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"Ambitious and fiercely original. Sondi Warner is the exciting new voice we've all been wai...
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August 26 | Late Noon
Jealous? I stared at the phone after the call ended. Nahin, that feeling wasn't jealousy. Shock at Mys being an escort, perhaps. Tegan breezed by and tossed a stack of papers on my desk along with something from the vending machine. "What's this?" I griped.
"It's a working lunch before your meeting with Mrs. Edison. Eat and read." She started rubbing my shoulders. Glancing around the station house, I peered at her quizzically, but she waved at the report. "Confirmation Paul Jameson was Aurie's Instagram stalker, @R1d3rH4rd_2018, and Paulie's got priors eerily similar to our hit-and-run."
"Hmm." I tore open the cellophane wrapper on a chicken club sandwich. My eyes rolled skyward at the first bite. I wasn't jealous—that feeling was hunger—so I told myself. I dusted my fingers and leaned forward from my partner's impromptu massage to study the papers she indicated. "Says here, Mr. Jameson found out where his love interest worked and went to, quote, 'surprise her.'"
"The idiot asshole popped from a dark alley and gave her the scare of a lifetime. The vic ran right into traffic."
Tegan moved in front of my desk. Her clear, unblemished skin and earnest cornflower eyes made her appear years younger, or her excitement did. She was itching to chase the lead. Her ginger hair caught the sunlight, and a few strands fluttered in the electric charge of her restless energy.
Similar restlessness bustled at every other desk in our department. Cases were being opened and shut. Given the fact we had nothing but dead ends, I should've been the same level of pumped for the lead, but I raised eyebrows and tossed my head.
"Uncanny."
"Too uncanny," she said.
"But I don't know, Tegan. It doesn't square with what we have," I said as I pulled up notes on my computer.
Video surveillance and busted headlight casing had confirmed the vehicle that hit Aurie Edison was a custom-modified Ford Escape from the late nineties. I turned my screen to show my partner the serial number from a shard of plastic. We had loaded the number into a parts database and, by some stroke of luck, traced it to the person who had ordered the light.
"What about it? The SUV was reported stolen by the owner years ago," Tegan countered. "The cardiologist who used to own it, his alibi checked out. He was in surgery."
"Yeah, he obviously lacked a motive to hurt Aurie," I agreed. "My point is that I don't see Paulie flying into New Orleans that evening, procuring a stolen truck in an unfamiliar city, and using it to hit our victim in the timeframe indicated."
"It's not impossible." Tegan shrugged.
"All the same..."
"Hey, Jameson already pled guilty to manslaughter for some other girl. Mayfield likes him for this one, too. This guy's the poster kid for troubled youth." She tilted down her small nose at me. "Why not see where this goes?"
