“Thank you.”
Why hadn’t she ordered room service? She made Katella a cup with the Keurig and David introduced himself.
Katella seemed impressed with her wall of information. “This is extensive.”
“Nothing we didn’t tell you on Thursday, but I like the visual,” Max said.
“You said four victims, but you crossed off this last victim.”
“Not the same killer,” Max said. “We now have two different cases, and Caldwell is already on trial. I don’t want to focus on her right now”—she handed Katella the mug—“we have a lead on Justin Stanton’s killer.”
“Possibly,” Lucy qualified. “Max used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain information about certain county employees, and Andrew expedited the request—he pulled the information himself. But we wanted to make sure that if there were any legal issues, we had the paperwork as backup. We have all the information that we’re legally able to obtain on eighteen employees. Women, between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five at the time of Justin’s murder, who left employment within a year of his death.”
Katella handed Lucy a two-page list of handwritten names. “These are all the women who were interviewed—their personal information, such as their address at the time of their interview is in the files. I didn’t think to copy it.”
“We’ll double-check the addresses if we have a common name. How do you verify identity when you interview someone?”
“Driver’s license, though if we’re canvassing we wouldn’t ask for ID. We make note of the house we approached.”
Max hadn’t thought to ask that question, but it made sense. Double-checking the information they obtained from Andrew with the information Katella gleaned at the time of the murder.
Lucy read the names and immediately said, “Danielle Sharpe.”
“How did you see that so quickly?” Max ran a finger down the print out that Andrew had given her.
“I had a few names in my head based on the information on the spreadsheet.” Lucy asked Katella, “What do you remember about her?”
Katella seemed to be surprised that they’d narrowed the suspect pool down so quickly. And to be honest, Max was surprised herself. It was never this easy.
Easy? Was this really easy? Or did you just have someone who knew exactly what to look for?
“Um—” Katella seemed flustered. He opened the box he’d brought and dug through loosely organized notepads, most of which had sticky notes with names written on the tabs. “I marked each of those interviews. Let me find it…”
It took him a minute, but he located the notebook. “Here—I didn’t interview her myself. Oh, yeah. First responders interviewed her that morning. She was a neighbor who helped in the search. Remember, we didn’t find Justin’s body until late the next day. For a time we thought he might have left the house on his own and got lost.”
“We?” Lucy asked.
“I didn’t—kids his age don’t usually wander out of the house in the middle of the night, and I wasn’t called until the body was found. However, because he had his blanket some people thought maybe he got it in his head to camp or something. His mother told us he loved camping and was planning for a sleepaway camp with his best friend.”
Max looked at Lucy and saw pain. Bittersweet memories? Was she the best friend?
“Sharpe handed out flyers to all the neighbors.”
“You said she was a neighbor, but was she interviewed at Andrew’s house?”
“Correct.”
“Did she give her address?”
“No. We were in a different mode then—search.”
“And you never interviewed her again.”
“Yes, I did. I had her number, called her on the phone and asked follow-up questions. She didn’t have anything that helped. Here.” He handed Lucy his notepad.
While Lucy scanned the interview shorthand, Max looked at the line item that Andrew had prepared. Danielle Sharpe, age thirty-one, had left employment at the end of the year—six months after Justin’s murder. She was a legal secretary, but it didn’t indicate if she worked for Andrew or another prosecutor.
“How do the legal secretaries get assigned?” Max asked.
Lucy looked at her in confusion. “I have no idea.”
“Depends,” Katella said. “Andrew would know best. I know he has his own dedicated legal secretary, and a few of the other senior attorneys do as well, but it’s more a pool system. They get assigned based on workload and experience.”
“Andrew was a new ADA, so he would have been part of that process. He could have crossed paths with her. Max, there was no line item about marital status.”
“It wasn’t in the employee records, though there was emergency contact information.”
“We need that, but I want to pick Andrew’s brain. Give me two more legal secretaries on the list, I don’t care who, and I’m going to run all three by Andrew.”
“I don’t understand,” Katella said. “Why not just ask him?”
“Because if I’m right, this woman killed his son, and Andrew isn’t going to be thinking like a prosecutor—he’s going to be thinking like a grieving father.”
“There’s one more name in Katella’s notes,” Max said. “This woman—Jan DuBois. Why didn’t you home in on her?”
“She doesn’t live in the neighborhood.”
“Does that have to be a factor?”
“Her previous employment was as dispatcher in the sheriff’s department of San Diego County. I’m confident that whoever killed Justin came from out of state. Danielle fits that.”
Max was skeptical. She believed in instincts—depended on them—but she was also methodical in her approach.
“But,” Lucy continued, “I’ll include her in my questioning to Andrew. Good?”
“Yes.”
There were no other common names to both lists. Max pulled one other legal secretary who had left employment one year almost to the day of Justin’s murder and Lucy called Andrew and put him on speaker.
“Andrew, I’m here with Max, her assistant David Kane, and Detective Katella.”
“Don, how’ve you been?”
“Can’t complain.”
“Thank you for your help.”
“Andrew,” Lucy said, “I have three names I want to run by you.”
“You think one of them killed Justin.”
“Not necessarily. I don’t want you to overthink it, okay? Just tell me if you know them, what you remember about them, first recollection.”
“Who?”
“Jan DuBois.”
“Jan? Don’t tell me—”
“Don’t read into this, Andrew. Just spill it.”
“I’ve known Jan for years. She’s been married to Bill DuBois since before I met her. He’s now the assistant sheriff. She was a legal secretary for several years after she had two girls, thirteen months apart, then when they started school she went to law school. She’s in private practice now. The girls—jeez, I haven’t seen them in ages. They’re probably in college. They were a few years younger than Justin, if I recall. I see Bill and Jan at least once a year.”
“Katella interviewed her about whether she knew of your relationship with Sheila and about your marriage.”