Bev held up a hand. “Yes. I’m on that. But I’m going to use Kevin and Wyatt while you, Jo, and I go over Tyler’s case.”
Sam frowned, but Jo figured he knew better than to argue with Bev; arguing might make her suspicious. “Okay.”
Jo sat at her desk, her gaze flicking from Sam to Bev, watching the conversation and trying not to open her big mouth lest she say something incriminating.
Bev looked at Kevin. “Kevin, you go to the medical examiner’s office and wait for that autopsy report. Hurry him along. He’s supposed to fax it here, but I know he works faster when someone’s there, putting the pressure on.” She turned to Wyatt and handed him a yellow sticky note. “Wyatt, you go down and talk to Bobby Sampson. He’s in charge of the scene where they found the body. Tell him that you want all the photos of the crime scene. Maybe we can see something that jogs a memory that links it to the Dupont killing.”
Kevin and Wyatt cast questioning glances at Sam.
Sam nodded, and they left.
“I guess we don’t need that search warrant after all,” Sam said.
“That’s good ’cause it got rejected,” Reese said before turning to go back to the lobby. “I’ll be at my desk if you guys need me to look anything up.”
“Okay. I want to look at everything you have from Tyler’s case,” Bev said.
“The state police took over the case early on, so we don’t have much,” Sam said.
“Don’t give me that crap. Any good cop would investigate a fallen officer’s death on the side. And I think you’re a good cop, Sam. I’m trusting you because your grandpa was a good man and helped my mom out, so I kind of owe you one.” Bev crossed her arms over her chest and looked at Sam hard for a few seconds before adding, “Don’t make me regret it.”
* * *
“What do you think that was all about?” Wyatt asked as he and Kevin jogged down the front steps of the police station.
Kevin glanced over at him. The question had a suspicious undertone that Kevin didn’t like. In fact, Kevin was starting to not like Wyatt at all. There was something predatory about him, as though he were watching and waiting for something to go down so he could pounce. What that was, Kevin had no idea.
Maybe it was Kevin’s own guilt that was making him suspicious. He really had no right to suspect Wyatt. The guy hadn’t done anything wrong, at least not that Kevin knew about.
Kevin shrugged, acting casual. “You know how the higher-ups are. They probably wanted to strategize or something. Let us do the grunt work.”
Wyatt glanced back at the station. “Huh. Seems kind of like important grunt work. But I’m happy to be doing it.”
Kevin stopped at the Crown Vic, and Wyatt hesitated then looked toward the small parking lot beside the building.
“I’ll take my car. It’s good on gas,” Wyatt offered.
Kevin opened the door of the Crown Vic. Damn straight he’d take his personal vehicle. Kevin didn’t like that Wyatt was insinuating that maybe it would be his place to take the Crown Vic. Kevin had been there longer; he should drive it. But Kevin didn’t want to say any of that out loud. There was no sense starting something with the guy. And ultimately, it was up to Sam who drove the car, so he simply said, “Okay. See you later.”
Kevin watched Wyatt trot off and then slid into the car, the soft seats and smell of sunbaked leather surrounding him as he started the engine.
He really should give Wyatt a break. As near as he could tell, Wyatt was only trying to be helpful. The weird vibe he picked up was probably just because Wyatt was new and trying to fit in. Kevin was out of sorts with of all the strange things about this case—and his own secrets were grating on him.
Kevin had a bad feeling about what Bev Hatch might find when they looked into Tyler’s case. He’d suspected Tyler was up to something before he was even killed. Of course, back then, he’d thought Tyler was doing something against the law, that his contact worked in law enforcement and was trying to get evidence on him.
Now Kevin wasn’t so sure. He was sure that his contact worked for Thorne. His contact had wanted Kevin to search Tyler’s belongings for electronic data, so it stood to reason that Tyler was one of the good guys. He was working against Thorne. Or was he working with him, and Thorne wanted to make sure he didn’t turn on him? Maybe Thorne had been looking for leverage.
Kevin’s thoughts turned to the thumb drive tucked away in his kitchen. If Bev found something that got Sam and Jo into trouble, Kevin would hand the drive over to Sam. There could be something on it that got Sam and Jo out of trouble—or there could be something that got them in deeper. Either way, Sam could do what he wanted with it. But he would only turn the drive over if it was necessary. He didn’t want Sam to know he’d betrayed them by taking the drive in the first place.
He waved to Wyatt as he drove past, the funny feeling coming over him again. Earlier that morning, before anyone else had come in, Wyatt had mentioned that he’d seen Sam talking to a guy standing next to a black SUV with a roof rack similar to the vehicle Rita had said she’d seen driving away from the mill. By the description of the man and the fact that Wyatt had seen them outside Holy Spirits, Kevin figured it was Mick Gervasi, Sam’s best friend. Kevin seemed to recall that Mick drove a black SUV.
Had Mick been at Reed’s Ferry Mill the night Dupont was killed? It was possible. Kevin knew that Sam used Mick for some of his investigations. But what did it matter? If Mick was there, Kevin figured Sam had good reason.
He’d brushed off Wyatt’s question by pointing out there were thousands of black SUVs. Maybe he could do something more to deflect suspicion. He’d have to think on that. What if the SUV really belonged to someone else and it was a good lead? He wouldn’t want to try to cover that up. But no, he was sure that it was Mick, because if Sam didn’t already know who it was, he would have jumped on the lead a little harder.
Kevin knew that Sam and Jo kept some secrets about that crime scene. The lawn-mowing neighbor had said Jo had been there earlier in the afternoon, but Sam and Jo never put that in the report. Sure, it was a minor thing and even understandable that Jo might come to scout things out earlier, but the fact that they never mentioned it made Kevin think there might be more going on.
Kevin didn’t care. Guilt over what he’d previously done made him more determined to make sure that Sam and Jo came out on the clean end of this and that Thorne went away for good. And not only because his own life was in jeopardy if he continued to feed fake information to his contact, but because it was the right thing to do.
Kevin drove off, his plan firmly in place. He’d keep an eye on Wyatt. And he still had his ace in the hole—the glove. He just hoped that by using it, he wouldn’t be signing his own death warrant.
Chapter Fourteen
Sam walked Bev through everything they had on Tyler’s case. Well, at least, everything he wanted her to know. He didn’t want to let on too much of what they’d been investigating on the side, and he certainly wasn’t going to tell her about the DNA test or the mysterious key.
The whole time they reviewed the case with Bev, Jo had acted odd. She was quieter than usual, tapping her pencil on her notepad faster than usual. She’d scarfed down two of the jelly doughnuts that Bev had brought, and Sam got the impression she was bursting to tell him something.
“So that’s it?” Bev asked. “Not much to go on.”
“We didn’t have much time to investigate,” Sam said. “With Tyler gone, we were short-handed, and another murder happened right away. Actually, there have been a couple of murders to investigate, so …” Sam shrugged and let his sentence trail off.