Playing Dead_ A Novel of Suspense - Allison Brennan [71]
Using similar methodology, she eliminated half the Frank Lowes she’d uncovered. Then she started going through the remaining individuals more carefully, making notes. She was particularly interested in any jail time or arrests. If Taverton had made a plea agreement with Frank Lowe, he had to have been arrested at some point.
“He’s dead,” she said out loud when she came to a petty thief who had done time for burglary. She almost deleted his records from the search except for one thing: He’d died in a fire in the early morning hours of November 18, 1993. Less than a day after Chase Taverton was murdered.
She switched to LexisNexis, where she pulled up all newspaper articles related to the fire. Lowe had been a bartender who lived above a bar called Tip’s Blarney in downtown Sacramento. The fire was ruled arson, but the owner, Tip Barney, had been cleared of any wrongdoing and no one had been arrested. The building was a complete loss. One body was recovered, burned beyond identification. There were no dental records for Frank Lowe, but Barney said Lowe was the only person who lived in the building, and he’d left him there at one a.m. when Lowe closed for the night.
Maybe she had the wrong Frank Lowe. Oliver had told her father that Frank Lowe had information. How could a dead man have information?
She made notes on the remaining Frank Lowes, but she kept coming back to the dead bartender. He’d died the night after her mother and Taverton were killed. In an arson fire. She ran a search on Tip Barney, not knowing what, if anything, would pop up.
She almost jumped out of her chair. Barney now owned a bar in Isleton. Oliver’s Explorer was found in the river outside of Isleton.
That was a coincidence Claire planned to follow up on. Tonight.
She glanced at her watch. It was nearly four!
She was supposed to meet Mitch at her house at six, but first she needed to see Bill. She’d told him she’d stop by this afternoon. She had questions about Oliver Maddox as well as about her father’s trial. Questions that Bill might have the answers to—she’d just never wanted them before.
Four o’clock was shift change, from day to swing. Dave walked into the locker room and caught up with Phil and Eric arguing about the Kings game from the night before.
“It’s over,” Dave said. “There’s another game tomorrow.”
“Want to get a beer?” Eric asked.
“I told my dad I’d stop by,” Dave said. “He’s having problems with his air conditioner again.”
“He needs to hire a real repairman,” Phil said.
“How’s Claire?” Eric asked. “She left early last night.”
Dave didn’t want to talk about what he thought was going on with Claire. He had talked about it with his dad this morning, and Bill was concerned as well, but said Claire had called earlier and asked to come over that afternoon. Maybe it was a good sign. Claire had always been able to talk to Bill about what was troubling her. Bill was a great father, and Dave was glad he could share him with someone who needed a great father figure.
Tom O’Brien’s crimes had hurt everyone who knew him. Dave had respected the older, wiser cop. Tom had trained him, and Dave thought he’d known him. But he hadn’t. Dave had never thought Tom was capable of murder.
And worse, Dave hated that Claire paid the price, and was still in turmoil.
“Claire’s fine,” Dave said. “She had a date.”
“She should have brought him over for us to meet,” Eric said, then winked at Phil. “We’d have made sure he was good enough.”
“Why didn’t she bring him?” Phil asked Dave. “That’s unlike her. Especially someone she’s been seeing for a while.”
Dave tried to dismiss it with a wave. “She’s tired of the third degree on her boyfriends.”
“She’s never cared before,” Eric said.
“Maybe this guy’s different,” Dave said, feeling uncomfortable with this conversation. “Look, Claire is practically my sister. I can give her a hard time, but I think we should leave this alone until she’s ready to share.”
“Aren’t you