“Trina…” Robyn tried, but Trina had turned and was already marching out the door, head held high, heels clacking noisily on the wood floor.
“Well, that went smoothly,” Ford said, letting out a gusty breath.
“I told you Trina didn’t know about the mystery woman,” Robyn said.
“She would have found out sooner or later,” Ford said.
“I didn’t want to tell her unless we actually found the woman. Trina’s been through so much—I didn’t want her to suffer more.”
“You’ve been through worse.”
Robyn looked down, her lashes casting long shadows on her cheeks. “I won’t argue that. But I’ve dealt with my grief. Trina’s husband is on death row, and I can’t imagine what horrible images haunt her at night when she’s trying to sleep. I know she’s kind of melodramatic, but she must be pretty torn up.”
“Tell me more about her. Did she bear any animosity toward Justin?”
“Trina? No, I don’t think so. I didn’t have a lot of contact with her until Eldon was arrested, but Eldon never mentioned any problem.”
“Her alibi was solid? Corpus Christi isn’t that far away.”
“She had witnesses who say she was drinking in the bar until late, then she and her roommate went up to bed. She didn’t leave the room until morning.”
“That sounds pretty solid,” Ford concluded. “What about your alibi?” He tossed the question out casually. He knew from reading the reports—and from chatting up Bryan Pizak, a Green Prairie cop he’d grown up with—that Robin had been considered a suspect.
Robyn shrugged. “I don’t have one. I was at home, alone, sleeping like a baby while some animal preyed upon my child.” She swallowed, and her eyes glinted cold and hard.
Ford steeled himself not to react to her emotionally. If there was one thing he’d learned in law enforcement, it was that emotions played no part. Emotions led you to form opinions, and opinions led to bias and tunnel vision. His goal was always to remain open-minded, unbiased, uninvolved. If that made him come off as cold and unfeeling, too bad.
She took a gulp of her tea. “The cops questioned me at length, of course.”
“When something happens to a child, the parents are always the first suspects.”
“Yes, they explained that. I guess I must have convinced them I had nothing to do with it, because after a few days they stopped badgering me.”
“You think they focused in on Eldon pretty quickly?”
“Yes. Too quickly. They just didn’t like his story, didn’t like the way he was acting.”
Ford couldn’t help it. He flashed back to another time, early in his career, when he’d been called out to his first gang-related homicide. He’d been so eager to perform well, and he’d gone the extra mile, searching behind garages and around back porches in that seedy neighborhood, and he’d found a kid cowering in the bushes. Seventeen, wearing his colors, terrified.
Ford had made up his mind right there. He’d found the murderer. It was amazingly easy to do.
“People act all different ways when they become victims of crime,” Ford said. “Some fall apart, some seem perfectly composed but they don’t make sense, and some detach themselves from the crime completely and they come off as cold and uncaring.”
“That was Eldon. He was not one to show his messy emotions in public. They said he was cold.”
“It’s enough to bias the investigating cops against him.” Ford made a note to find those first cops on the scene and give them a good grilling. “Now then, what about this witness you mentioned?”
“He was an employee at the pizza place. Recently I talked with Mindy Hodges, who was night manager at the time. I’ve been tracking down witnesses one by one and speaking personally to them. She went over everything she could remember, and she mentioned an employee I never heard of—Roy. She doesn’t remember his last name. She says he was there. He spoke to the cops, yet I never heard his name before now.”
Ford made a note. Finding that witness would be first on his priority list.
They talked a long time. Hours. Ford persuaded Robyn to share his dinner, since there was plenty. By the time they were done, Ford had extracted every small memory Robyn had of the crime and the aftermath. He’d spent more time, focused exclusively on her, than he would have on a date. She’d been cautious at first, wary of saying something wrong. But gradually, as the hours passed, he wore down her caution and resistance until she quit censoring herself.
The challenging edge in her blue eyes softened.
Something else happened, though it was hardly unexpected. Ford found himself wanting her with the same intensity he’d felt in high school.
“Do you still smoke?” he asked abruptly, half hoping she would say yes. Nothing turned him off more than the smell of cigarettes on a woman.
“What?” She laughed. “Where did that come from?”
“I don’t know. I just remembered that you smoked in high school. Down by the Art Building.”
“How would you know what went on at the Art Building? You and your jock friends probably never set foot in there. Too afraid someone would think you were gay.”
True enough. He wouldn’t have been caught dead taking an art class. He’d taken music appreciation to satisfy his arts credits, and that was bad enough.
Ford shrugged. “I spied on you.”
“You mean, you were like a student narc?” she said, her distaste evident.
He shook his head. “No, that wasn’t it at all. I just liked to watch you.” He couldn’t believe he was telling her this. But the woman had just told him about her and Eldon’s sexual habits, and he’d shared nothing with her. Not that working this case had anything to do with mutual sharing. But he appreciated her frankness, and wanted to keep the honest line of communication open. A little confession on his part was good for his soul.
“You were a Peeping Tom.”
“I didn’t say I spied on you in the girls’ locker room.” So much for confession. Maybe it was better if he abandoned this line of conversation. He could interrogate the hardest of criminals, but when it came to sharing his own feelings, he was a washout. Kathy, his ex-wife, had pointed that out to him with annoying frequency. When she wasn’t badgering him to seek another promotion.
“I quit smoking when I got engaged to Eldon. He tried to make me over into someone worthy to be a Jas person.”
“How’d that work for him?”
“Not well enough, in his mother’s opinion. She thought a degree in art was useless, a career as a teacher was common. And working with disadvantaged kids? Repulsive. ‘God knows what sort of parasites and germs you bring home from work.’”
“I
