Marine's Mission - Rebecca Deel Page 0,25
questions quickly, Montgomery,” he snapped.
Owen stood without agreeing to his demand. “Thanks for your help.” Cramer enjoyed posturing and acting like a caring boss. He failed miserably. The only thing Cramer cared about was his own career. Ellis’s disappearance was an inconvenience, not a source of concern for the missing man.
The supervisor followed Owen and Gigi from his office, then locked and shut his door. “Our offices and cubicle areas are monitored by security.” With that parting shot, he left.
“Do you get the sense that Mr. Cramer doesn’t trust us?” Gigi soft, voice soft.
Owen flashed her a grin. “You think?”
“Where do we start?”
“Chaz. If we’re lucky, his cubicle will be near Ellis’s workstation.” He led Gigi between cubicle groups until he found Chaz Banks’s nameplate attached to the outside of a cubicle wall.
The software developer bopped in his chair to music coming through his earbuds. When Owen stepped into Chaz’s peripheral vision, the developer startled and yanked the earbuds from his ears. “Whoa. Dude, you gave me a jolt.”
“Sorry about that. You’re Chaz?”
“Who wants to know?”
Owen held out his cred wallet. “Deputy Owen Montgomery, Morgan County Sheriff’s Department.”
The man studied his identification a moment. “Yeah, I’m Chaz Banks. What do you want with me?”
“I’m looking into the disappearance of Toni Webster.”
Ellis’s friend frowned. “I talked to her yesterday. She was looking for Ellis.”
“I need to ask you a few questions. Is there a place we can speak in private?”
Chaz pushed back from his desk. “Follow me.” The software developer led them to a small conference room. Once they were inside, Chaz closed the door and the blinds. “How can I help?”
After a quick glance around, Owen concluded that security hadn’t set up cameras in this room. He pulled an electronic signal detector from his pocket and turned it on. As Owen walked the perimeter of the room, he asked, “When was the last time you saw Ellis?”
“Friday night about 5:00. For once, Ellis left work on time. He planned to spend the weekend in Archer with his girlfriend.”
“Did you talk to him after 5:00?”
Chaz shook his head. “I didn’t want to interrupt his time with Toni. He was crazy about her.”
Owen glanced up at Chaz’s use of the past tense, then continued his slow walk around the room, watching the chaser lights. “He never made it to Archer. What do you think happened to him?”
“Something bad.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Ellis wouldn’t skip work for no reason. He loved this job. Since he never reached Archer, I know something is wrong. He loved Toni. He talked about her all the time.” Chaz frowned. “If she’s missing, too, isn’t it possible they ran off together? Maybe they eloped and didn’t tell anybody.”
Gigi stirred. “Why would Toni show up here yesterday looking for Ellis if she was going to elope with him? Wouldn’t she be in on the plan to run off and get married?”
Owen completed his search of the room. The chaser lights remained green. Cramer might be right about the conference room being the most unused room in the division. For a division supervisor as paranoid as Cramer, Owen figured the other man would have insisted on bugs as well as cameras everywhere.
Chaz’s face turned red. “How should I know? I’m just as baffled as you are. This doesn’t make sense.”
“Do you know what Ellis was working on here?” Owen asked.
A wary look filled Chaz’s eyes. “Yeah, but I can’t talk about it. We’re working on classified projects for the government.”
“Did he have personal projects that he worked on outside of his day job?”
“Of course. We all do.” He shrugged. “It’s kind of an obsession, you know?”
“What was he working on?”
“That I can’t tell you.”
Owen folded his arms across his chest. “Can’t or won’t?”
“What does it matter? His hobbies don’t have anything to do with my friend’s disappearance. Look, Ellis was probably carjacked or something. You should look for his truck. Did you check the route between here and Archer? I bet you’ll find him if you contact the hospitals.”
Chaz’s carjacking scenario wasn’t likely given the state of Ellis’s apartment. Carjackers wouldn’t search the apartment of their victim. “We checked the area hospitals and the morgues. Ellis isn’t in any of them.” Owen had gotten that news from David while Gigi slept.
“Check the ravines and ditches along the sides of the roads between here and Archer. I gotta go, man. Cramer checks the security tapes when he’s out of the office for a while. If I don’t get back to my