back and tamper with the scene.
“Thank you,” Colleen says, trying to smile at me. “We really appreciate that.”
Harris clenches his jaw, saying nothing.
“Mr. Harris, we found these in your medicine cabinet,” I say, holding up the bag with the prescription bottles. “Could you explain them for me, please?”
“Sure.” He shakes his head as if he’s in some kind of daze. “I was having trouble sleeping after my wife left.” Beside him, Colleen Roper stiffens. “I went to see Dr. Smith to ask if she could prescribe something to help. Since when is it a crime to take something to combat insomnia?”
“No crime,” I say mildly. “Do either of you know someone by the name of Mandy McKnight?”
“No.” Colleen says. The hand Harris isn’t gripping now curves against her belly. “I’m not the best with names, but I don’t think so.”
As I watch her hand, it strikes me that she’s almost showing, maybe at the same point in her pregnancy Joanna was said to have been when she vanished. Something clicks. How had her husband not known that Joanna lost the baby before July, when she disappeared? Were they truly that estranged? Or is the guy playing us for fools?
“Mr. Harris?” I prod, when I realize he hasn’t answered my question.
“I don’t know anyone named Mandy.” He glances at a deputy as she leaves his home. “But what does that have to do with my wife’s murder?”
“We’re not sure just yet,” I answer, sitting down in the leather chair opposite them. And I wonder just how much information to divulge. “But we found two other prescription bottles in your bathroom cabinet. These were made out to someone by that name.”
I watch for their reactions. Colleen appears confused, her eyebrows pinching together as she turns to her boyfriend. Harris looks straight ahead, stoic, his lips pressed tight. He’s handling this well, I note. Too well? After Karen passed away, I was unable to function for weeks. But after learning a few hours ago that his wife was murdered, Michael appears only mildly irritated.
“You found them in our bathroom?” Colleen asks.
I nod. “They were tucked behind the cleaning products.”
“I don’t know anyone by that name,” Harris insists. “I don’t know what those bottles would be doing in my bathroom. I’ve never seen them before.”
Deny everything.
It’s a normal part of this process, and he’s falling in line with most other suspects when they realize the predicament they’re in. They clam up, afraid to reveal too much, and deny knowing anything at all. Next will be anger, and judging from the way he’s glaring at me, that’s coming soon.
“What about Dr. Cameron Garcia?” I ask. “Ever visit a doctor by that name?”
“Never.”
“What about your wife?” Poor Colleen always flinches when I call the dead woman his wife—kid’s really got it bad for Harris. “Might he have been a doctor who treated her at some point?”
Michael’s nostrils flare slightly. “Might have been, but I wouldn’t know. The name isn’t familiar and Joanna’s not here to ask.”
He’s pissed, and I can’t blame him. We’re in his home, challenging everything he tells us.
“How long have you owned this home?” I ask, pretending I haven’t noticed his mounting anger.
“Five years,” he fires back. “I already told you this. Joanna and I bought it right after we got married.”
But I need to hear some answers again, to make sure they don’t change.
Colleen perks up. “Any chance,” she asks me, “that those pills belong to the person who lived here before them?”
“Could be.” But that’s not what I’m thinking. “We’ll look into that.”
My guess? Someone—probably Joanna—bought the drugs illegally. It may not lead to anything, but it’s a thread to start pulling. If nothing else, it allows me to follow the trail to Mandy McKnight, and opens up the possibility of another cube