At the end of the row of carrels, a woman was talking animatedly through the glass. He could only see the back of her head and it was moving back and forth like a slingshot.
“Damn you, Luis, I’m not doing this again,” she said. “I’m done with you!”
Luis Guzman was the only other man in the jail.
That must be Mrs. Guzman, he thought, recalling a name he had seen above his on the sign-up sheet. Give ’em hell, honey.
Mitch Crawford approached from the other side of the room. He no longer looked like the self-absorbed prig that most said he was. His clothes were far from designer; he wore light blue pants with a drawstring waist and a T-shirt that hung loosely over his frame. His skin looked somewhat ashen and sweat beaded along his upper, unshaven lip. He slid into the chair and picked up the phone.
“What do you want?”
“I just want to talk to you.”
“Are you stupid or something? Without my lawyer, I’m not saying a word. You people have had it in for me from the minute Mandy went missing.”
Jason did feel stupid just then. The visit could get real ugly, when he’d only come to try to get a better handle on the Tricia Wilson deposition.
“I’m here about your wife,” he said, pausing, “your ex-wife, Patty.”
“You mean Tricia? That lying bitch!” Mitch’s eyes flashed hate.
“So you say. But can you prove it?” Jason held his tongue. He wanted to end the sentence with a snarky dude. He could see in two minutes why everyone hated Mitch Crawford. “Can you?”
“No. My word against hers. The jury will probably believe her. They always take the word of a woman. They can turn it on, you know.”
“Seems she might have come in to some money,” Jason said. “You wouldn’t happen to know how she could have got her hands on fifty grand?”
“That lowlife bitch? She’d have to blow a lot of guys to make that kind of money, so, no, I don’t know where she could have come up with it. You tell me.”
“Hey, I’m fact-finding here. Let’s go over a few more things. Your computer. Anyone have access to it? Housekeeper? Other family members?”
Mitch shook his head. “No. We run a tight ship at home. I tried to keep Mandy from pissing away our money. You know, tried to keep her on a short leash.”
I’ll bet you did.
“OK, I know that you’ve said you don’t think Mandy was having an affair with anyone, but, of course, we know otherwise. So who do you think it was? Who was she cheating with?”
Mitch Crawford’s face went scarlet, his lips white.
“You don’t think I’ve tried to figure that out? I’ve thought of everyone that bitch came in contact with. Maybe she was boning the mailman? Her doctor? Someone at work? I have no goddamn idea! If I did, I’ll tell you one thing, I wouldn’t be here under false murder charges. They’d have me here for the real thing. I’d kill the guy who screwed my wife and screwed my life.”
“This isn’t about pride. This is about finding out what happened the day Mandy disappeared. You know, the day your wife and unborn baby were murdered. Don’t you want to know, even if just to save yourself?”
A smile came over the inmate’s face. “Of course. I want to clear my name. I don’t want people thinking that I was some pussy who got cheated on by his no-good wife.”
“All right. Question.”
“What?”
“Who had access to your home computer? Think.”
Mitch stared through the glass panel. “I told you no one. We lived alone. We didn’t have cleaning staff. I did keep extra house keys at the dealership, if that makes a difference. I liked to take new cars home, so it was always easier to have some spares around.”
Jason brightened a little. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Who had access to your house keys?”
“No one except Darla, of course.”
“The girl you were banging?” Jason hated the term, but as Mitch Crawford thought of himself as some tough ladies’ man, he just went for it.
“Yeah, her. I’m not proud of it.”
“Did she have anything against Mandy?”
Mitch shrugged. “Just mad that she got everything she wanted. She had me, you know.”
An hour later, Emily found Jason in the front office talking with Gloria. He barely glanced at her. She could feel a chill in the air and knew it had nothing to do with the weather outside.
“I need to talk with you,” she said. “In my office, if that’s OK?”
Emily looked at Gloria, then back at Jason.
“All right. This sounds serious.”
They faced each other across her desk.
“Jason, I understand you went to the jail to see Mitch Crawford. What in the world were you thinking?”
“Were you spying on me or something?”
“God, no. Cary McConnell called. He says that his client called. This isn’t how we run a case. You know that.”
Jason’s eyes were downcast.
“You’ve been treating me like some kind of lackey around here, Sheriff.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“You do. You go to Chris for everything. He doesn’t work here. I do.”
Emily knew Jason was right and she felt so foolish for not considering his feelings, and even more so for not recognizing that his ability was far beyond coordinating witness statements and helping Gloria with the monthly case reports.
“Jason, we’re a team. You and I.”
“Treat me like a member of your team.”
“Fair enough. Did you find out anything when you saw Mitch?”
Jason told her about the house keys being under Darla’s control and Emily wondered if perhaps she’d been wrong about Darla. Maybe she had been the one threatening Samantha Phillips.
“Want me to go over there and check it out?” Jason asked.
“Yes, please.” She waited a beat. “Jason, you are my deputy. Chris offered to assist.”
“Yeah, but I heard you deputized him.”
“Only so he could help. He’s not here to replace you. OK?”
Jason looked down at the floor. “I’m glad to hear that, Sheriff, because I thought you and I worked well together. I’m not so green anymore, you know. I have more to contribute.”
“I know,” she said, now feeling a twinge of shame for keeping him outside an investigation that he had every right to be part of. “That’s why you need to see Darla. Find out about the security of the keys, all right?”
“Yes. Will do.”
Chapter Sixty-five
Steffi Johansson turned off the TV. Her heart had almost stopped beating. Spokane Afternoons had just aired a segment on the Mandy Crawford murder case. She had watched with keen interest, having been down at the Cherrystone jail looking at the lineup of potential suspects. She had wanted so much to help. There was something very unnerving about the handsome stranger who’d come into the coffee shop after supposedly traipsing around the woods in search of a Christmas tree.
The local TV show had done a nice job, showing Mandy’s mother and pictures of a little girl who would grow up only to be lost before she reached her fullest potential.
“All my daughter ever really wanted was to be a mom,” Hillary Layton had told the host. “She said she wished that someday she’d be as good of a mother as…I was to her.”
She felt her knees go weak as she went toward her purse and the telephone.
Oh, my God, she thought, I really did see that woman’s killer that night. I can identify him.