Playing Dead_ A Novel of Suspense - Allison Brennan [60]
And because she knew, even at fourteen, that she’d been so wrong about her mother. The good and the bad.
Waves of agony washed over Claire. “I’m sorry, Mom. I really did love you.”
I’m sorry, Dad. I should have believed you from the beginning. But it looked like you’d killed them.
Maybe if Claire had been more open to listening to Oliver Maddox, he would have shared with her his theory. If she had just given him half a chance, she could have been working this for the last four months. Oliver might not have died.
Maybe she would have.
The facts jumped around in her brain. The killer must have known what Oliver had found, and feared exposure. But maybe Oliver didn’t realize the importance of what he had, otherwise why wouldn’t he have gone to the police? Oliver had been murdered—she was certain of it, no matter that Dave told her last night that his car crash into the Sacramento River could have been an accident.
She needed the coroner’s reports. Both for her mother and Chase Taverton, and for Oliver Maddox. Fortunately, she knew the supervising forensic pathologist at the morgue.
Mitch and Steve walked into the Davis Police Department at 10:30 Thursday morning after finishing up with the autopsy and working out jurisdictional evidence issues with the sheriff’s department. The flash drive was already on its way to the FBI’s computer forensics laboratory in Menlo Park, less than three hours away. They figured the best way to preserve any information that had been saved on the chip within the submerged stomach of Oliver Maddox was to have the best computer minds in the Bureau work it.
Detective Theo Barker introduced himself to the Feds. “I made you a copy when you called earlier,” he said.
“Thanks,” Mitch said and glanced through the report. Standard missing persons—the girlfriend called it in three days after she last saw Maddox, which was approximately noon on Sunday, January 20 when she left him, alone, at his town house on F Street. A neighbor reported seeing the white Explorer pull out of the driveway at dusk—which put his departure roughly at 5:30 p.m. That was the last reported sighting of Oliver Maddox.
There were interviews with the girlfriend, his advisor, classmates, neighbors, and his grandmother who lived in the Midwest. Nothing unusual, but Mitch would need to read it in more depth.
“Sorry to hear he’s dead,” Barker said, “but that’s what I suspected. Young college student like that without financial or female problems doesn’t just walk off. But what is the interest of the FBI? Your people don’t investigate routine traffic fatalities.”
“The cause of death is possible homicide,” Steve said.
“The FBI doesn’t usually investigate routine homicides, either.”
“We’re working with the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department,” Steve said. “Maddox was a person of interest related to one of the fugitives from San Quentin.”
“Think a convict killed him? I hadn’t heard of any in this area.”
“No, he was dead before the earthquake,” Mitch interjected.
“By the way, there’s a private investigator interested in the file. A real looker.”
Mitch knew it was Claire, but asked anyway. “Do you have her name?”
Barker slid over a business card. “I didn’t know Rogan-Caruso would take such a small case, but live and learn.”
Mitch picked up the card. CLAIRE O’BRIEN, LICENSED INVESTIGATOR. Steve glanced at him without expression. “Thanks,” Mitch said. “Appreciate the help.”
They left the police station and drove over to the university. Steve asked, “How did she find out Maddox was missing?”
“Maybe she knows he’s dead,” Mitch said. “She has a lot of friends on the force.”
“She’s walking into the gray area,” Steve warned.
“I know.”
Steve’s cell rang and while he talked, Mitch ran through last night. Claire was definitely more on edge than she’d been in the recent past, but he couldn’t pinpoint any one thing that made him suspect she had been in communication with her father. Yet it looked as if she’d taken on her father’s cause.
Steve