Page 68 of Investigate Away
“I do know that Leslie loved her job. And from what I remember, she was good at it. But as a wife, well, she was insanely jealous. I couldn’t go out of the house without her thinking I was cheating on her. She used to wake Carol up in the middle of the night when I was working the C rotation.”
“You’re a fireman, right?” Callie asked.
“Retired. But yeah. Anyway. Leslie always thought I was cheating, and she told Carol that. Carol believed her, and when I met my second wife, things just got even worse. Truthfully, I was a selfish prick back then. If I knew I was never going to see my daughter again, I might have not gotten married so fast, but I can’t change the past, can I?”
Jag held up a picture frame. “Is this your second wife and children?”
Callie stretched out her arm, wanting to take a close look at the new family.
“Yes. That’s Tina, my wife. And we had twin boys, Jack and Billy. In that picture they had just graduated high school, but they are twenty-one now. They both joined the Navy,” John said with a bright smile.
“Where’s your wife now?” Callie asked, trying to keep her hands from shaking. His wife had beautiful long blond hair.
Styled just like Renee’s and Stephanie’s when they’d been murdered.
“She’s visiting her mom. She’s in a nursing home. I expect her back in about an hour,” John said. “Why are you here?”
Jag sat on the edge of the sofa. “We are here in part because we’re in the middle of an investigation that could be connected to the murder of your daughter’s college roommate.”
John let out a big puff of air. “I love my daughter. I really do. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about her and wonder and worry about what she’s doing, but she had a temper. She could be wickedly vicious.”
“How so?” Jag asked.
“She had a razor-sharp tongue, for one. She had a way of cutting right through a person’s heart. She knew how to hurt people. I could take it, but my wife, not so much, and once she gave birth to the twins, I had to really think about my boys. Not that Carol came to visit often, but I stopped letting her spend the night. That didn’t go over well. She’d call here in the middle of the night, threatening to kill my wife and kids. She’d sometimes show up at two in the morning banging on the doors. It got so bad, I moved.”
“Did you ever call the police?” Callie clutched the picture. Could this Carol person be their killer? Had it all started when her father remarried? But why kill the roommate? What had she done?
Callie’s head throbbed. The pounding was deafening.
“No,” John said with a deflated tone. “But by the time Carol went to college and I moved my family, things settled down.”
“Did Carol ever hurt animals? Or get into physical fights with other people?” Jag asked.
“What are you getting at, son?” John sat up taller. “Do you think my daughter killed her roommate? Because she was cleared… oh, you think my ex-wife might have helped… oh my. You think my daughter is this Trinket Killer.”
Damn. He put that together quickly.
“We don’t think anything right now,” Jag said. “But we do need to find her. Did Leslie stay close to her after the murder? Because to be honest, I had no idea she had a kid, and I worked with her for years.”
“No. The murder changed their relationship as well. I really don’t know what happened between them, but Carol left Seattle and told both of us we’d never see her again.” John opened the drawer of the end table next to the recliner and pulled out a small pocket photo album. “Here are some pictures of her when she was a child. I don’t have many and none after she turned thirteen, but maybe they can help you.”
“Thanks. We really appreciate it.” Callie took the booklet in her hands. “Any ideas on where she could have gone or any identities she might have taken on? Any little details you can think of might help us find her.”
“I can’t think of anything off the top of my head.” John pulled out his wallet. “But here’s the private investigator’s card. I’ll sign a waiver so he can give you whatever he’s found. I would like to find her. She’d be forty-two now. I can’t even fathom what she’d look like. I pass women on the streets with shoulder-length brown hair and brown eyes, and I wonder, could that be my Carol?” Tears welled in John’s eyes. “I’m a good father, but I failed my only daughter.”
Callie reached out and took John’s hand. “I’ve made some pretty horrible mistakes during my lifetime, and last year my sister was murdered.”
John gasped. “Oh my. I’m so sorry, dear.”
“Thank you,” Callie said. “I often feel as though I failed her. But I have to remind myself over and over again that hindsight is twenty-twenty, and even if I could go back in time, I wouldn’t be going back with the knowledge I have today, so I’d probably play the same hand the same way.”
John’s lips curved into a small smile. “You’re a wise young woman.”
“That she is,” Jag said. “Thank you so much for your time, sir.”
“You’re welcome. Thank you for your service, young man.”
“You as well,” Jag said.
