The other person who was interviewed—twice—was the rear neighbor. Robert Clemson, fifty. Divorced, lived alone on the half-acre property. He acted squirrelly, according to Reed’s notes, so she asked him to come in. The second interview was because he lied about a fact in his first interview—he initially said that he was home all night but didn’t hear anything, but later the other neighbors, the dog walkers, said that they saw him drive away from his house at ten thirty that night.
In the second interview he told Reed that he had been flustered. He knew Victoria and had literally forgotten that he’d left to meet a friend for drinks. The friend, Melissa Randolph, had confirmed his alibi. But there wasn’t a note anywhere about where they had met or why so late. All Reed wrote was: Melissa Randolph, San Antonio, met Clemson for drinks 10:45–midnight. Her contact information and driver’s license number were both listed.
Was that a real alibi? Who was Clemson? Who forgot that they left their house at night especially after their neighbor was murdered? He wasn’t interviewed until Monday … it was possible he forgot, thought it was a different night.
But Lucy wanted to talk to him herself.
Reed may have followed up again with him and Melissa Randolph if Stanley Grant hadn’t confessed.
There was one interesting piece of evidence suggesting that the killer drove to the house and parked behind Victoria’s white Mercedes coupe. Two drops of blood were found on the brick drive. Forensics concluded they belonged to Victoria. They were located where the passenger door of another vehicle may have been. No tire marks, no other indication of who had been driving the second vehicle. But someone had driven the killer.
Or picked him up.
From everything she heard about Victoria, Lucy didn’t think she would be irresponsible enough to show a house at night to a stranger. Not in this day and age when there were so many reports of real estate agents being attacked.
She looked through the reports again because something was missing … and then she realized what it was. There was absolutely no blood found in the house. The killer didn’t exit through the house. He left quickly—that was Lucy’s educated guess—rinsed his knife and hands in the pool and walked out through the side gate.
But there was nothing to indicate whether the gate had been swabbed or inspected.
She tracked Ash down. “Ash, did you process the Victoria Mills crime scene?”
“No. Not my case. Why?”
“It doesn’t say whether the side gate was inspected for evidence. But there was no blood in the house, I don’t think the killer left that way. Even if he rinsed off in the pool, there would be trace on the doors, water in the house, something to tell us he left that way. And the front door was locked, but the side gate didn’t have a lock, just a latch. That gate went out to the driveway, and there was a small amount of blood found on the driveway.”
“I can ask Kyle. He was in charge.”
“And?” It was his tone that had Lucy curious.
“He has seniority, but I was promoted over him because he’s lazy. Don’t repeat that. He’s not incompetent—he just doesn’t like being in the field. Give him a microscope and he’s great. But collecting evidence? We butt heads.”
“Would you mind reviewing the forensics and seeing if anything else was missed? That’s the only thing that jumped out at me, but there could be more.”
“Yeah, but you really owe me, because if I find anything wrong I’m going to write him up and then our working relationship is going to be worse than it already is.”
“You are the single most meticulous CSI I have ever worked with. We need more of you, and I would be happy to tell your boss that.”
“Actually, your boss already wrote up a commendation for my file on the last case we worked on. That must have come from you.”
“You did an amazing job. Your computer simulation alone was worthy of a commendation, but the fact that you worked so well with the FBI lab at Quantico is what helped us solve the case.”
“Well, I appreciate it. Really. I’ll take a look, but I don’t know that it will do any good. As far as we’re concerned, the case is closed.”
“Because Grant confessed?”
“And we haven’t heard about anything else. If it went to trial, we’d prepare for court, but…” He shrugged, then eyed her. “He is guilty, right?”
“I don’t know,” Lucy said. “He recanted.”
Ash snorted. “And every felon is innocent.”
“This time … there are some extenuating circumstances. I honestly can’t say whether he’s innocent or guilty, but because this case is connected to the Albright case, I need to look at every possibility.”
* * *
Lucy was driving back to FBI headquarters when she had a call from an unknown number.
“Kincaid,” she answered.
“It’s Nate. We have him.”
“Ricky?”
“He’s alive and well. We’re leaving in the morning. We don’t want to be on the road at night.”
“Thank God,” she said. “He’s okay? Really?”
“He doesn’t want to leave, but Javier—Jill Young’s cousin—talked to him. He’s scared and confused. He’s not a kid—he went from nine to adult—but is still a kid, if that makes sense.”
Lucy understood. “Did you show him the pictures?”
“Chavez.”
“How certain was he?”
“Absolutely certain. He didn’t hesitate.”
She’d had Nate create a series of photos that included Chavez, Douglas, the sheriff of Kerr County, and three FBI agents.
“And no one else?”
“No. Why?”
“Douglas is angry that we cut him out. We executed a warrant on the bank—Pollero is in the wind. Left the house early, didn’t go to work, visited his daughter for breakfast, and is just gone.”
“Damn.”
“And I didn’t tell Douglas what we were doing. He read me the riot act. Chavez wasn’t the lead detective.”
“But he was there at the Youngs’ house when they questioned the twins.”
“Maybe we should alert Douglas.” But it would not go over well.
“Just because Ricky didn’t identify him doesn’t mean that he isn’t also involved.”
Lucy knew Nate was right, but she didn’t like being put in this situation.
“I guess we’re lucky at this point that he wants nothing to do with me, but I’m going to tell Rachel. Let her make the call about who is looped in.”
“How did she take my spontaneous trip?”
“You’re using vacation, not sick time.”
“That’s it?”
“She’s hard to read. My gut tells me she’ll put a comment in our files, but she’s not going to go further. But my gut could be wrong.”
“Not usually.”
“She wasn’t happy, but she wasn’t angry.”
“Good enough. What’s been going on with the case?”
“I’ve been working with Sean and Max, which is interesting.”