“I—”
“Grant me the goddamn interview.”
Dawson’s imperious shout took him aback, but it also worked. He unfolded his arms. He licked his lips. “It’ll be like a webcam.”
“Fine.”
“I’ll be right there the whole time.”
“Fine.”
“I’ll record the entire interview and have it transcripted afterward.”
“Fine.”
“If you slander him, I’ll sue you and your magazine.”
Dawson stood up. “Deal.”
The short-notice meeting with the prisoner took time to arrange. It seemed interminably long to Dawson, who paced while Gleason dealt with staff who seemed to have nothing but time on their hands. Eventually, they were situated in a room that allowed them a video interview with Willard Strong.
In another part of the jail, Strong was led into a room, manacled and shackled. Radiating hostility, he slumped down into the chair in front of the monitor through which he could communicate. He regarded his lawyer with patent contempt. Then his belligerent gaze shifted to Dawson. “Who the fuck are you?”
Dawson gave him a lazy smile. “Be nice, Willard. I’m the guy who’s here to save your sorry self.
”
* * *
Amelia and Headly were headed back toward the jail. She was driving. Headly was in the passenger seat, talking on his cell phone to Knutz. A minor collision on the expressway had slowed traffic to a crawl. The sheriff’s unmarked cars were having as much difficulty switching lanes as she.
Headly ended his conversation. “Knutz is trying to buy us more time, using that phone call to Dawson’s boss as leverage. Why would little ol’ Bernie phone her in the first place? Why would he lie?”
“Unless he was Carl.”
“Knutz is acting on that. Meanwhile the boat hasn’t given up any clues.”
Nor had the strongbox. Nothing useful was discovered: no map, property deed, lease, or paperwork of any kind.
That having proved fruitless, they’d divided the list of Jeremy’s former friends that she’d compiled, and working on their separate cell phones, the two of them had placed dozens of calls. In preparation for the inevitable question Why are you asking me about Jeremy now? Headly had made up an explanation involving a fictitious tax return with a questionable deduction that was affecting the trust funds set up for Hunter and Grant. He’d advised Amelia on the buzzwords to use.
“Do you think they’ll understand that gibberish?” she asked.
“No. And to avoid any further involvement, no one will ask for clarity. That’s the point.”
Many of the numbers they called were no longer in service. Some had been answered by voice mail, on which they’d left messages asking the individual to call them back on a matter of grave importance.
Of the few people with whom they’d spoken, all were reluctant to talk about Jeremy and were actually ill at ease for having been singled out as a former acquaintance. Most reactions were wary, some downright hostile.
Repeatedly both Headly and Amelia were told that the questions they were putting to them now had already been asked by police more than a year earlier, when Jeremy went missing and was presumed dead. They’d told everything they knew then.
She braked for a pickup truck trying to wedge its way in and looked over at Headly. “Where do we go from here?”
“Maybe Dawson got something out of Willard.” He shifted in his seat and turned slightly toward her. “What do you think of him?”
“He gives me the creeps.”
He laughed. “I meant Dawson. Or does he give you the creeps?”