Page 73 of A Week Away
The woman said, “You’re not from Michigan, are you?”
“No. I’m not.”
“Michigan State. Spartans.”
I remembered something about the real Spartans being gay warriors. I decided this was not the time to bring that up.
Finally, the woman felt pity on me and said, “It’s a very specific dark green.”
“You think the killer is a student?” I asked.
“Oh, God no. Michigan State is up in Lansing.”
“So the killer’s brother or sister goes there?”
“Not likely. People just wear the gear. They’re fans probably. College football.”
“The Wolverines are yellow,” the girl added.
“University of Michigan. There’s a rivalry. U of M is over in Ann Arbor. People down here tend to lean toward the Wolverines. But there’s a healthy dose of Spartan fans. You can buy their gear at K-Mart. Especially at this time of year. The game is next month.”
“So the hoodie doesn’t tell us anything,” I said, disappointed.
“You asked what color it was. It tells you that.”
She was right, but for a moment I’d thought the color might tell me more.
“Did the kid in the hoodie make any attempt to steal the car?”
“Not that I saw, no. But then he might have before.”
“Is there anything else you remember that might be useful?”
“It all happened very quickly. I barely knew what was happening until it was over. “She might have said, ‘Why?’”
“Really? You think she asked ‘why’?”
“I wasn’t looking in that direction so I can’t be sure. I might be imagining that part. I mean, if someone was going to kill me in a parking lot, I think I’d ask why. So maybe that’s why I think I heard it.”
“Or you heard it.”
“Yes, I could have.”
I thanked her and left. As I walked around I wondered about the word ‘why’. Did that mean Joanne knew her killer and wanted to know why he was about to shoot her? Or was it a question she asked a stranger?
I leaned toward the former. She knew her killer. A stranger there to steal your things didn’t need an explanation. But someone you knew, someone you thought cared about you, that did raise the question of ‘why?’
I figured it was around three fifteen. I wandered around the building and then went outside. I had two main suspects: Luca and Mr. Cray. Neither made much sense.
Luca was being followed by the Feds so that made his committing murder seem unlikely. But then I remembered the first time I saw the Feds they were sitting outside Luca’s Lifters and Luca was nowhere to be found. So he might have given them the slip. That was even more plausible if he knew he was being followed by the Feds. Did he know? Was there a way to find out if he knew?
And then there was Mr. Cray. He might have overheard my conversation with Joanne that afternoon. He might have overheard that she was embezzling from him. Hell, she might have gone into his office afterwards and demanded something from him the way she’d demanded something from me. I couldn’t be sure. But what I could be sure of was that if Mr. Cray decided to kill Joanne that afternoon, he didn’t leave himself much time to plan the murder. He’d have to have had a gun right there in the office. The same with the hoodie; it would have to have been in his office. He’d have needed to hide the gun and the hoodie as he walked passed Claudia, go somewhere to put on the hoodie, then proceed out of the building, and shoot Joanne. Then he’d have to reverse the process: Hide something in the ceiling of the men’s room on the second floor and then go out to his car at the back of the building. I wasn’t sure there was time for all of that. In fact, I was pretty sure there wasn’t.
Of course, either of them could have hired someone to kill Joanne. Was that plausible? Could Mr. Cray have done it that afternoon? Could you order a killer the way you could a pizza?
I was outside on the east side of the building, the side without cameras, when I noticed something. The building next door. The storage place. There were cameras on each corner of that building. And they were pointed at the building I was standing next to. They’d have been recording everything that happened on that side of the building.
I began moving with more purpose. I needed to find Rocky, the janitor. He didn’t seem to be anywhere in the building with Top Dog, so I walked over to the storage place, circled the building and then moved on.
