Will stared at the fine print in the corner of the label. The words were so blurry that his head started to ache. “I have no idea. The last photo is as tight as I can get. I’m going to get Nick to take it to the lab with the other stuff. Anything on Jason Howell?”
“He’s worse than Allison, if that’s possible. No phone. No street address, just a PO box at the school. He’s got four thousand dollars in a savings account out of a bank in West Virginia.”
“That’s interesting.”
“Not as much as you’d think. The amount’s been going down slowly over the last four years. I’d guess it’s some kind of college fund.” She told him, “He also has a car registered in his name. Ninety-nine Saturn SW. Green. I already put out a BOLO.”
That was at least something. “I’ll check at the school to see if it’s there. How are the background checks going on all the students who lived in Jason’s dorm?”
“Slow and boring. None of these kids even have parking tickets. My mother had gotten me out of a DUI and a shoplifting charge by the time I was that age.” She laughed. “Please promise me you won’t remind me of that when my children get into trouble.”
Will was too shocked to promise anything. “Did you track down the 911 audio?”
“They said they’d email it to me but it hasn’t shown up yet.” Her breath was short, and he guessed she was walking through the house. “Let me do a computer search for those initials on the pill bottle.”
“I’ll ask Gordon if his son was taking any medication.”
“Are you sure you should do that?”
“Meaning?”
“What if Tommy was selling illegal drugs?”
Will had a hard time imagining Tommy Braham as a drug kingpin. Still, he admitted, “Tommy knew everybody in town. He was always walking the streets. It’d be a perfect cover.”
“What does the dad do for a living?”
“I think he’s a lineman for Georgia Power.”
“How are they living?”
Will glanced around the crappy kitchen. “Not very well. Gordon’s truck is about ten years old. Tommy was living in a garage without a toilet. They were renting out a room to help make ends meet. The house must have been really nice thirty years ago, but they haven’t done much to keep it that way.”
“When I did the sweep on Tommy, I found a checking account at the local bank. His balance was thirty-one dollars and sixty-eight cents. Did you say the dad was in Florida?”
He saw where she was going with this. Florida was the beginning of a major drug corridor that went from the Keys up into Georgia and on to New England and Canada. “This doesn’t strike me as a drug thing.”
“That knife wound to the neck sounds gang to me.”
Will couldn’t deny she was right.
Faith asked, “What else do you have?”
“Detective Adams has seen fit to accept her part in Tommy Braham’s suicide.”
For once, Faith didn’t have a quick comeback.
“She said that Tommy didn’t kill Allison, and it’s her fault he managed to kill himself in custody, and that she’ll take all the blame.”
Faith made a thinking noise. “What’s she hiding?”
“What isn’t she hiding?” Will countered. “She’s lied and covered up so much that it’d be like pulling a piece of string on a ball of yarn.” He went into the kitchen, hoping to find a plastic bag. “Allison had a lot of nice clothes.”
“What was she studying in college?”
“Chemistry.”
“How do you manage to dress yourself in the morning?” Faith sounded frustrated by his slowness. “Chemistry? Synthesizing chemicals to produce more complex products, like turning pseudoephedrine into methamphetamine?”
Will found a box of Ziplocs in the last drawer he checked. “If Allison was cooking meth, or shooting it, she was being careful about it. She didn’t have any needle marks. There aren’t any pipes or drug paraphernalia around the house or in the garage. Sara will do a tox screen as part of the autopsy, but I’m not buying it.”
“And Tommy?”
“I’ll have to call Sara.” He waited for her to say something snarky about his using Sara’s name too many times.
Miraculously, Faith let the opportunity pass. “There’s no H-O-C or H-C-C in Grant County. I’ll try the number at the top of the label. Eight digits. Too long for a zip code, too short for zip-plus-four. One digit too many for a phone number. One too little for Social Security. Let me plug it in and see if I get anything.” Will sealed the pill bottle in the plastic bag as he waited for the results.
Faith groaned. “My God, does every single search have to turn up porn?”
“It’s God’s gift to us.”
“I’d rather have a live-in nanny,” she countered. “I’m not finding anything. I can make some phone calls around the state. You know how some of the yokels are slow to enter their case files into the network. I’m just waiting around for Mama to come pick me up and take me to the hospital.”
“I’d appreciate anything you feel like doing.”
“If I watch one more home-remodeling show, I’m going to come down there and hope someone puts a knife in the back of my neck. And I’ve got the worst gas. I feel like—”
“Well, I should go now. Thanks again for your help.” Will closed his phone to end the call. He locked up the house and put the pill bottle in his Porsche.
Lena was still on the phone, but she got off when she saw Will. “Honda belongs to a Darla Jackson. She’s on parole for kiting some checks two years ago. She’s already paid it off. The charge will roll off her sheet in January.”
“Did you talk to her?”
Lena glanced over his shoulder. “I think we’re about to get our chance.”
He turned around. An elderly woman was making her way down the driveway of the house across the street. She leaned heavily on a walker with a wire basket on the front. Bright yellow tennis balls were stuck on the back legs. The front door to her house opened, and a woman dressed in a pink nurse’s uniform called, “Mrs. Barnes! You forgot your coat!”
The old woman didn’t seem concerned, though she was wearing nothing more than a thin housedress and slippers. The wind was blowing so hard that the hem kicked up as she navigated the steep drive. Fortunately, the rubber soles of her terry cloth slippers kept her from sliding down the concrete.
“Mrs. Barnes!” The nurse jogged down the driveway with the coat. She was a big girl with broad shoulders and ample cleavage. She was out of breath when she finally caught up to the old woman. She wrapped the coat around her shoulders, saying, “You’ll catch your death out here.”
Lena approached the women. “Mrs. Barnes, this is Agent Trent from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.”
Mrs. Barnes did everything but wrinkle her nose. “What do you want?”
Will felt like he was back in third grade and being yelled at for various schoolboy atrocities. “I’d like to talk to you about Allison and Tommy, if you have a minute.”
“It seems like you’ve already made up your mind about that.”