“You and I both know we can’t presume innocence based on that. Or guilt,” he added, his dormant need to defend Levi rearing its ugly head again.
Adam was head-down in Katie’s phone.
“Finding anything interesting?” Sean asked.
Adam brought his gaze up to meet Sean’s. “If you call deleted texts interesting.”
“Depends on what they say.”
“Well, I just recovered a conversation between Katie and Mitch…of a rather personal nature.”
“They were dating,” Sara said, “but is there anything that might be useful to the investigation?”
“Could be. Mitch seemed rather heated in some of his responses.”
Sean looked at Sara. “Nicki said that Mitch had a temper.”
“He also wanted Katie to leave Levi.” Adam pointed to Katie’s phone in his hand. “From what I see, she wouldn’t.”
“I’m starting to wonder if Katie knew what she wanted,” Sean mused.
“Any sign that Levi knew about Mitch?” Sara asked.
Sean looked straight at her, about to plead Levi’s case. The baseball player had told them that he didn’t think Katie was seeing anyone else. But Sean kept his mouth shut.
“Not from what I’ve seen so far. Any texts I’ve found between Katie and Levi were amicable and comfortable.” Adam set the phone down. “You’ve probably already thought of this, but what if Levi did know about Mitch and killed Katie. Or even Mitch, for that matter. A guy’s pride is a delicate thing.”
“Maybe for some of us, pansy boy.” Jimmy smirked.
Adam flicked his fingers in Jimmy’s direction.
“Men, as a rule, don’t like to share—or be shown up,” Jimmy stated with conviction, giving in to Adam’s suggestion of wounded pride. “We need to talk to this Mitch guy. I mean, Levi was a pro-athlete. I’m sure Mitch wasn’t, at least I assume he wasn’t. I’ve never heard of him.”
“That settles it then, dinosaur,” Adam jabbed.
“Real original.” Jimmy glared at Adam. If it wasn’t for the fact both men’s eyes were lit with amusement, Sean might think things were going to come to physical blows.
“Mitch is a graphic designer,” Sara said, responding to Jimmy’s comment.
“I don’t want to point a finger at Levi, but if he found out Katie was running around with Mitch, that could have been a blow to his ego,” Adam reasoned, emphasizing his earlier thought.
“He said he didn’t think Katie was seeing anyone else.” Sean was still grasping—God help him.
“And people always tell the truth,” Jimmy said sarcastically. “Truth is we could speculate until the cows come home.”
“Cows? I bet you had cows back on the farm, back in the day.” Adam bobbed his brows.
Jimmy snarled.
The brief interlude was all Sean needed to set his mind down another path. Had a love triangle sent Katie to her grave? He looked back at the photo he had been—the one of Katie’s body lying facedown in the river. His eyes went to her shoes and the undone lace. Who did this to you?
-
Chapter 21
PUTTING IN THE HARD WORK
It didn’t matter how many times Sara was face-to-face with the evil of mankind, it never got easier to accept. Sean would think she preferred to live in a fairy-tale version of life—and she did. There was nothing wrong with that, but if she was being honest, some fairy tales were horrid as well. Just ask Hansel and Gretel about the witch.
“We’re looking for someone who is calculating and patient,” Sara concluded, realizing they hadn’t moved far from the initial assessment she and Sean had made at Corning City Preserve that morning.
Sean nodded. “Then we need to ask: who had the patience to wait for the perfect moment to kill Katie? Patience…and a strong motive, too.”
“Of the people we’ve spoken to, we’ve yet to see someone who fits that profile.” Sara’s mind churned through their meetings with Levi, Nicki, and Lucy. As a star athlete, Levi had no need for patience. The world was handed to him. Nicki was hurt by her friend’s death, and it was hard to imagine her lying in wait to kill her and then untying Katie’s shoelace, possibly even— Sara felt herself pale.
“Darling? You okay?” Sean reached across the table for her hand.
She nodded slowly. “What if…? No, this is probably over the top.”
All three men were staring at her.
“Okay, just tossing this out there, but what if there was a way to find solid forensic proof that Katie was murdered?”
“Go on,” Sean encouraged.
“We talked about the killer untying her shoelace. Maybe they left their prints behind? Though, those might be tough to get. But we’re also just assuming that Katie’s injuries from the fall killed her. What if the person who pushed her went down after her to finish the job?”
“The autopsy report says her brain was swollen. Even if help had come sooner, her chance of surviving would have been slim to none,” Jimmy said. “Needham told me that much, but you knew that.”
“Yes, but what if—” Sara held up a finger “—someone quickened her death? Maybe held her head down. Jimmy, I hate to do this to you, but we need to have a look at her body.”
“Ooh, no. Really?” Jimmy’s shoulders sagged. “You’re wanting me to question Needham’s findings? Only God can save me.”
Sara pinched her fingers together. “A tad dramatic, Jimmy.”
“Oh, no, very apt.”
“But you’ll do it. For us?” Sara plastered on a smile. “For me?”
Jimmy rolled his eyes and sighed. “For you.”
“Thank you.”
“Uh-huh. But if I don’t come back, you make sure Needham gets put behind bars.”
