want of me, but here’s the truth of the matter. One, I didn’t think my conversation with her had any bearing on the case. Laramie PD agreed, by the way. Two, you and I are on the same side. I called you in because I knew there would be pressure on me to keep things quiet, and I wanted someone who didn’t have ties to this town doing the investigating. I want her murder solved—no matter who did it.”
I drummed my fingers on the arm of the chair, staring at him. He was right. I was only here because he’d called me in, and that was a point in his favor. And I could easily call Laramie and verify everything he’d said thus far.
But I still didn’t like it.
He put his hands on the arms of his chair like he was about to stand, but I wasn’t done with him yet.
“You said she was crying because she’d had a big fight with her boyfriend. Tell me what she said.”
He squirmed, a frustrated look on his face. “Look, I hate to admit this, because I know how it looks. But she said things weren’t working out between her and Tony because he was a child and she was looking for a man. I got the impression she wanted someone to be her knight in shining armor.”
“What made you think that?”
He shifted in his seat, his face turning bright red. “Well, she kind of hit on me.”
“Shehiton you?” Claire’s voice was incredulous.
He nodded, letting out a little groan. “Yep. That’s probably why Emily—it was Emily, right?”
Claire nodded.
He rolled his eyes. “That’s probably why she said we looked cozy. Katelyn gave me big doe eyes and said she wished she had a real man to take care of her. Someone to keep her safe. She scooted close and kind of snuggled into me and started crying again. I tried to comfort her at first, but she put her hand on my thigh. Kept creeping up higher. I disengaged as fast as I could and got out of there.”
“And that’s the only time you ever spoke to her?”
“Yes.” His voice was firm. “The only time.”
He told his story with the conviction of a man who was telling the truth.
But Katelyn had died last March.
That was a long time to practice a lie.
