“Sure, and we can also ask Reed. The FBI manages the national facial recognition software, and they might have the necessary tools to do it.”
She nodded. “I’ll text them both if you’ll prepare to send the photo.”
“Why don’t we finish looking at these videos first? Our guy might come back in the door, and we’ll have a better look at him.”
“That sounds good.” She tried not to pin her hopes on that fact but demolished the rest of her burrito as she watched. She didn’t even taste the food, but she had to eat to keep up her strength to help nab the killer.
They didn’t see the suspect again, so they emailed the video to Nick and Reed and moved on to the garage. Three stacks of boxes remained, one of them all paperwork and books that her parents had loved. She remembered seeing a picture of the built-in bookshelf in the living room loaded with these books, and she couldn’t wait to put them back on the shelf in the same order. Hopefully, the other decorative items were in the remaining boxes.
“Would you look at that.” Ian lifted something from the bottom of a box and held up a zipped nylon case. “You know what this is, don’t you?”
She shook her head.
He slid open the zipper and set the case on the box to reveal a full-sized telephone handset with a cord. “It’s a bag phone.”
He lifted the end of another cord. “This plug goes into a car cigarette lighter to get power and allow the owner to make calls. It was used before cell phones were common. Not a lot of people had them because they were expensive, and the calls were really costly too. I wonder if your mom and dad had it in the car at the time of their crash.”
Hope built in Malone’s stomach. “If they did, do you think we could get phone records to see who they called?”
“We’ll need to go through the boxes of paperwork to see if the executor kept phone bills. And while we’re at it, we can look for bills for the landline at this place too.”
Pumped by a potential lead, they switched their attention to the other boxes and flipped through folder after folder until Malone located a utilities folder. She paged through the papers and held the file up. “Phone bills for the house.”
“Perfect,” he said. “Set it aside, and we’ll keep looking for the bag phone records. I’ll get the information to Londyn so she can work on compiling a list of names to go with numbers we find.”
Still looking through the boxes, Ian paused to study a folder. “This is interesting. Not related to the phone but to your dad’s work.”
He turned the file, allowing her to look at it. She read articles about how Chinese drywall containing formaldehyde had been imported into the United States. The drywall off-gassed volatile chemicals and fumes. It worsened when temperature and humidity rose and gave off a sulfuric odor. Smelled like rotten eggs and caused copper surfaces to turn black and powdery. People in homes with the drywall installed had breathing issues.
She looked up. “What if my dad’s company imported this drywall and tried to cover it up? Could he have been planning to blow the whistle?”
Ian’s lips pressed together. “If so, it’s certainly something that would cost the company a lot of money to repair.”
“I’m assuming there would be class action lawsuits too. That would add even more to their costs.”
Ian met her gaze and held it. “If the people in charge at the company wanted to keep it quiet, it certainly could be something worth killing to cover up.”
8
Early the next morning, Malone shifted on the stool at her kitchen island, Ian sitting next to her. She tapped her foot and couldn’t wait to go to Peck’s place. Like she’d told Ian, she didn’t know why, but just knowing that Emory and the criminalist would process the car gave her hope that she would find the person who killed her parents. Even after hearing the news the night before, she was still shocked to learn they’d been murdered. She needed answers. Desperately. Not only who killed her parents, but who killed Junior and how his murder was related to her, if it even was.
Hopefully, the video call from Nick and Erik would provide some of those answers. They’d canceled the morning meeting with the Veritas partners, as Nick and Erik were the only ones on the team with an update. Malone and Ian were waiting for them to join the call.
She shifted on her stool again and resumed thumping her foot on the rung as she waited for the guys to appear on her computer screen.
“You look antsy,” Ian said.
“Sorry. I think things are settling in. It’s starting to hit me.” She took a breath. “I never imagined Junior’s claim at the reunion would turn out to be true.”
“I get that.” He held her gaze. “But it’s good to know the truth, right?”
“Yeah, sure,” she said.
“I hear abutin your tone.”
“But now I know it wasn’t a fluke accident. Someone intentionally ended their lives.”
“I see the families of victims all the time. Witness their suffering at such a sudden loss of life. But I’ve never felt it as deeply as I do with you.” Conviction rang through his tone.