“I promise.”
“We also need to speak to others in Katie’s life: Mitch, David,” Sean said.
She went and filled a glass from the watercooler. “And Levi’s assistant, Chandra.”
“Do you already have her info?” Adam asked, ever eager to be of help.
“Helen tried to find it, but—”
“No offense to Helen, but she’s not me.” Adam rarely showed a cocky side, but it was shining brightly at the moment.
“Boy Wonder over here.” Jimmy jacked his thumb toward Adam and rolled his eyes.
“You’re just jealous, old man.” Adam started clicking away on his laptop.
“We’re going to have to split things up,” Sara began. “Jimmy, you go see Mitch tonight and be sure to ask if he sent roses to Katie a couple days before she died.”
“The Mystery of the Roses,” Sean mimicked Cronkite again.
Jimmy looked at him funny. Adam kept his nose buried in his laptop.
Sara went on, acting as if she hadn’t heard him. “Sean and I are going to see if we can’t meet Levi’s assistant.”
“Her name is Chandra Goodwin,” Adam chimed in. “She’s twenty-four, single, star sign is Scorpio.”
“Impressive,” Sara said, not sure how knowing Chandra’s star sign advanced the investigation.
“Whatever,” Jimmy grumbled, and Sara laughed.
“You have an address for us in the area?” Sean asked.
“She doesn’t have one, but her parents have a house in the city.”
“She could be staying with them while in town.” Sara glanced at the clock on the wall. It was going on nine o’clock. “We’ll leave her until morning, but it wouldn’t hurt to talk to Levi again. He’ll probably be up.”
“Yeah, we can do that,” Sean agreed.
“We’ll press harder and ask him about the roses, too. And thanks, Adam.”
“Don’t mention it, Mrs. McKinley.”
Jimmy got up, muttering something
about Mitch and getting stuck with Needham.
“Just think, you don’t have to see the Good Doc until tomorrow,” Sara told him.
“Yippie.” Jimmy clapped his hands. “Pleasant dreams to me.”
-
Chapter 22
STAYING THE COURSE
Jimmy reviewed the information that Adam had gathered on Mitch Yates’s social-media habits, and he’d pulled a basic background, which provided nothing useful except for his address. Jimmy was going into this visit from the standpoint that Mitch very well could be Katie’s killer. He’d take whatever precautions he could, but that still left him at Mitch’s door solo. In the dark of night.
Jimmy looked around the Pine Hills neighborhood, a nice area with very little crime. Not that the demographic stats would do him any good if he stepped inside the home of a killer who felt threatened. Jimmy knocked on the duplex door.
The porch light came on, and the curtain in the door’s window was swept aside. A man’s face peeked out and pulled back. The door was opened, and Mitch Yates—Jimmy recognized him from his online profile picture—stood there in slacks and a sports coat and smelled like he’d just soaked in a vat of cologne.
Jimmy’s nose twitched, and he sneezed. “Whoa. Sorry about that.”
Mitch remained silent, his gaze going past Jimmy to the curb. His eyes widened at the sight of Jimmy’s Mercedes. Then he brought Jimmy back into focus. “Are you lost?”
“Beaut, ain’t it?” Jimmy jacked a thumb over his shoulder. The car had been a gift from the McKinleys a few years ago, and he hadn’t found any reason to upgrade.
Mitch’s face fell serious. “What do you want?”
“I’m Jimmy Voigt, private investigator.” He pulled out his PI license.
“Good for you.” Mitch shifted his stance and jutted out his chin. “What. Do. You. Want?”
It didn’t seem Mitch had much patience. If that was the be-all/end-all for killer criteria in this case, as Sara and Sean seemed to think, Mitch was innocent. “You are Mitch Yates?” It was always best to have the person confirm their identity.
Mitch clenched his jaw and cracked his knuckles.
Quite the charmer… And I’ll take that as a yes.
“My firm’s investigating the death of Katie Carpenter,” Jimmy continued. Her name would either soften him or harden him further.
Mitch flinched just slightly. “She died in an accident.”
“Do you think that?” Jimmy was trying to feel him out. He wasn’t sure if Mitch’s reaction was because he was trying to come to grips with her death or he had something to hide.
“It doesn’t matter what I think. The cops investigated and said it was an accident.” He paused, narrowing his eyes. “But you say you’re a PI, and you’re looking into her death. Do you think it was an accident?”
“Nope, and neither do you.”
Mitch paled and stepped farther back into his house as an invitation for Jimmy to enter. Once Jimmy cleared the door, Mitch closed and locked it. “No, I don’t. I think someone killed her.”
Jimmy gulped. “Why’s that?” His throat was tightening. They had the police files and decades of police work and homicide-investigation experience between them, but what did Mitch have upon which to base his assumption?
“She had her haters.”
“Were you one of them?” The question came out on reflex. Blame it on his days with the force when he was a little on the blunt side.
“Absolutely not.”
“You loved her, then?”
“I don’t know if I’d go that far.” His voice sounded strained.
Tough guy is a commitment-phobe.
“You were dating her, though?”
“Why did you just ask if I hated her if you knew— Never mind. What I had with Katie was casual. She saw other people, and so did I.”
