“Mr. Draper, do you know if Everett dated anyone who lived at that house?”
“Dated? No. I’m sorry, I don’t. Everett didn’t share that sort of thing with me.”
“Okay. Well, if you do remember anything else that might be important regarding Everett, will you give me a call?”
“Of course.” He paused. “This case you’re working on, it’s a puzzle, isn’t it? I’m sorry I can’t help more. But I have faith in you, son.”
“Thank you, sir. I appreciate that.”
Reed hung up the phone and sat staring at his blank computer screen for a few minutes.
Even though they had something specific to work with in the discovery of the comic, things seemed more complicated than ever, and Reed worried he wouldn’t put the pieces together in time. He thought of Zach, and how he must have felt the same way all those years ago as he’d worked to bring justice to Josie and the other women Charles Hartsman had victimized. And he’d been too late.
Reed felt it—time was ticking down toward some uncertain but inevitable end.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The ringing of his cell phone woke Reed and he rolled over in bed, careful not to jostle Liza as he reached to silence it. Ransom. He got out of bed as quickly and quietly as possible, looking over his shoulder as Liza mumbled something in her sleep and turned over. He smiled as he closed the door to his bedroom behind him and connected the call.
“What’s up?”
“Sorry to wake you, but we’ve got something.”
It was already light outside, but there was no window in his kitchen, so Reed flicked on the light. The time on the stove display read eight fourteen. “Do you need me to come in?”
“Nah, it’s your off day, but I knew you’d want to be in the loop on this one.”
“What you got?”
“I drove to Sophia Miller’s mom’s house like we talked about yesterday, you know, to show her the picture of Everett Draper.”
“She recognized him as the man who’d been dating her daughter,” Reed guessed.
“Yup. Your hunch was correct, my friend. Everett Draper, the grandson of the former Lakeside Hospital director dated the girl who made the complaint against Sadowski for being a peeping Tom.”
“Then she dropped the charges and later OD’d.” Reed paced from one side of his small kitchen to the other, catching sight of himself in the reflection of the microwave, bedhead sticking in all directions, only wearing a pair of boxers. “But what does that mean?” he asked Ransom. “Everett Draper and Sophia Miller are both dead, by their own hand.” He and Ransom had read the reports as part of the case, and there was nothing suspicious about either of their deaths, nothing to suggest anything other than exactly what it appeared to be: two troubled people had decided they didn’t want to do life anymore and had put an end to it.
Sophia had been right down the hall from her mother when she’d overdosed. Everett had been in an upstairs room at the halfway house. Reed couldn’t imagine a way someone could make death by hanging appear to be a suicide if it was in fact not.
Was it possible that, like Liza had said, it was simply a small community, and the connections were only a coincidence and meant nothing to their case?
Possible.
But unlikely?
Yes, Reed had a sense that it was. He just didn’t know why.
“I can put a call in to Everett’s grandfather again,” he said. “See if he can tell us anything else about Sophia Miller?” Reed had a picture of her. He could email it to the old guy. There really was no need to visit in person just to show him a photograph. They already had confirmation from Sophia’s mother that Everett was the man her daughter had been dating. That was enough. But any more potential information couldn’t hurt. Mr. Draper had said Everett didn’t confide in him about that sort of thing, but maybe Sophia’s name alone would jog something the older man had forgotten . . . some offhand comment that could be helpful . . .
“I can call him,” Ransom said. “You deserve a day off—”
But they both knew that there was no such thing as a day off when there was a breakthrough in a case. “I’ll make the call from here and only come in if I need to. I have somewhat of a rapport with Mr. Draper at this point.”
“Okay. Let me know if he has anything important to add.”