I glanced across the sea of gray, racking my brain. Was there something I was missing?
“Crazy question,” I said, turning back to Riley. “But is anyone else who works here a Catholic?”
Riley bit her freckled lower lip. “I’m sure some people are—I think St. Tim’s has a decent-size parish—but that’s not the kind of thing that comes up in conversation. Mostly the guys here talk about football, basketball, and how big their boats are, which drives me insane.”
She patted the desk with her hands, eager, it appeared, to return to that tantalizing Excel file.
“Well, I should let you finish up. If you think of anything else about Shannon, will you let me know? Even the most minor thing.”
“Of course.... I’ll walk you out.”
I followed her back to the reception room. She looked tense, and something told me she wouldn’t be staying much longer today herself.
“I can’t believe they don’t have any leads,” she said, opening the door. “Can’t DNA tell them who did it?”
“DNA helps solve a lot of crimes but investigators don’t always find traces of it at a crime scene. And if the killer’s DNA isn’t in the system, there’s no one to match it to.”
“That’s not encouraging.”
“I know, but let’s stay positive. With any luck they’ll find him.”
In the parking lot, I took a couple of minutes to jot down notes from the conversation. Nothing much stood out to me as significant, but my mind was snagging on the weird discrepancy between how J.J. had characterized Shannon’s role at Baker and Riley’s description of what she’d actually done there. Had J.J. been jealous of her friend’s ambition and thus downplayed her efforts?
Before departing, I checked my phone for email and messages. Keith Windgate, the videographer Dodson had in mind to shoot me, had written to say he’d like to pick me up at my motel at noon tomorrow. Yippee. There was still no press release from the sheriff. And no word from Tom Nolan. He might have to be prodded.
Speaking of prodding, it was close to four and I needed to pound out my post. I pointed my Jeep north and headed back to the lovely Breezy Point. There wasn’t a single car in the parking lot when I arrived, but as I killed the engine, the white Camry I’d spotted this morning pulled in a few spots away.
I quickly hauled my butt out of the car, and, pretending to check my phone, loitered on the walkway in front of my unit. I was curious to finally set eyes on who had possiblypaused outside my door last night. I heard the Camry door swing open and glanced up.
I nearly dropped my phone as the driver emerged. It was the tall blond woman I’d seen jogging down Wheeler Road the day I arrived, the one who had been a dead ringer for Shannon Blaine.
Chapter 13
FOR A SPLIT SECOND,ITHOUGHT MY MIND WAS PLAYINGa trick on me, conjuring up an apparition of the jogger simply because she’d been tangled up in my thoughts. What was she doinghere, at the Breezy Point? She’d obviously checked out of wherever she’d been staying, which I’d already determined wasn’t the Lake Shore Motel.
Maybe she’d found the previous place lacking. Or maybe she’d been vacationing with a partner or lover and they’d had a major blowout last night, the kind where you not only call the person the greatest fucking asshole who’s ever lived, but you also storm out, slamming the door so hard that pictures bounce off the wall. There’s always a moment following one of those kinds of fights, as you are wheels up and headed south—or north or east or west—when you wonder if you’ll rue your decision because now the day or the night or your entire vacation is ruined, but you let it go because the smug satisfaction you’re experiencing makes mincemeat of regret. As a connoisseur of thecutting-off-one’s-nose-to-spite-one’s-face gesture, I could totally relate.
Well, at least the jogger hadn’t come to any harm, as I’d initially feared.
She had her phone out, too, I realized, and was now studying it, seemingly oblivious to my presence. I considered calling out to her, but then she darted into the unit so swiftly that I didn’t have the chance. Her license plate, I noticed, was from New York State. I discreetly snapped a photo of it with my cell phone, in case it might come in handy.
As I unlocked the door to my unit, my curiosity still piqued, my phone rang. Alice.
“So what do you think?” she said in lieu of hello.
“Hey, there. About what?”
“The news. The bodies.”
“Oh jeez, I checked my freaking phone ten minutes ago, and didn’t see anything.”
“Just came in.”
I put Alice on speaker and found the alert in my email, but she began reading out loud before I could scan it.
“‘We now have reason to believe that the remains discovered with Shannon Blaine’s are those of two local women who disappeared while camping on the eastern shore of Lake George ten years ago. This will have to be confirmed by DNA testing in the weeks ahead.’ You want me to keep going? There’s not much, just their names and stuff.”
“So we guessed right.”
