The killer took his time climbing the stairs. Maybe he wanted to make sure Jason was caught truly unaware. It wasn’t until eleven-eighteen on the dot that the second-floor camera tilted up. The killer wasn’t as adept this time. Lena imagined he’d slipped on the stairs. The camera had only tilted slightly, at an angle rather than straight up, and she worked the pause until she caught sight of the tip of a wooden baseball bat. The rounded end was easily distinguishable, but the Rawlings logo gave it away. She recognized the lettering style from her softball days.
At eleven-twenty-six and two seconds, the xenon light once again flashed against the first-floor ceiling as the exit door opened. The killer had taken roughly eight minutes to end Jason’s life.
Marla knocked on the door as she walked into the room. Lena paused the tape she was staring at—the digital film of the empty parking lot in front of the library. “What is it?”
“You’ve got a visitor.” Marla turned on her heel and left.
Lena tossed down the remote, thinking Marla Simms was one person she would not miss when she left this place. Actually, now that she gave it some consideration, Lena could not name one person in town she couldn’t live without. It seemed odd to feel so detached from a group of people who had comprised her world for the last several years. Lena had always thought of Grant County as her home, the police force as her family. Now, she could only think about how good it would feel to finally be rid of them.
She pushed open the metal fire door and walked into the squad room. Lena stopped when she saw the woman waiting in the lobby, instantly recognizing Sheila McGhee from the picture Frank had taken out of Allison’s wallet. They had all been sitting on a bench in front of the student center. The boy Lena now knew was Jason Howell had his arm around Allison’s waist. Sheila sat beside her niece, close but not too close. The sky was deep blue behind them. The leaves had started to fall.
In person, Sheila McGhee looked thinner, harder. Lena had thought from the photo that she was local town trash, and now she guessed Sheila was the Elba, Alabama, version of the same. She was the sort of stick thin you got from eating too little and smoking too much. Her skin hung limply from the bones of her face. Her eyes were sunken. The woman in the photo had been smiling. Sheila McGhee looked like she would never smile again.
She nervously clutched her purse in front of her stomach as Lena approached. “Is it true?”
Marla was at her desk. Lena reached across and pressed the buzzer to open the gate. “Why don’t you come back?”
“Just tell me.” She grabbed Lena’s arm. She was strong. The veins along the back of her hand looked like braided pieces of twine.
“Yes,” Lena confirmed. “Allison is dead.”
Sheila wasn’t convinced. “She looked like a lot of girls.”
Lena covered the woman’s hand with her own. “She worked at the diner down the street, Mrs. McGhee. Most of the cops who work here knew her. She was known to be a very sweet girl.”
Sheila blinked several times, but her eyes were dry.
“Come back with me,” Lena offered. Instead of leading her to the interrogation room, she went into Jeffrey’s office. Oddly, Lena felt a sudden pang of loss. She understood that somewhere in the back of her mind, she’d thought that in ten, maybe fifteen years, she’d rightfully have this office. Lena hadn’t realized the dream was even there until she’d lost it.
Now wasn’t the time to dwell on her own broken dreams. She indicated the two chairs on the other side of the desk. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Sheila sat on the edge of the seat, her purse in her lap. “Was she raped? Just tell me right out. She was raped, wasn’t she?”
“No, she wasn’t raped.”
The woman seemed confused. “Did that boyfriend of hers kill her?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Lena sat down beside her. She kept her hand in her lap. The skin was hotter than before. Every heartbeat shot a throb through her fingers.
Sheila said, “His name’s Jason Howell. She’s been seeing him a couple of years. They weren’t getting along lately. I don’t know what was going on. Some kind of disagreement or something. Allison was torn up about it but I told her to just let him go. Ain’t no man worth that kind of misery.”
Lena flexed her hand. “I’ve just come from the college, Mrs. McGhee. Jason Howell is dead. He was murdered last night.”
She looked as shocked as Lena had felt when she’d heard the news from Marty. “Murdered? How?”
“We think he was killed by the same man who murdered your niece.”
“Well …” She shook her head, confused. “Who would kill two college students? They didn’t have a dime between them.”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out.” Lena paused, giving the woman time to recover. “If you could think of anybody in Allison’s life, a person she mentioned, maybe something she’d gotten mixed up in that she couldn’t—”
“That don’t even make sense. What could Allison do to anybody? She never hurt nobody.”
“Did she ever tell you about her friends? Talk about anybody in her life?”
“There was that Tommy. He’s retarded, got a thing for her.” Realization dawned. “Have you talked to him?”
“Yes, ma’am. We cleared him of the crime.”
She kept clutching the purse in her lap. “What about that landlord? Seemed like he had a jealous girlfriend.”
“They were both in Florida when the crime was committed.”
Tears moistened her eyes but didn’t fall. She was obviously trying to think of someone else who could have done this. Finally, she gave up, taking a short breath and letting it out between her lips. Her shoulders slumped. “None of this makes sense. None of it.”
Lena kept her own counsel. She had been a cop for fifteen years and she had yet to work a murder case that made much sense. People always killed for the stupidest reasons. It was depressing to think that life held such little value.
Sheila opened her purse. “Can I smoke in here?”
“No, ma’am. Would you like to go outside?”
“Too damn cold.” She chewed at her thumbnail as she stared at the wall. The rest of her nails were chewed to the quick. Lena wondered if Allison had picked up the habit from her aunt. The girl’s nails had been painfully short.
Sheila said, “Allison had a professor she was mad at because he gave her a bad grade.”
“Do you remember his name?”
“Williams. She’s never made a C on a paper in her life. She was pretty upset about it.”
“We’ll look into that,” Lena told her, but she’d already talked to Rex Williams. He’d been in New York with his family since Saturday afternoon. A call to Delta confirmed his alibi. “Did Allison have a car?”
Her eyes shifted to the floor. “It was her mama’s. She kept it in Judy’s name because the insurance was cheaper that way.”
“Do you remember the make and model?”
“I don’t know. It was old, held together by spit and rust. I can look it up when I get home.” She clutched her purse as if she was ready to leave. “Do you need me to do that now?”