“Fair enough,” she said, though she felt there wasn’t anything fair about the way he was shifting the onus to his employees. “Who else worked between Friday night and last night?”
“Lorraine covered Saturday and Sunday during the day, clocked out at six in the evening each of those days, and David worked Saturday night. I finally had a night off.”
“Their last names?” she asked.
“Lorraine Nash and David Morgan, though I’m not sure I should be telling you all that.”
“Let me assure you that you should,” she said, making a note of the names in her phone. “And when are they expected for their next shifts?”
“Lorraine at nine this morning, and David later at six.”
“Thank you. Now, I noticed a camera on the way in here. Does it work?”
“Nah. It’s just there to keep the clients in line. The boss is too cheap to get a working one.”
That answer didn’t entirely surprise her, though it was disappointing. This area of town and this dump specifically would attract shady people. She went to fish one of her cards from a back pocket of her jeans and remembered that she didn’t have any on her person.
She gestured toward Trent. “Detective Stenson, if you could give Mr. Flynn one of your cards.” That’s if he had any yet…
“Ah, sure.” Trent pulled one from his jacket and handed it to Flynn.
Huh. Malone must have known about his transfer into the department for a while.
She drew her gaze to Flynn. “If anything else comes to your attention or your memory, call Detective Stenson day or night.”
Flynn pocketed the card but made no promises.
“There’s one more thing we’ll need before we leave.” She looked at the pegboard and the hooks. Six keys were missing. One was room ten where Palmer was, and the others were numbers two, three, seven, twelve, and fifteen. She gestured toward them and said, “Those the rooms currently rented out?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Thanks.” She put her phone back in her pocket, grabbed her cup and left. Outside, she gulped back the rest of her coffee, not bothered by the fact it was now tepid. She’d drink the stuff cold. She just about tossed the cup in a garbage can next to the office door but stopped herself. It was possible that something in there pertained to Palmer’s death. She’d make sure the CSIs collected the bag.
“Everything all right?” Trent bobbed his head toward the garbage can.
She leveled a glare at him. “I had everything under control in there.”
“I never said—”
“You didn’t have to say anything,” she said, talking over him. “And you let him steer the direction of the conversation.”
“I just thought—”
“That I report to you?” she spat.
“Not at all.” Trent diverted his gaze over her shoulder, then moved it back to meet her eyes. “I should have stayed quiet in there, listened and learned from you.”
“Are you bullshitting me right now?” Did he really think that by sucking up to her he would gain her favor?
“What?” His cheeks turned bright red. “No.”
She studied him. Was he still that eager-to-please Dumfries PD officer? He had to be thinking she was born yesterday to consider his speech was sincere, but by all accounts that’s exactly what she’d say it was. Either that or he was a good actor, and she had met her fair share of those in her life.
“Malone explained the situation to me,” Trent started.
“How I have history with Palmer,” she ground out as iron walls erected and clunked into place around her.
Trent shrugged in his coat as it seemed a chill ran through him. “He told me that I’m the lead on paper. He stressed ‘on paper.’”