Detective Weathers’ question prodded Candace into lifting her gaze from the computer screen to which she’d been glued.
“What?”
“I said, do you know what time it is?”
“What time it is?” She stopped, considered, glanced across the room to the large clock hanging over the doorway.
“Past 10:00 P.M.,” Troy went on. “Why are you here so late, Ewing? You were here late last night and now you’re at it again. Second night in a row to be burning the midnight oil. I’m here because I had to run down a suspect last night and have paperwork tonight, but why are you? You trying to earn some overtime cash or something?”
“No.” She shook her head, taking the opportunity to rub her bleary eyeballs. “Captain didn’t even approve OT. This is on my own time. Following leads.”
“Don’t you have to work in the morning?”
“Will you lay off?” Maybe she was irritable because she was, indeed, tired, but the questions were starting to get to her. “Yes, I have to work in the morning. Yes, it’s late. Yes, I know that. I’m a big girl, okay? I can take care of myself.”
“Okay, okay. We’re cool. No need to bite my head off. Just checking on you.” Her fellow detective backed away a couple of steps, hands raised in a placating pose.
“Yeah, well, you sound a bit too much like Gary,” she growled.
Troy chuckled. “I’ve learned from the best.”
“If you think he’s the best…” she muttered.
Amused by her sarcasm, Troy ventured to return to her side.
“Mind if I ask what you’re working on?”
“Mind if I ask why you’re so chatty tonight?”
“We arrested a suspect—different case from last night—and my partner’s got him in booking. I’m trying to avoid the pile of paperwork. That answer enough for you?”
She couldn’t argue with that. Candace hated paperwork as badly as anyone.
“Alright, I’m trying to find connections between murder victims,” she said grudgingly, unwilling to hand out too many details, but—hey, a fresh set of eyes never hurt. She adjusted the corner of her screen so Weathers could see the spreadsheet she’d been creating. “Timeline, location of bodies, relatives, jobs, employers, etc.” she said, her finger trailing down the individual columns so he could follow her line of reasoning.
“No common link?”
“Not sure. Not any that makes sense.”
“What do you mean, none that make any sense?”
“Well, take for instance vic number 1.” She singled out the line with Ethan Wharton’s name. “He was a student at Tarrant County College on the Trinity River Campus. Worked part-time security for big events. He did ROTC in high school. Maybe that’s why they hired him? Anyway, so there’s him, arguably close to the entertainment industry. Then there’s this guy, Oliver Littlefield.” Her finger slid down four lines. “Littlefield worked as a lighting tech at concerts and events. Weddings and private parties too, but usually bigger stuff.”
“Then it’s not inconceivable they could’ve met.”
“Inconceivable? No. Probable?” She shrugged. “Those big events have tons of people backstage, don’t they? What are the odds they would’ve crossed paths?”
“You’re asking me? I’m not much of a concert goer.”
“Neither am I.”
“Not now, or never?”
“Never. Being packed into a space with thousands of drunk, smelly, yelling people? Never appealed to me.” She didn’t even try to hide her shudder.
“You’re one of a kind, Ewing,” Weathers grinned. “Okay. Suppose for argument’s sake they did meet. Improbable, yeah. But you know what the greatest detective of all time said about improbability—”
“‘Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.’” She tapped a framed picture of herself and her grandfather that sat on her desk. The quote was written out in her grandpa’s shaky hand, taped to the corner of the picture. “And Sherlock Holmes is fictional, by the way.”
“Still the greatest detective of all time,” Troy stated mildly. “Anyway, that’s beside the point. Can you cross reference any events the two of them worked together?”
Candace blew a puff of air out of her cheeks. “It’s worth a shot. I’m too tired to come up with anything else fresh and original.”
“You’re welcome.” Troy fake saluted as he backed away. “Let me know if my idea leads to anything. I’d better get to that paperwork if I don’t want to be stuck here all night.”
“Thanks. See ya, Weathers,” she muttered, even as her focus shifted to the screens she was scrolling.
The next fifteen minutes involved lots of back and forth between the two men’s work history; dry, boring stuff that might have been cool to someone who knew and obsessed over celebrities or the rich and famous, but that was definitely not her. Just as she was about to toss her fellow detective’s idea away, one name caught her eye as having shown up on both men’s records at least three times each.
Am I seeing this right?
She switched windows, checking, double checking.
Yes, yes, she was seeing it right. Both men had worked local events where Elia was present, either at one of her concerts or one of her fundraisers.
Candace bit her lower lip. She didn’t follow celebrity gossip or entertainment rags, but she would’ve had to be deaf and blind to live in the Fort Worth area, in Texas, and not know who Elia was. Which was why her first instinct was to write this off as a mere coincidence.
A glance at the quote her grandpa had written out for her as a reminder on how to solve tough cases encouraged her.
Definitely improbable.
She decided to keep checking, branching out to her victims. Within half an hour, she’d uncovered connections, slight and tenuous as they were, to Elia with nearly all of them. Some connections were nothing more than a victim having won backstage passes to an Elia concert via a local popular radio station. That was Suzie Marston, a young stay-at-home mom of twin toddler boys, who’d been found decapitated in a parking garage in downtown Fort Worth a month ago. That homicide had sent absolute shockwaves through the community. Who would have it out for a stay-at-home mom whose record was squeaky clean? Suzie had been mousy, tired looking, and wore oversized men’s sweats that she’d apparently borrowed from her husband. There was nothing remarkable or exciting or interesting about the woman. Why would anyone bother to murder her, especially in such a heinous way?
Could it be her connection to Elia? Candace sat back in her chair, rubbing her chin. Doesn’t make sense. But I’ve been looking for a common thread in these homicides, and that thread is that all of the victims were connected to her in some way. All were murdered. I haven’t seen any other connections. None, no matter how tenuous. Which, if this line of logic could possibly be true and I haven’t totally gone off my rocker, might mean that Elia, or someone close to her, is the person in Sean Costas’ crosshairs. Which would also explain why people connected to her are being killed. But a feud between Sean Costas and Elia?