Page 4 of Lawman’s Witness

Josie didn’t respond right away. “It will depend on his alibi and how airtight it is. He must have found a way to be in both places. I want to see this neighborhood,” she said as she drove away from the police department.

Amy Sue felt chilled even on the sunny warm day at the thought of going back to the scene. Why hadn’t she listened to her intuition last night? She’d been spooked in that unfinished neighborhood. It had felt all wrong. She had actually thought about not getting out of the car last night. “I should have just gone to a hotel, but you know me. I paid for a cute little apartment and was determined to stay there even though the area gave me the creeps.”

“Things often happen for a reason,” Josie said. “If you hadn’t been scammed and gone to that address, you wouldn’t have witnessed the murder, and Jack Marshall would have gotten away with it.”

She couldn’t help scoffing. “It looks like he’ll get away with it anyway.”

“Give the detectives a chance,” Josie said. “In your statement, you said the neighborhood is under construction. I’m curious as to who is involved in the project.”

“You think Jack Marshall might be one of the investors?”

“Probably not. But I’m betting some friend of his is. He had a key or at least knew the door would be open to the house you described. He planned this. He would have checked out the place beforehand. He’d know about the plastic sheeting. To pull this off, he’d been prepared—right down to disposing of the body and nailing down his alibi.”

She couldn’t help the shudder at the thought of how well-planned this murder had to have been as they drove south of Billings proper. No wonder the police hadn’t believed her. She could hardly believe it herself.

Now in the daylight she could see that she’d been right. All of the structures in this cul-de-sac appeared to be under construction. A large sign read Johnstone Construction in front of one of the houses. Would the police look for a connection between Jack Marshall and this project?

There was no crime scene tape stretched across the entrance to the cul-de-sac. Nor was there any sign of police cars. Amy Sue felt her stomach churn. Of course not, since the cops didn’t believe anyone had been murdered here by one of the leading businessmen in the city. By the time they’d arrived, Jack Marshall had already covered his tracks and was long gone.

“That’s the house and apartment building next to it,” she told her sister as Josie slowly drove around the loop to stop next to the larger of the two buildings. Around the cul-de-sac, other structures were in varying degrees of construction. She parked and turned off the engine before looking over at her.

“You don’t have to go, but I’d like to look around,” Josie said.

For a moment, Amy Sue hesitated, but reminded herself that she was a lot stronger than she thought she was. Isn’t that what her grandmother used to tell her? After what she’d been through, maybe it was true.

She opened her door and climbed out, blinking in surprise at how different the area looked in the daylight. Beyond the new subdivision, there were open fields. In the distance was downtown Billings. Last night with the low clouds, she hadn’t seen any lights. Nor was there anyone around this early in the morning. The construction crews wouldn’t be arriving for a few hours yet—if they worked on a Sunday. Unless you knew what had happened here, a person wouldn’t think there was anything scary about this place.

“Around back,” she told her sister, and couldn’t help glancing up at the second-story balcony where Jack Marshall had stood watching her drive off last night. She hugged herself against the chilly June morning as she hurried after her sister.

CHAPTER THREE

Josie looked around as she walked between the narrow apartment building and the house built so close next to it. She hadn’t seen any of this coming. That still surprised her. But since her fall and head injury, she no longer sensed trouble. It had been a relief to “see” nothing wrong.

But because of that she hadn’t thought anything of her sister going to a weeklong class in Billings. She’d actually been happy that Amy Sue was getting back out there after what she’d been through the past year. Sensing nothing amiss, she hadn’t been able to warn her.

“Start at the beginning and tell me exactly what you saw from the time you pulled up in front of the address you’d been given,” the attorney in Josie said.

She watched her sister take a breath and let it out. “It was really dark last night,” Amy Sue said, her voice cracking a little with obvious strain. Maybe it had been a mistake bringing her back here. Her sister was still shaken. “It looks so…different in the daylight.”

As Josie walked, she hated that Amy Sue might be right about the car dealer never standing trial for the murder. The police hadn’t believed there had even been a murder. Josie hated to think they might never know who the victim was let alone who had killed her. Given Jack Marshall’s alibi, it made even Josie question if her sister had actually seen what she thought she had. Amy Sue had fallen in love for the first time last year and almost died at the hands of a killer. Because of that trauma, she worried that her sister couldn’t trust her instincts.

But there was nothing wrong with her eyesight, Josie reminded herself.

“I thought I had the wrong address,” Amy Sue said as if reliving it. “Even in the dark, I saw that the structures weren’t finished. I felt spooked, but I’d paid good money for the place and…” She shook her head. “I know I should have just left and gone to a hotel, but I’d seen a photo of this cute little apartment… You must think I don’t have any good sense at all.”

“You wanted to believe that the apartment you rented for a week hadn’t been a scam,” Josie said as they reached the corner of the building. “Completely understandable.” For as long as Josie could remember, she’d encouraged her sister to listen to her instincts. If Amy Sue had last night, she’d have gone to hotel and missed seeing a murder. Josie could imagine how scary this place might have felt last night without any street or porch lights or illumination coming from any of the buildings.

She turned to see her sister tense as they went around the back of the apartment house. The rear portion of the house and a large window on the second floor came into view. “Where were you standing?”

Amy Sue moved past the recessed door to the back of the apartment house and pointed out the door and the entry pad on the wall that she’d stumbled into. “I was digging in my purse. I’d tossed my phone in, and of course it had gone to the bottom of the bag. That’s when I heard vehicles and then voices before I saw a light come on next door at the house.”

Josie glanced at the window at the rear part of the house where her sister had seen the murder. Given the short distance, it was no wonder Amy Sue had been able to describe both of the people she saw—the late twenties to early thirties blonde woman and Jack Marshall, a man in his early forties. This spot had given her sister a front-row seat to witness a murder.

But what gave Josie pause was that the killer would have been able to see Amy Sue just as clearly after she’d accidentally switched on the back light.

It was exactly as her sister had described it to the police—the room in the house had open studs and was clearly still under construction. The only thing missing was the plastic that had hung over the one visible doorway.

“One more thing,” Josie and, walked over to the back of the house, not surprised to find the door locked and the lockset requiring a key. Unless he’d had someone leave the door open, Jack Marshall had a key that he’d used to get inside.