“More than that. Pressure to start looking for the real killer.”
Chapter 9
“Just to be clear,” I add, “I’m not convinced Ruck was telling the truth. But I want Halligan to know I’m now seriously considering that possibility—and I want to see what he does about it besides talking to some kind of profiler.”
Logan starts to say something, then swivels around in his chair, obviously checking to confirm that we still have the room to ourselves. And we do.
“I’m totally in line with you,” he says, turning back around but lowering his voice.
“Meaning you think the killer could still be out there?”
“Yeah, possibly. And what’s the worst that could happen if we press for a new investigation? The cops either do enough digging to prove that Ruck reallywasguilty, or they learn it was someone else.”
I bet Logan’s been thinking this way since we left police headquarters but was tiptoeing around with me, trying to sense where my head was at.
“Since you’ve had most of the contact with Halligan, can you let him know where we stand?” I ask.
“Yup, first thing tomorrow.”
Fatigue is starting to creep up on me again, but there’s a question I need to ask so that it won’t be throbbing in my head all night like a toothache.
“Do you think we should have pushed harder years ago?” My voice catches as I say it. “And not been so quick to believe it was Ruck once we heard about him?”
Logan shakes his head. “Honestly, no. The MO was the same as the two Plattsburgh cases, and he’d been right here in town when Mel died.”
“But it could all be a coincidence, right? A killer who just happened to operate the way Ruck did?”
“If it turns out he didn’t do it, then coincidence would be the first explanation ... Or maybe what you suggested when I was in Uruguay—a copycat. I don’t think it’s likely, but it might be time to consider that, too.”
He clearly misunderstood me last week.
“I brought up the wordcopycatbecause I wondered ifyouwere thinking that way, not because I was. I’m still not. As you said, only Sailor was dead by the time Mel was killed, and no one was talking about that case yet. How would a killer have known what to copy?”
“Right, of course. It’s too far-fetched.”
I’ve been letting my gaze bounce around a bit, but now I look directly into Logan’s eyes. Though his expression gives nothing away, I’m sure he’s just jumped to the same thought I have.
“Do you think it was someone Mel knew?” I ask.
He steeples his hands and presses them against his lips, taps a few times, then drops them into his lap.
“You mean like Jack?” he says.
I nod. It makes sense for Jack Lawler’s name to cross our minds right now. He was Melanie’s boyfriend at the time, or rather, her ex because, as she’d told us without explanation, they’d split soon after the start of the school year. The police talked to him more than once, and he soon became grist for the fast-churning campus rumor mill.
Logan and I felt torn about him at the time. We knew that, statistically, male exes kill their former girlfriends and wives in not-small numbers, but that’s mostly when they’re enraged over being dumped, and Jack made it clear to us and others that he was the one who’d broken things off. Plus, he had a decent—though not airtight—alibi for the night of the murder. He’d been on campus, he said, and someoneconfirmed seeing him fairly close to the window of time when Mel must have been killed.
And then, of course, it all became a moot point when Ruck was arrested in Plattsburgh several weeks later. Jack receded into the background for us, not much more than a blip in Mel’s short life.
“Yes, Jack,” I say. “His name is bound to surface again, right?”
“I would assume so, though if they reopen this thing, they’re also going to be looking at guys with records around here. Sexual predators, Peeping Toms ...”
In other words, more compelling suspects. Besides his apparent lack of motive, Jack, the self-possessed, slightly broody aspiring actor, hadn’t seemed up to such a brutal act of violence.
Though how can you ever be sure of what someone is capable of? Perhaps Jack had suddenly wanted Mel back, but she refused to take him.
Or there’d been someone else with a hatred for our enchanting daughter. We should have asked more questions then.
