“Maybe,” Jack admitted. “But he was so convincing.”
“He was just as convincing when he said he checked in with field command.” Chandler whistled the theme from The Twilight Zone. “The guy’s out there—wearing tinfoil on his head crazy.”
“True.”
“What about Leland Chambers?” Chandler said. “If you believe Dracula, he saw Chambers running through the park wearing those bright-green sneakers. He’s Stacy’s manager, and that janitor said they argued.”
“Yeah, he’s definitely a possibility. But I’ve got nothing to go at him with until I hear back from Betty.”
“Isn’t she a suspect, too?”
“What makes you think that?”
Chandler sat up. “She was the last one to see Stacy alive. What if she’s not telling the truth?”
“I never thought of that. She is a big woman.”
“Did you see her hands? They’re like my size.” Chandler held his up.
Jack laughed. “They’re nowhere close to your giant mitts. Wait a minute.” Jack took out his notebook. “Betty didn’t give off any red flags, but there was something she said about her husband… Bruce.” Jack flipped through pages until he found what he was looking for. “Betty mentioned that Bruce dropped her off after work and then went back out.”
“Did she say why?” Chandler asked.
“To run a few errands.”
“That seems kinda strange late at night. And why did he drop his wife off?”
Jack shrugged.
Chandler tapped on the roof. “My money’s still on Vlad.”
“Before you place your bet, there are other suspects too,” Jack said.
“Like who?”
“Jeremy. He was nearby. He’s physically strong enough, and he had a crush on Stacy.”
“What? How did you get that?”
“When I asked him how Stacy looked, he said pretty. That, and just how he acted when he was talking about her. He liked her—a lot.”
“You could be right,” Chandler said.
“And there’s still the two obvious choices,” Jack muttered. “Two Point, for one. Say it was a robbery gone bad. And yeah, his hand is screwed up, but I’ve been thinking about it. There are other ways to strangle someone.” Jack shifted in the seat to demonstrate. As he spoke, he reached out for Chandler’s throat. “If he pinned her down and grabbed her like this—”
Chandler knocked his hand away. “I get it, so you can use someone else for your strangulation demo. You said two choices. Who’s the other?”
Jack stared out the windshield. “Jay.”
“What? Isn’t he the guy we’re doing this for? He wasn’t even in the park.”
“We only have Jay’s word for that. And… he had met Stacy.”
“Say what?” Chandler did a double take.
“Jay delivered furniture to the Shaws’ house.”
“No way. So he knew Stacy.”
“He met her,” Jack said. “He was in her house. And H.T. Wells is only two blocks down from where he works.”
“That doesn’t look too good,” Chandler said. “Still, I think the cops should be looking at Vlad.”
“So you’ve said. And call him Alex.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“I know, it’s just…” Jack shrugged. “He kinda gave me the whole Ghost of Christmas Future type of thing. You know? Like, under the right circumstances, if the right things happened to me, could I end up just like him? Could that be me? Listen, if something were to happen, you know, to one of us—”
“Nothing’s gonna happen,” Chandler said. “I’ve got your back. Don’t talk about stuff like that.” In an obvious effort to change the subject, he added, “So how long are we supposed to sit here and wait for Michael Shaw?”
“As long as it takes, I guess.”
“Do you have any idea how long it could take for him to leave?” Chandler groaned.
“Do you know what the Army’s gonna be like? Job one is hurry up and wait. Same thing with being a cop. I have the patience for it. You’re like a bad doctor—no patients.”
“That is the lamest joke I’ve ever heard. There’s no way I’m going to sit in this sardine can all afternoon pretending to be a cop. Especially if you keep telling jokes like that.”
“It’s good prep,” Jack said. “My dad’s made me read every book in the library on police work—I’m not kidding. And I’m talking inter-library loan, too. And now that we’re going into the Army, I think he cleared the library out of books on military strategy and survival. You’re reading those books he gave you too, right?”