Cut and Run (Lucy Kincaid #16) - Allison Brennan Page 0,122
this morning. But Mitch didn’t go home last night and he’s not at work this morning.”
“I don’t know what I can do about it. I’ll call Marie, get her take on the conversation, but we don’t have the resources to track every Tom, Dick, and Harry that your husband thinks is in the wind. And didn’t I see a BOLO for a guy that your people put out? Is that the banker you told me about?”
“Yeah, we know he took a flight from San Antonio to New York City before we could put a flag on him, but he hasn’t boarded another plane and he doesn’t have a reservation. Easy enough to disappear for a while in New York, and we’re working on getting an arrest warrant and a warrant to track his credit cards. We’ll have it today, and our New York agents will take it over.”
“Unless he took a train or boat or paid cash or has a place there he can hang.”
“He has no family in New York, but he could have a friend. Hopefully, he tries to get on a plane and we can grab him. But Mitch’s behavior is odd.” Lucy hadn’t talked to Max yet today. Sean said she was researching Simon Mills, but he didn’t seem to be interested in what she was doing. They’d made a bet, apparently, about who could get who to talk first—Simon Mills or Mitch Corta.
Mike Flores, the ADA Jennifer knew, called them in. “I don’t have a lot of time,” he said, “but you made this sound intriguing.”
Lucy let Jennifer take the lead. “This is FBI Agent Lucy Kincaid. She and I have been unofficially working together on the Victoria Mills homicide.”
“The one where your confessed suspect was shot and killed outside the courthouse.”
“There are oddities about this case, but I don’t think I have enough for a warrant. Yet—I think that while Grant was involved in covering up her murder, I’m beginning to think he didn’t actually stab her.”
“Oh, fuck. Not you, too. I had this damn reporter calling me every day for the last two months trying to get information.”
“Yeah, she’s been annoying the fuck out of me, too, I just ignored her. But this is serious. Let me lay it out for you. Robert Clemson is the rear neighbor to the house where Victoria was killed. When we first canvassed, he said he was in all night and didn’t hear or see anything. I didn’t think much of it, because the properties are large and there was no evidence of a struggle or fight. But another neighbor who was walking their dog said that they saw Clemson speed out of the neighborhood at ten thirty that evening. So I went back to Clemson—and he said he got his days confused and that must have been when he met a friend for drinks. Gave me a name, Melissa Randolph. She confirmed they met at Russo’s for drinks shortly after ten thirty and talked for an hour.”
“Witnesses get dates screwed up all the time.”
“I’m not done,” Jennifer snapped.
“Sorry, by all means, sell me.”
Jennifer rolled her eyes. “Lucy and I went back to talk to him because there’s no fence between his property and the murder scene. There are natural barriers—trees and bushes—but there is certainly the possibility that someone could have used his property to get to the backyard. And I just wasn’t sold on his forgetting he went out that night. Randolph is a very attractive thirty-year-old; Clemson is not. And he was squirrelly. So Lucy and I watched his house and ten minutes later he went to Russo’s, where he met with a woman for less than five minutes—Faith Parker Monroe, who he said was his lawyer.”
“He told you he had a lawyer?”
“No, we learned it after the fact from a witness in the bar. He was acting suspicious. Then we decided to talk to Randolph again. Because as I thought on it, it just was too … convenient that he had such a ready-made alibi after saying he was home all night. Randolph moved to Chicago.”
“Too fucking cold for me, but who the hell cares?”
“She’s a paralegal for the same law firm that Faith Parker Monroe is a partner in. She worked for Parker. She was transferred to their offices in Chicago only days after I interviewed her.”
“Hmm. Again. So what?”
“I need to talk to her.”
“Uh-huh. And your boss is good with that? Going after someone in a major law firm?”