That explained the “It’s Complicated” relationship status. “Did you bring her roses a couple days before her death?”
“That a crime now?”
Jimmy held his hands up in surrender.
“Sure, I stopped by with a dozen, and she wasn’t home. I left them at her door.”
“Without a note.”
Mitch’s gaze held Jimmy’s. “Yeah.”
Jimmy wasn’t going to tell him the roses had ended up in the garbage. He might be blunt, but he wasn’t stupid and about to push his luck. “Okay, I’ll bite. Why no note?”
“I didn’t grab one for them, just assumed she’d be home.”
“You two knew each other for—”
“A long time? Just guessing that’s what you were going to say, seeing as you know mostly everything. You probably knew we went to school together.”
“I do.”
Mitch seemed to be looking right through Jimmy as he continued. “Well, we went our separate ways after graduation and just met up by chance a few months ago. We were both in the same marathon.”
Jimmy didn’t say anything.
“Oh, you didn’t know that?” Mitch scoffed.
“Nope. Continue. Guess you just hit it off from there?”
“As friends anyway. We met up for coffee a few times, then it turned into drinks and dinner. She’d always had a crush on me back in school.”
“But you didn’t feel the same?”
Mitch stuffed his hands in his pockets. “It sounds so vain, but she was heavier at the time, and I was on the football team. I was chasing cheerleaders.” The arrogant smirk that started toying with the edges of his mouth died under Jimmy’s glare.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. At least you’ve matured.” Sarcasm. Every word, but Jimmy tried to mask it. After all, the best way to wrestle demons from people was to play a little tug-of-war. One second, give; the next, yank with all your might.
“Thanks, but I’m not sure I have. Katie shed the weight before graduation, but I still wasn’t going to hook up with her. Figured once a fatty always a fatty.”
Jimmy imagined punching this bozo right between the eyes. Just the thought was a little satisfying. They knew Katie had more recently lost weight, but it seemed keeping it off was a recurring challenge. Katie wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last person to face that battle. “Obviously your opinion changed?”
“Thought I’d give her a chance.”
“After all, she was trim when you ran into her…”
“Yeah, I’m a—”
“Don’t say it.” Jimmy had enough adjectives going around in his own head. “You’ve moved on, by the looks of it.” He gestured at Mitch’s attire, and sinus memory kicked in and reminded him of the overpowering cologne. Somewhere along their conversation, its potency had weakened. It was probably just nature taking its course—a real godsend when dealing with a rotting corpse. “Getting ready for a date?”
“As I said, we weren’t exclusive, and she’s gone now. Matter of fact, though, I was with another woman when I found out Katie had died. It’s sad to be sure, but Katie wouldn’t want me to curl up and die, too.”
Sounds like a rather appealing option to me…
Jimmy cleared his throat. “And the morning she died two weeks ago, between six and seven, where were you then?”
“At another chick’s house.”
“You’re a busy man.”
Mitch’s lips twitched like he’d taken that as a compliment and was actually going to smile.
The guy certainly wasn’t all choked up about Katie’s demise; he didn’t seem to care about anyone but himself. Jimmy had a hard time imagining him risking life in prison, but he couldn’t just proceed based on his feelings. “I’ll need the name and number for the girl you were with the day Katie died.”
“Nicki Player.”
The victim’s best friend
was sleeping with her boyfriend? That definitely complicated things, but had it led to murder?
“You’ll probably need her number.” Mitch pulled his phone from his back pocket and was rattling it off faster than Jimmy could tell him that he had the number. “Oh,” Mitch said, “I just noticed the time. I’ll be late if I don’t get moving.”
“I won’t keep you much longer. Just tell me, do you know of anyone who would have reason to kill Katie? Someone who was jealous or didn’t like her?” As Jimmy asked the question, Nicki popped into his mind.
Mitch’s gaze shifted away from Jimmy’s eyes just enough to communicate that someone had come to his mind, but he didn’t want to share the information. Jimmy took a card out of his pocket and handed it to Mitch.
“Call me if you decide to tell me.”
Mitch took the card and tapped it against the palm of his right hand. “I will. Thanks.”
Jimmy dipped his head and let himself out of the duplex. During the time he’d been speaking with Mitch, a cool breeze had ticked up outside. Much the same way he felt about the case.
He got into his car, and it was warming up when Mitch came out and got into a sedan in the driveway. Less than a minute later, Mitch was backing out. Watching the reverse lights, Jimmy felt compelled to follow. He gave Mitch a bit of a head start and then set out after him.
He followed him through the city to an apartment building. Jimmy took a picture of the place with his cell phone and noted the address in a small flip notebook, much like the ones uniformed officers use on the job.
I’m an old dog, performing the same tricks.
Mitch went inside the building, and Jimmy called Adam on speaker.
“Miss me?”
“In your dreams,” Jimmy countered.
“More like nightmares.”
He could detect the smile in the kid’s voice and found himself grinning. As much as they riled each other, Jimmy had a soft spot for the New York tech. “I’ve got an address for you. Could you let me know if anyone’s come up in the investigation so far who lives there?”
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