The Little Grave (Detective Amanda Steele)

“Just keep driving, rookie. And where did Palmer get the car?”

“A guy named Simon Wheable. He’s forty-one, and he’s spent time behind bars for robbery, but he’s been out and free of parole for a few years now. He works at Eco-Friendly Auto Recyclers.” Trent took their exit.

“It’s a vehicle salvage yard.” Amanda cut through the beautifully painted lingo to the gist of the business model, but she was also familiar with the place from personal experience. It was where her first jalopy had gone, not that she’d thought of the Honda Accord as that when she’d bought it for fifteen hundred with money she’d earned working part-time at a donut shop. Eco-Friendly Auto Recyclers was where vehicles went when they died. Or in the case of her Accord, became more costly to repair than it was worth. She’d ended up with a few hundred in her pocket for the parts.

“That’s right,” Trent said.

“What led you to Wheable? The plate?” Given the right genius at a computer, the plate could have been enhanced from the Happy Time video.

“Nah, it was stolen and got me nowhere, but I did a little surveillance on Freddy.”

“You followed him?”

“Not going to confirm on the grounds it might incriminate me.”

“Ridiculous. Go on.”

“Anyway, he happened to go to the salvage yard, and I just sort of put two and two together. Would make sense if the car was transporting stolen goods. They’d want to put Palmer in a piece of junk that wouldn’t warrant attention.”

“And the guy was driving without a license,” she mumbled. “Did you talk with Wheable?”

“Haven’t had a chance yet.”

“I was impressed until then.?

?? She smirked over at him and he smiled back, obviously picking up her sarcasm. She proceeded to forward the images and video to her phone and then handed his back to him. She pulled out her own. “I do have a couple of voicemails to check though, if you can entertain yourself while I do that.”

“I’ll figure something out.” Trent tapped his fingers on the wheel to some beat he must have had playing in his head.

She called in and listened to the four unheard messages. The first was from Detective Banks, the lead investigator on the Casey-Anne Ritter murder, basically just saying he was returning her call and when she had a chance to call him back. It had come in that morning; it was probably the blocked number that rang just as she was headed into her house before everything that had happened with Jensen.

The second message was from Malone.

“I understand that you need to cool off. I get it. Trust me. Hill can be a piece of work, but don’t throw away everything. In fact, I don’t accept your resignation. I never saw anything in writing.”

She smirked up at the ceiling of the car and continued listening.

“I’ll always have your back…” There was a lengthy pause, then, “But… whether you’re coming back to work or just taking a break, I’ll still need your alibi—the sooner the better.”

She groaned and Trent looked over at her.

“Everything all right?”

Amanda nodded and listened to the third message, which was from Becky, touching base to see how she was holding up. The fourth message was from the detective in Sex Crimes.

“Detective Steele, this is Detective Patricia Glover with Sex Crimes. I’ve been assigned the case referred to me by Detective Jacob Briggs in Digital Forensics. I don’t want to leave details over the phone, so please call me as soon as you can.”

Her call had come through at 1:03 PM. Glover was probably wondering if Amanda had fallen off the face of the Earth. No to that, but she had temporarily lost her way.

She pocketed her phone just as Trent pulled into the parking lot of the Department of Forensic Science.

Thirty-Two

Amanda led the way to the front door, Trent trailing behind.

“Yeah… we’re here…” he said into his phone and put it away a few seconds later. He told Amanda, “CSI Blair will come get the front door.”

They only had to stand outside the building, a two-story redbrick with generous-sized windows, for a couple of minutes tops, before Blair let them in.