Penner said, "Yeah, we did. But we didn't release them to the media because really, even your first sketch is still just that, a sketch. Once you start drawing different variations of what's already an artist's impression of someone's recollection, well, you see the problem."
"Sure, I guess. Did you ever do one as if he'd shaved his head, lost the moustache, anything like that?"
"I think we did."
"How would you feel about faxing it to me?"
Penner hesitated. "Mr. Walker, do you know something about this?"
"I'm interested," I said. "I've followed it from the beginning, and I've been thinking about maybe doing a book on the case."
"I thought you just wrote science fiction. That's what it said in the paper."
"Up to now, yeah."
"So, you think maybe this Smythe guy, he was an alien?"
You see what I mean about respect and sci-fi writers? I didn't take the bait, and said instead, "Will you fax it to me, or not?"
"Give me your number. Five minutes." And he hung up.
I sat in my study, staring at the fax machine for a good half hour before it rang, started doing its little hum.
And then the sketch started sliding, scalp first, out of the machine. Then it beeped, disconnected. I took the single sheet out of the tray, turned it around, and looked at it.
Howdy, neighbor.
o o o
I kept coming back to the shovel.
Walking over to Mindy's Market - it was only about a twenty-minute stroll - to pick up some ground beef and buns and some fixings for salad, I tried to work things out in my head.
Let's say Roger Carpington had killed Stefanie Knight. Waited for her inside her house. That would explain the broken glass at the back door. Maybe he already knew he was being blackmailed. Or Stefanie had threatened to expose him. To tell his wife. To ruin his political career. She had the ledger by this point. Maybe she was going to rip the lid off the whole Valley Forest Estates thing. He takes her into the garage, grabs the shovel from its hanging place on the wall, strikes her in the head with it. Runs.
Okay, possible.
I show up, find Stefanie. See the bloody shovel. And then I hightail it out of there.
Carpington thinks, Hey. My fingerprints are on that shovel. I have to go back and get it before the police arrive.
It would make sense. Except by this time, Carpington's at the town council meeting. And according to at least one witness, never left the meeting.
So someone else grabbed that shovel. It was either (a) someone helping cover Carpington's tracks, or (b) a different killer, coming back to grab the shovel for the same reason Carpington would have: fingerprints.
If it was someone helping Carpington cover his tracks, to keep him from being connected to the crime, then why did the shovel show up in the trunk of his car?
But if the killer was someone else, and had that shovel, placing it in Carpington's trunk was a stroke of genius. Its presence there was guaranteed to incriminate.
But this killer would have to know that Carpington was a logical suspect already. This killer would have to know that a bloody shovel in the trunk would be just one more part of the puzzle.
"That's $14.56."
"Huh?"
It was the cashier at Mindy's. She'd rung through my groceries and informed me of my total. I handed her a twenty and held my hand out for the change.
I was in another world.
On the way back, I thought about the conversation Earl and I had had on the way to the Valley Forest Estates sales office. How he'd wanted to confirm that Carpington had been caught on film with Stefanie, how he'd even suggested that the councilman had a pretty strong motive to kill her.
How, when we pulled into the parking lot, Earl asked whose car was whose.
And how, once we'd gotten the jump on Greenway and Carpington, Earl insisted that I stay and keep them covered while he left with their keys and moved their cars behind the office.
That would have been when he took the shovel from his pickup and put it in the trunk of Carpington's car.
The only thing I hadn't worked out a theory for was why Earl killed Stefanie Knight. But I had enough.
I started running, the grocery bag flopping at my side. I jogged all the way up Chancery Park, was struggling to catch my breath as I inserted my key into the door. I dumped the groceries on the kitchen counter and grabbed the phone.
I got the main police switchboard, then keyed in Lorenzo Penner's extension. It rang three times before the voicemail cut in.
"This is Detective Lorenzo Penner. Leave a message at the tone."
"Hi, it's Zack Walker. Call me back as soon as you get this message." And I left my number.
I glanced at the clock. After five. Sarah would be home soon. Where were Paul and Angie?
I'd grabbed the receiver off the phone so quickly when I'd come in that I'd failed to see the flashing message light. There were two, one from Paul and one from Angie.
Paul said, "I'm at Hakim's, hanging out, should be home by six."
Angie said, "I'm working in the school darkroom. I'm getting a lift, see you around five-thirty."