Chat - Archer Mayor [106]
“What about the wife and daughter?” Joe asked. “Pardon my prejudice, but when I hear horses, I hear more their gender than Leppman’s. Did they hang around the vet at all, or visit the stables?”
“No on the first,” Sam told him, “but yes on the second. They both ride, but neither of them seems to have Leppman’s curiosity about everything. In fact, a stable girl we talked to said none of them really liked the women that much—thought they were kind of snotty.”
Joe let out a sigh. “All right, so, right now, all three are a wash.”
“ ’Fraid so.”
“What else?”
“We met with Matt Aho and really went through his list of possibles,” Les volunteered, trying to sound helpful.
“You get anything?” Willy asked.
Sam answered from her desk. “Could be.” She sat back to explain. “We not only ran Aho through the wringer, trying to get him to remember anything he could, but we also chased after most of the people he’d highlighted, just in case one of them might’ve seen something.”
“What we found,” Spinney picked up, “maybe falls into the category of pure dumb luck. The day Leppman came to visit, he had an escort from their patrol division—not for security, since they considered him an insider, but to introduce him to a couple of people he didn’t know.”
“Richard Lloyd’s his name,” Sam resumed. “But he wasn’t there when we were, so I left a message that we’d like to have a chat.” She tapped her computer screen. “I just got an e-mail from him that he’s in the office right now if we want to talk to him.”
She looked questioningly at Joe.
“Go for it,” he urged, his frustration mounting.
She reached for the phone, dialed the number, and hit the speaker button. In less than a minute, they all heard a young man’s voice fill the room.
“Hello, this is Officer Lloyd.”
“This is Special Agent Sam Martens of the Vermont Bureau of Investigation, Officer Lloyd,” she said in her official voice. “You’re on speaker phone, just so you know, and you and I are not alone.”
“Okay” was the hesitant reply.
“A few weeks ago, you escorted a man named John Leppman while he was visiting your PD, is that correct?”
“Sure,” said Lloyd, some of the tension easing in his voice. “He had to meet with a bunch of people, like the chief, somebody from accounting, and a couple of the detectives. I guess it was the deputy chief who didn’t want him to get lost in the building.”
“And how did that go?” Sam asked leadingly.
“Good. Fine. He met who he was supposed to meet, and then he left.”
“You were with him the whole time?”
“Yeah. Never left his side.”
“What kinds of things did he do there?”
“I didn’t get it all. It was computer stuff. He helps out catching people through the Internet, so some of it was case related, some of it was schmoozing—like with the chief—and the accounting part was so he could get paid back for something. I don’t really know what that was.”
“How would you describe his demeanor during the visit?”
“He was cool. A nice guy. Relaxed, friendly. I didn’t pick up on anything wrong.”
“He never tried to ditch you, however subtly, like with a sudden trip to the bathroom?”
Lloyd thought back for a moment before answering. “No. He was only there for a little over an hour. Guess he never got the urge.”
“And you didn’t, either?”
“Nope. Just his daughter.”
There was a sudden silence in the room.
“Hello?”
“Yeah, hi,” Joe said, speaking for the first time. “This is Agent Gunther. Leppman had his daughter with him?”
“Yeah.”
“And she did go to the bathroom?”
“Right—once.”
“She asked to do that shortly after you passed the supply room, is that correct?”
Now, the pause was on Lloyd’s part, as he assimilated the question and its possible meanings. “Yeah—I think it was. How did you know that?”
“It connects to something we’re looking into. What was she like? Wendy, right?”
“Yeah—Wendy. Gee, I don’t know. Nice enough lady—a little older than me . . . kind of wired. She laughed a lot, talked too much. I remember her father asking if she was all right.”
“What did