Until Dark - Mariah Stewart [78]
Cole Gamble of the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department was looking out the window when the dark blue sedan pulled into the parking lot. He’d been looking forward to this meeting ever since John Mancini, who was head of some special investigative unit of the FBI, had called him the day before and asked that he cooperate with a field agent who’d be visiting the following day. If Mancini’s polite request hadn’t caught his attention, the case they were looking into surely did. Cole Gamble had vivid memories of the Smith case. Two boys disappearing in the hills, no trace ever found. A third boy found hysterical in the clutches of a convicted child rapist, who was promptly arrested for the murder of the two missing boys. A sensational trial. A conviction that was based, some legal purists argued, on the thinnest of circumstantial evidence and an overabundance of emotion.
Cole Gamble remembered every bit of it. He’d been fifteen years old at the time, three years older than Zach Smith. And until Edward Paul Webster had been tried, convicted, and locked away forever, Cole’s mother had barely let him out of her sight.
The car’s headlights still illumined part of the lot, then dimmed just before a tall man got out from behind the wheel. He was met in front of the car by a small, slender woman. The lot was too dark to see either of their faces, but he knew the woman was the sister of one of the boys, the one from back East, and the man was some hotshot FBI agent who used to play pro football. Mancini had mentioned his name, but right now Sheriff Gamble was focused on the woman. He’d seen her years before. The newspapers had been filled with her picture, and that of her mother, back during the days of the trial. He’d even seen her in front of the old courthouse a couple of times. He remembered how fragile she had looked, yet how steadily she’d supported her mother to the waiting car.
“Sheriff Gamble?” The agent now stood in the doorway.
Stark. Right. Adam Stark. Played for the Steelers. Retired to join the FBI. Who in their right mind did a thing like that?
“Yes. Agent Stark, Ms. Smith.” The young sheriff greeted them both with a smile.
“I hope we didn’t keep you too late.” Kendra took the hand he extended to her.
“Not at all. You’re actually earlier than I’d expected.”
“Agent Stark drives like a . . .”
Adam coughed.
“. . . like the wind.” She smiled.
“I’m sure he does,” Gamble nodded and shook the agent’s hand. “Come on into my office. I already have the old files out. As you would expect, a lot of investigation went into this case. There were boxes of interviews, records, reports . . .”
Adam and Kendra followed Gamble into a room where several open boxes containing manila files sat on the floor, three chairs were arranged around a small round table, and fresh coffee dripped into a waiting pot. The sheriff offered mugs to his visitors, and when everyone was settled, he rested his arms on the table and said, “Agent Mancini gave me a rundown on the case you’re working, and the reasons why you wanted to revisit this one. But I’m not certain I understand exactly what you’re looking for.”
“Something that could connect our killer to the disappearance of my brother and cousin.” Kendra explained that Ian’s watch had recently been found. “Someone, at some time, had to come in contact with him—or with his body—for them to have gotten his watch.”
“Maybe he dropped it on the trail,” Gamble offered, “and someone picked it up.”
“With all the publicity surrounding the case, don’t you think that anyone finding such a thing would have brought it right to the police?” Adam pointed out.
“Not necessarily. Maybe someone wanted a souvenir. You have to understand that this was the biggest happening in Cochise County since the Earp brothers took on the Clanton clan at the OK Corral.” Gamble sipped at his coffee, then added a bit more sugar. “And there’s always the possibility that the watch had been dropped but not found for several years. Maybe someone finding it years after the fact wouldn’t have made the