“Did you know about Pamela Stuart’s abduction?” Jo wasn’t backing down. “The young girl who went missing in Blackwater yesterday?”
“Well, it’s all over the news, so yeah, I heard.” Suffolk sighed. “So what? Kids go missing all the time.”
“Do they?” Jenna did not break eye contact. “Do you own or have you ever owned a drone?”
“No.” Suffolk glanced at his bare feet. “Is that all?”
Jenna had a thought. “Just one more question. Did you do the repairs on your wife’s vehicle?”
“Nope, I had it serviced at the garage in town.” Suffolk leaned against the doorframe, fully in control and relaxed. “I don’t have time to service vehicles.”
The car servicing would be easy to check and she wondered why it hadn’t been mentioned in the report, after a fatality. Jenna glanced at Carter but he didn’t have a question. “Okay. Thank you for your time.”
As the door shut in their face, Jenna hurried back along the pathway. She turned to Jo. “What do you think about Suffolk?”
“He’s overconfident, and like before has a solid alibi.” She frowned. “His job affords him the perfect excuse for moving around. It seems too much of a coincidence we have him in DC at the time of the bombings and both here.”
“The problem is, if everything checks out, we’re back to circumstantial evidence again.” Carter walked behind Jenna. “We need more to charge him with murder one.”
Jenna thought for a beat and turned to look at him. “Would it be enough to pull his phone records and see if he made a call around the time the explosives were detonated?”
“I figure that would be a waste of time.” Carter bent to rub Zorro’s ears. “He’s using burner phones to trigger the detonations. Only a fool would use their own device and leave a record of the call.”
“I agree, he’s way too smart for that.” Jo looked at her. “But I figure a judge would authorize a search and Kalo could work on it for us.” She buttoned her jacket and shivered. “It’s up to you.”
“Okay.” Jenna headed toward the driveway. “I’ll leave it for now.”
Jenna found Kane leaning against the Beast sipping coffee from a to-go cup. “Find anything?”
“Nope.” Kane shook his head. “You?”
“Yeah.” Jenna pulled open the door and inhaled the smell of coffee. In her absence, Kane had filled three to-go cups from the Thermos. “He was in Blackwater and had his laptop with him.”
“And he’s so confident, he admitted being there.” Jo climbed into the back seat and reached for a cup with a sigh. “He has an underlying aggression and right now, I’d place him on the top of our list.”
Forty-Five
As they rolled into Prairie View, there wasn’t one light from any of the homes. It seemed everyone was tucked up in bed. Aggravated clouds of moths surrounded the streetlights in a frenzy and as they passed below, the trees lining the side of the road cast zebra shadows across the blacktop. Exhausted and dangerously close to falling asleep, the light and dark stripes flashed like a don’t walk sign. Jenna shook her head to dispel the hypnotic effect and as Kane pulled up outside Simon Dexter’s house, she fixed her attention on the gray sedan parked in the driveway. She finished her coffee, hoping the caffeine burst would keep her awake and ran through the suspect’s file on her phone. “Okay, Dexter lives alone, was on scene of the Woods’ fire, has been in DC, and is a firebug. He had a hankering for Sophie but was warned off by Wood, same as Cleaves. At this time, he is only a person of interest. We don’t have enough on him right now.”
“He seemed nervous to me when we interviewed him.” Kane looked at her. “He doesn’t act confident enough to bust into people’s homes.”
“I agree.” Carter leaned forward from the back seat. “Most folks around here have weapons in the house. The only way I figure Dexter could have gotten inside uninvited would be if he was known to the family.”
“I’d like to go this one alone with Jenna.” Jo was staring at her phone. “From Kane’s notes, Dexter was intimidated by them, he gave up Cleaves at the get-go. It would be interesting to see how he acts with us. Maybe we’ll get to see the other side of Simon Dexter.”
Jenna forced her lips into a smile. “Okay, but poke me if I fall asleep on his porch waiting for him to come to the door.”
She climbed out the truck and they made their way up the driveway. Jenna ran one hand over the hood of the old gray sedan and turned to Jo. “It’s warm, he hasn’t been home long either.”
“I sure hope he’s not involved with Suffolk.” Jo unbuttoned her jacket and touched her weapon as if to reassure herself. “This case would make more sense, if two men were involved.”
As old case files percolated through her mind, Jenna stared at her. “We’ve had them all, brothers, one leading the other into crime, and then there was the pedophile ring. Now we have three men, all up to the necks in underage girls. All of them would have remained under the radar if Woods hadn’t made a noise about his daughter and chastised Suffolk about the treatment of his wife.” Suddenly fully awake and energized, she nodded slowly. “Maybe one of them noticed Pamela Stuart on their travels, maybe members of the Louan sect, church or whatever, are in Blackwater as well. Sheriff Stuart is an honorable man, he’d never have allowed a group of men to use underage girls in this way. This would have made him a threat and they’d have needed to remove him.”
“It sure makes a lot of sense.” Jo smiled at her. “Although proving it will take a ton of detective work.”
Jenna marched up to the front door and thumped hard on the wooden p
anels. She noticed a doorbell and leaned on it, hearing a constant buzzing inside the home. “FBI. Open the door, Mr. Dexter.”