You Betrayed Me (The Cahills #3) - Lisa Jackson Page 0,88

of footage taken by street and business cameras in the area, looking for a clue, hoping to spot Megan Travers’s black Toyota. There was a tiny bit of hope when a Tacoma couple who had been driving east at the time reported seeing what could have been Megan’s car. The timing was right, and it had happened just before the summit, on the eastern slope, where the driver had been forced to ease closer to the side of the road as the Toyota, heading west and uphill, had blown by. But so far nothing had come from the tip.

The snowplow driver who’d been cut off, Bud Frandsen, had come in and talked to Rivers. Frandsen was a big, beefy guy in a baseball cap who was looking at retirement and had been behind the wheel of a plow for nearly thirty years. When asked who was driving the car that had careened out of James Cahill’s driveway, he’d adjusted the hat on his head and replied, “I had to hit my GD brakes so hard I nearly slid. Didn’t pay attention to who was driving. But the car was a black Toyota, that much I can tell you.”

“Was there anyone else in the car, other than the driver?”

“Don’t know. Don’t think so,” he said and, when handed Megan Travers’s driver’s license picture and asked if she could be the driver, he’d swung his big head side to side and said, “Maybe. Maybe not. I was just trying to keep the rig on the road while cussin’ a blue streak.” As if to underscore that, he added, “Fuckin’ idiot. Coulda got me killed.”

Rivers hadn’t gotten much more from Olga Marsden, either, a woman near eighty who had been out walking her dog on the night Megan disappeared. Gray-haired and thin, Mrs. Marsden was a widow and sharp as a tack, her dark eyes bright behind big blue-rimmed glasses. She had taken her little Scottie dog for a walk through Riggs Crossing that night, just as, she said, she did every night. “We leave the house just after seven and get home before eight so I can catch up on my shows. I tape Wheel and Jeopardy, you know, after the news,” she’d informed Rivers. “I always walk Bitsy then. He’s a Scottie, you know, the fifth one I’ve owned, and it’s been my experience they all like their routines. Bitsy for sure. He doesn’t like his routine changed. Puts him in a bad mood.”

Though she hadn’t been sure, Olga Marsden had thought a woman was behind the wheel of the dark car. “She was driving like a bat out of hell! Just a few blocks from Main Street, if you can believe that. Oh, boy! I signaled for her to slow down, you know, patted the air like this.” She mimicked the movement. “But she didn’t even notice. Just kept right on going. In fact,” the old woman had confided, lifting a “tsking” finger, “I think she actually sped up, if you can believe that.”

When Rivers had asked if the driver had been alone in the car, Mrs. Marsden had thought hard, her face screwing up beneath her cap of gray curls. “I think so, but I couldn’t swear to it. It happened so fast. I was too concerned about Bitsy, you know. Afraid he might run out into the street. He’s a love. Name’s short for Bitterroot’s Scion; he’s registered. Purebred. We just call him Bitsy.”

That had been the end of the interview.

Later, Mrs. Marsden’s story had been confirmed. Two cameras, one from a service station, another mounted over the parking area of a restaurant, caught glimpses of a dark Corolla hurtling past around the same time as the dog walker said she was out.

Olga’s recollection coincided with that of Megan’s coworkers as well, both of whom he’d spoken with on the phone and confirmed their previous statements. Ramone Garcia, a physician’s assistant, had seen Megan leave at her regular time, right after 5:00 P.M., and his coworker, Andie Jeffries, an RN for the McEwen Clinic, had agreed. The parking-lot camera had filmed Megan leaving work and getting into her Toyota at 5:09. The doctor who owned and ran the clinic, Thomas McEwen, MD, had been at the hospital that afternoon, and there was nothing more that he could add, only to say that everyone who worked at the clinic was trustworthy and that Megan had done a good job as a bookkeeper who worked with the insurance companies. Other