Dead Certain - Mariah Stewart [36]
The victim’s companion, Clark Lehmann, would have made a perfect suspect, too, but his phone records proved that he’d been at home, calling around, looking for Derek, on the night of the murder, just as he’d said. There were hardly more than forty minutes unaccounted for the entire night. Of course, conceivably, he could have killed Derek before he’d left the house, driven the car to the park where it was found the next morning . . .
Nah. There just wasn’t enough time for him to have done that. When Lehmann had said he’d called everyone he knew that night, he wasn’t kidding. His phone records bore that out. He’d made several long distance calls that accounted for most of the evening. He wouldn’t have had time to have driven the car to the park, positioned Derek behind the wheel, shot him, then walked back home.
Unless someone was working with him. Someone who met him at the crime scene, drove him home . . .
Maybe that’s how it had gone down. Maybe Lehmann and someone else—maybe Amanda—had planned it down to the minute. Maybe Lehmann had gone with Derek to Amanda’s, had somehow gotten Derek to stop at the park, where . . .
Where what? Where Lehmann jumped into the backseat, put a bullet through Derek’s head, then jumped into Amanda’s car, she drove him home, then rushed home to place the first phone call to Lehmann . . . ?
“It didn’t happen that way,” he said softly. “There was only one set of tire tracks at the park. . . .”
Besides, this was a simple murder. Somehow the murderer had gotten into the backseat of Derek’s car, put the gun to his head, pulled the trigger. Got back out of the car and calmly left the scene. There was no sign of gravel being kicked up by a car racing away. No sign of panic. Nothing to suggest this hadn’t simply been a cold-blooded murder.
He didn’t think Lehmann or Crosby was capable of that.
He glanced at the clock. Barely six in the morning. Too early to call Clark Lehmann to ask if he’d been able to come up with any reason why someone would have wanted Derek dead.
He’d already spoken with all of Derek’s friends, and every single one of them could account for their time that night. Most had been contacted by Clark at some point over the course of the evening. All of them said that they couldn’t imagine Derek stopping to pick up a stranger.
Well, somewhere between his house and the park he must have picked up someone. Someone who’d been very, very careful to leave no prints, no trace of any kind. He must have gone over the backseat of the car with one of those sticky-tape rollers, because the preliminary tests had come up with no hairs, no fibers that they couldn’t identify.
What kind of person would be that thorough?
Sean reviewed what he knew about Clark Lehmann. Members of Lehmann’s family and many of his friends had already been interviewed. All had agreed that there was no question that Derek and Clark had been devoted to each other. No one knew of any friction between them, nor was there any talk of any problems in their relationship. They’d just returned from a vacation they’d planned together, and by all accounts the two men had had a wonderful time. And while they’d had reciprocal wills, there was no question that of the two, Clark Lehmann—heir to a sizable fortune—was far better off financially than Derek was. All Clark stood to inherit was Derek’s half of the house and a vacation property. Maybe half a million dollars, all told. A lot to someone like Sean. Peanuts to someone in Lehmann’s position.
Amanda, on the other hand, inherited Derek’s half of the business. Admittedly, it wasn’t worth a whole lot, especially since Derek had just spent most of their nest egg on one item that was going to be returned to its rightful owner with no reimbursement to the business. Nothing there worth