Our witness is just a regular resident Dalton found slipping back from his lover’s place. Poor guy nearly had a heart attack thinking he was being rousted for … Well, I don’t want to know what he’d been doing that he thought might get him in trouble. Point is that we have ourselves an independent witness. He verifies Storm’s work and then comes inside to watch mine.
I find a black balaclava in the closet. Conrad claims it’s his standard-issue winter wear and he hasn’t worn it in months. I bag it.
I also find dark clothing shoved into the laundry basket. The shirt has splotches of what looks like blood on the sleeve. Ah, yes, Conrad recalls cutting himself shaving this morning. I bag that, too, and tell him I’ll be testing it.
“Knock yourself out,” he says. “It’s my blood.”
He thinks I’m bluffing, that I wouldn’t send it for DNA testing to solve a mere breakin. He’s right. Except I don’t need DNA testing. I’ll make sure it’s blood first. Then I can test for blood type. If it matches my own and doesn’t match his, then it’s evidence against him, even without the DNA.
I check his shoes and find damp clots of mud. He says he forgot he’d also been out for a another walk just before bed. Guy seems to take a lot of walks, considering I’ve never seen him do more than travel from point A to B.
I check drawers in his bedroom, bath, and kitchen, looking for what cut my leg. I don’t see the knife. Whatever he used, he isn’t stupid enough to shove it back into the drawer with blood on the blade. Most likely it was a pocketknife. Everyone is issued one. I ask for his. He tells me he lost it.
Yes, he’s blocking me. Inwardly smirking about it, too. I see that from the gleam in his eyes. This is the truth of policing, though, whether it’s down south or in Rockton. I can find all the circumstantial evidence in the world. I can have my dog locate a trail from his house to the crime scene. Without an eyewitness or irrefutable evidence, I’m screwed.
Even those things are mostly useful for convincing a suspect that he’s screwed and should cut a deal. That won’t happen with Conrad. I could have five people who saw him flee Anders’s house, bloody knife in hand, and he’d claim it was a mistake and force me to decide exactly how far I want to push this.
“Marissa didn’t do anything wrong,” I say. “She was hit over the head and left unconscious for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
I don’t know what I hope to accomplish with this. He won’t be seized with guilt and confess. I guess I’m just hoping he has enough humanity to feel bad about what he did to Marissa. That he’ll realize breaking into Anders’s place had unexpected consequences for an innocent person.
“Yep,” he says. “She’s a good woman. She doesn’t deserve any of this. Doesn’t deserve to find out her boyfriend is a killer. Doesn’t deserve to have people whispering about her, wondering whether she knew. Doesn’t deserve to get knocked out for being at his place. But this is what’s going to happen, Detective Butler, if you leave that murderer in town. People will get hurt.”
“That sounds like a threat.”
“It’s an observation. Whatever happened to Marissa, she didn’t deserve it, and it wouldn’t have happened if your boyfriend agreed to ship Will Anders out. He didn’t. Now everyone needs to deal with the consequences. Marissa got hurt. You got hurt. I got woken up at one A.M. to be accused of assault. People are angry, and it’s only going to get worse. I just hope our sheriff realizes that before it’s too late.”
SIX
I want to throw Conrad’s ass in the cell. Forget stabbing me or even knocking out Marissa. I want to lock him up for what he said before I left. He might claim it wasn’t a threat, but on behalf of my friends and my town, I feel threatened.
I interview Marissa. She’s groggy and in shock. Earlier, I’d told her she’d been attacked, but I don’t think she’d been in shape to fully process it.
“I went over to talk to Will,” she says. “I … I have things I wanted to say. I thought he was on his usual midnight shift, so I was waiting. The back door opened. I figured it was him. I turned and saw a dark figure. I still thought it was Will. And then…” She blinks. “I don’t remember the rest.”
She got to Anders’s place at 11:45 P.M. She’d used her key to enter the back door and believes she left it unlocked. She’d turned on a lamp in the living room and settled in with paperwork.
Having a law degree, Marissa had been offered a choice of jobs in Rockton, including a managerial position. To our surprise, she’d picked a server position at the Red Lion. She’d put herself through school working at a cocktail bar and had joked that during her most stressful trials, she sometimes fantasized about trading her suits and sensible shoes for miniskirts and high heels. She’d happily thrown herself into the work, quickly becoming the Lion’s most popular server, while picking up extra credits working at the library.
Those choices got my attention. Made me decide I liked this woman, and I liked her even more when she started dating Anders. That’s what stings the worst. I can’t write her off as a flighty twit who chased a hot guy and dumped him at the first sign of trouble. I only hope that going to Anders’s house means she’s reconsidered their breakup.
As for the paperwork, she’s recently been headhunted by Phil for a special project. He’s analyzing and documenting Rockton’s infrastructure for future town leaders. Of course, we both know there will be no future leaders. He’s really doing it for us. Learning everything he can about how Rockton operates so we can launch our own version if we can’t reverse the council’s decision. To Marissa and the council, his project is simply filling in gaps in the scant documentation. Because he’s Phil—the guy who memorizes policy documents in his spare time—no one suspects him of having an ulterior motive.
Marissa had been working on that paperwork when the break-in occurred. Seeing a light on, the intruders had known someone was at home. Did they expect Anders? Did they intend to attack him? I don’t know. While I’m interviewing Marissa, Anders and Dalton check the chalet, and they find signs of a search, but nothing is missing.
What would the intruders have been searching for? They hardly need proof of Anders’s crime, since he confessed. That makes me think they really did plan an assault. Break in, surprise Anders, and show him he was in danger if he stayed in Rockton. I wish it had been Anders in that room. If so, the perpetrators would be taking Marissa’s place in the clinic, as April tended to their wounds and I informed them they’d be spending the night together in the cell.
Anders hadn’t been home, though. So they lashed out at Marissa. April suspects Marissa knocked her head in a fall. With her conveniently unconscious, they’d decided to search the place. Not really looking for anything, just doing some damage, sending a message.