into town that night at the Clink, right? When I was there, and you and Agnes came in. The night they found the woman’s body.”
Tanner shook his head. “Matter of fact, I didn’t.”
“Why not? Don’t tell me you walked. That’s quite a hike.”
Pine was a few feet behind them listening intently to this exchange.
“Well, the damn thing wouldn’t start.”
“Wouldn’t start? You have trouble like that before with it?”
“No. I mean, the durn thing’s got problems, all right, but not starting wasn’t one of them. Till that night, anyways.”
“How’d you get to town then?”
“Walked over to Agnes’s and I drove her car in with her. She don’t drive it much. In fact, I don’t think she drives it at all. Clean as a whistle. It belonged to her husband. It’s a Buick. Right nice machine. Although the tags expired a long time ago, but hey.”
Blum surreptitiously glanced at Pine. “So that’s why you two came in together? I remember that.”
“Yep. Though it was the darnedest thing.”
“What was?”
“The truck. I went out the next morning figuring I’d have to check it all out and fix stuff, but I turned the key, and she started right up.”
Blum once more glanced at Pine. “Will miracles never cease.”
“Got to have a vehicle out here. Only way I can get to my work. Customers want me to come there most times. Or haul what needs fixing back to my workshop.”
“When did you get back from the restaurant that night?”
“What? Oh, I took Agnes home and we talked a bit. She made me some coffee. Then I walked back. Probably around eleven or so. That durn Roscoe was dead asleep on the bean bag, so I slept on the floor. Didn’t do my old back any good, I can tell you that.”
Blum’s face crinkled into a smile. “You do have a soft spot for that dog.”
Tanner’s eyes became watery. “He was all I had, till Jenny come to town.”
Blum patted his shoulder. “Well, now you have both of them to look after.”
She walked back over to Pine.
“That was some nice work, Carol.”
“I think someone is working awfully hard to frame Cy Tanner for something he didn’t do.”
Pine blew air out of her cheeks. “I think you might be right. He would make a prime fall guy. They might have sabotaged his truck that night so they could use it. Then dress up like him and meet up with Frankie Gomez, counting on the fact that someone might see him.”
“Which means the real killer is out there watching and manipulating things.”
Pine said, “The guy in the Pagani? You think that was why he was watching Cy’s house?”
“Learning his routine and such, you mean? It’s certainly plausible.”
“We still have to show Cy’s photo to our witness.”
“I know you do. And I know you also know that eyewitness testimony is wrong more often than it’s right.”
“Still have to do it. And then there’s the other evidence we found.”
“Do you really think he has the wherewithal to come up with a veil and a tux and a corsage? And after seeing how he is with his granddaughter, do you really think he has it in him to kill a little boy?”
“I’m not saying you’re not making good points, because you are. But I can’t exclude him as a suspect just because of how I might feel about him. I have to look at the hard evidence.”
“But what will you do if your witness does ID him?”
Pine looked over at Tanner, who was now patting one of the Quarleses’ dogs affectionately on the head.
She said miserably, “I don’t know, Carol. I really don’t know.”
Chapter 58
SARAH COULDN’T BE SURE,” said Laredo. He was on the phone with Pine. It was the next day and he had gone back to Columbus to show Tanner’s photo to Sarah. “She said she only saw him from the back.”
“Okay,” said Pine, who was sitting in her rental SUV outside her old house. “So where does that leave us?”
“In no-man’s-land, apparently,” said Laredo. “But we do have to check the pullover we found for DNA and take a cast of those bolts in the truck bed to compare against the marks on Hanna Rebane.”
“We’ll need a search warrant for that.”
“That won’t be a problem. Wallis is already on it. We have more than enough probable cause.”
Pine said nothing.
“What?” he said in a prompting tone.
“I don’t think he’s good for it. I’ve been outside his house all morning. I checked on him a couple of times. He’s dead asleep