A: Exactly. Like real people go on.
Q: You go on a lot of… real-people dates, Denise?
A: Not me, no. I ain’t getting in someone’s car without seeing some bills.
Q: But Maria Elisandro did?
A: Maria said this was different.
Q: Different how?
A: Like someone nice. That’s what I’m saying. A real date. Maria had moved on, you know?
Q: She wasn’t a working girl anymore?
A: That’s what I’m telling you.
I stared at the interview, remembering a conversation I’d had with Frank back in 2019. Someone in the office had called Ed Offerman “straightforward.” In response, I had asked Frank a simple question—“So he’s like me?”
My boss shook his head. “You’re straightforward, Gardner, for sure. And sometimes you say things you shouldn’t. But Offerman? He’s callous. There’s a difference.”
I scanned the notes I’d been writing, then flipped to an interview Offerman had conducted after the bodies were dug up. This one was with Mila Jones, the sister of Susan Jones, the dead hotel manager. In the transcript, Mila reported that a man had come into the hotel office twice that week to talk to her sister, a man that Mila believed was not a hotel guest.
When Offerman tried to obtain more information from long-term hotel residents, he got nothing except a vague description of a white or Hispanic man. Eventually he called on a local artist, who drew multiple pictures of the suspect, each based on the testimony of the few eyewitnesses who could be cajoled into talking.
I laid the last page of notes flat on the desk and splayed out the four sketches to my right.
The job of a forensic sketch artist is nothing like that of their counterpart inside a courtroom. A courtroom sketch artist has the benefit of staring at a witness as they testify. A forensic artist mustelicit details from people’s memories, pulling specifics from the worst day of a victim’s life.
The sketches I was examining, however, were not drawn from the words of a victim but from third-party eyewitnesses: friends and family who saw this person of interest just one time but were not in jeopardy themselves.
“You’re thinking of something,” Richie said. “A question.”
I glanced up. “I am,” I said, cocking my head to encourage him to guess.
“How is this unknown male who’s wanted for three murders in Shilo,” he said, “connected to our dead C.I. down near Miami?”
“And?” I asked.
Richie put up both hands. “It’s like my dad says about the check at a nice restaurant: If you want to know the amount of the bill, you gotta pay for the meal.”
I smiled at Richie. It was nearly impossible to dislike him. He was too earnest. And I got his meaning: If we wanted to know more, we had to pause on Freddie and the guns and look into this.
“We’re gonna investigate this case, right?” he said. “Whether it’s small time compared to the ghost gun kits or not.”
“We have two and a half days,” I said.
“So we stay up here,” Richie said. “Grind on this ’til that DA’s ready?”
I nodded. “But when he is, Richie, you gotta understand that those guns take the A spot.”
“Sure.” He shrugged. “But this is connected to that. I’d put money on it.”
My eyes returned to the sketches. I slid two of them apart from the others. “These men look alike,” I said. “The other two are also similar to each other, but different from the first pair.”
I looked at the far-right image, which was the composite by FBI software.
“You think a couple of these aren’t accurate?” Richie pressed.
