He asked, “Can you remember what’s missing?”
Sara went through them again, concentrating on the content instead of the numbering. “The 911 transcript.”
“You’re sure?”
“There was another page from Lena’s notebook. It was taped on the sheet of paper by itself. She wrote down the contents of the 911 call.”
“Can you remember what it said?”
“I know that it was a woman’s voice. I can’t really remember the rest.”
“Did they trace the number she called from?”
“I didn’t see anything indicating they had.” She shook her head. “Why can’t I remember what else it said?”
“We can get it from the call center.”
“Unless they managed to lose it.”
“It’s no big deal,” he told her. “You got the file from Frank, right?”
“From Carl Phillips.”
“The booking officer?”
“Yes. Did you talk to him tonight?”
“He’s gone on vacation with his family. No idea when he’ll be back. No phone. No cell. No way to get in touch with him.”
Sara felt her mouth drop open.
“I doubt he’s really gone. They’re probably keeping him away from me. He might even be at the station tomorrow, hiding in plain sight.”
“He’s the only African American on the force.”
Will laughed. “Thanks for the tip. That narrows things down considerably.”
“I can’t believe they’re doing this.”
“Cops don’t like to be questioned. They circle their wagons, even if they know it’s wrong.”
She wondered if Jeffrey had ever done anything like this. If he had, it was only because he wanted to be the one to clean out his own house. He would never let someone come in and do his job for him.
Will asked, “Where did you make the copies?”
“At the front of the room.”
“The copier that’s on the table by the coffeemaker?”
“That’s right.”
“Did you get some coffee?”
“I didn’t want to dawdle.” Everyone had been staring at her like she was a monster. Sara’s only goal had been to make the copies and get out of there as soon as possible.
“So, you’re standing by the copier waiting for the pages to come out. That looked like an old machine. Does it make a noise?”
She nodded, wondering where this was going.
“Like a whirring or a clunking?”
“Both,” she answered, and she could hear the sound in her head.
“How much coffee was left in the pot? Did anyone come up?”
She shook her head. “No. The pot was full.” The machine was older than the copier. She could smell the grounds burning.
“Did anyone talk to you?”
“No. No one would even look at—” She saw herself standing by the copier. The machine was old, the kind you had to feed the pages into one at a time. She had read the file to keep from staring aimlessly at the wall. “Oh.”
“What do you remember?”
“I skimmed the 911 transcript while I was waiting for the copier to warm up.”
“What did it say?”
She could see herself standing back in the station reading the files. “The woman called it a possible suicide. She said she was worried her friend had done something.” Sara narrowed her eyes, trying to force the memory to come. “She was worried Allison was going to kill herself because she’d gotten into a fight with her boyfriend.”
“Did she say where she thought Allison was?”
“Lover’s Point,” she recalled. “That’s what town people call it. It’s the cove where Allison was found.”
“What’s it like?”
“A cove.” Sara shrugged. “It’s romantic if you’re out for a walk, but not in the pouring rain and cold.”
“Is it secluded?”
“Yes.”
“So, according to this caller, Allison got into a fight with her boyfriend. The caller was worried Allison was suicidal. The caller also knew she was going to be at Lover’s Point.”
“It was probably Julie Smith. Is that what you’re thinking?”
“Maybe, but why? The caller wanted to bring attention to Allison’s murder. Julie Smith was trying to help Tommy Braham get away with murder. They seem to have opposite goals.” He paused. “Faith is trying to track her down, but we’re going to need more than a disconnected number to find her.”
“Frank and Lena are probably thinking the same thing,” Sara guessed. “That’s why they hid the transcript. They either don’t want you to talk to her or they want to talk to her first.”
Will scratched his cheek. “Maybe.” He was obviously considering another option. For her part, Sara could not get past Marla Simms hiding information in a formal investigation. The old woman had worked at the station longer than anyone could remember.
Will sat up on the couch. He thumbed through the pages on the coffee table. “Mrs. Simms took it upon herself to send some extra information. I had Agent Mitchell scan these in so I could print them out.” He found what he was looking for and handed it to Sara. She recognized the form, a two-page incident report. Patrolmen filled out dozens of these a week to notate cases where they had been called in but no arrest had been made. They were useful to have in case something bad happened later, sort of like a progress report on a person or an area of town.
Will said, “These are incident reports documenting Tommy’s run-ins with the law.” He indicated the pages in Sara’s hands. “This one talks about a girl he got into a screaming match with at the roller rink.”
She saw there was a yellow dot in the corner of the report.
He asked, “Did you ever know Tommy to have a temper?”
“Never.” Sara checked through the other incident reports. There were two more, each two stapled pages, each with a dot from a colored marker in the corner. One was red. The other was green.
She looked back up at Will. “Tommy was pretty even-keeled. Kids like that tend to be very sweet.”
“Because of their mental state?”
Sara stared at him, thinking back on their conversation in the car. “Yes. He was slow. Very gullible.”
Much like Sara.
She handed a different report back to Will, showing it to him upside down. She pointed to the middle of the page where Carl Phillips had described the incident. “Did you read this part?”
She watched Will’s eyes go to the red dot. “The barking dog. Tommy started screaming at his neighbor. The woman called the cops.”
“Right.” She took the third report and handed it to him in the right direction. “Then there’s this.”
Again, his eyes went not to the words, but to the colored dot. “Loud music reported a few days ago. Tommy yelled at the officer.”
She was silent, waiting for him to send out another feeler.
He took his time, finally asking, “What are you thinking?”
She was thinking he was incredibly clever. Sara looked at the folders, the markers. He color-coded everything. His penmanship was awkward, like a child’s. He’d written the number two backward, but not with any consistency. He couldn’t tell whether a page was upside down or not. Sara might not have even noticed under different circumstances. Hell, she hadn’t noticed the last time she’d spent time with him. He’d been in her home. She had watched him work and never realized there was a problem.