| |
Ryan returned to the sheriff’s department and requested Ms. Taylor be brought to the interview room. As he walked by dispatch, Wyland handed him a file. He carried it and his backpack into his office.
Opening the file, he discovered that Russell Pawner and his wife Margo had filed for a separation. They did have a daughter named Lucy. He looked at the photo of the family from a school event and had to agree with Shandra that Lucy looked a lot like the naked young woman in the photo from Huntley’s apartment. Had the man started following around the principal’s daughter?
His phone buzzed with a text.
Shandra.
I forgot to tell you that there were bandages and ointment in the Pawner’s shopping cart.
Things were starting to stack up in favor of the principal.
Ryan grabbed his files on the two murders and entered the interview room. Ms. Taylor didn’t look as stubborn as the first time he’d chatted with her.
“Do you know who Shade and The Joker are on your chat?” He decided to start with that and work his way to the fact she’d been seen arguing with Ms. Tait before the teacher’s death.
“No. And no one knows who Miss Chevious is. I set it up that way, so everyone could say what they wanted without anyone knowing.”
“You didn’t want anyone to find out you were instigating a murder.”
“No! I didn’t plan for him to get killed. I wanted him caught and fired.” She crossed her arms.
“That’s not what your comments sound like. You asked your followers to make The Scum’s life miserable because the world would be better off without him in it. Those are words to make a follower think, Mr. Huntley should be killed.” Ryan pulled out the transcripts. As he’d read, he’d used highlighters to mark Miss Chevious, The Joker, and Shade’s comments. “If you read the comments by these three, it sounds like a murder is being planned. Right down to using the stage props.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t plan his murder.”
“What about Ms. Tait’s? I have a witness who saw you arguing with her near the stairs to the roof.”
Her face paled. “A witness?”
“Yes. I’d like you to pull up your pant legs.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“Whoever carried Ms. Tait’s body up the stairs fell and left their skin on a step and blood on the roof.” He stood and walked around the table. “Lift up your pant legs, please.”
Ryan waited as the young woman slowly folded her pant legs up to her knees. There weren’t any scratches or recent scrapes on her legs. But one had a large scab. “What happened there?”
“My friend and I were motorcycle racing.”
“You do know that if we discover either Shade or The Joker killed Mr. Huntley and Ms. Tait, you will be an accessory because of the forum and how you urged them to rid the school of scum.”
She put her hands on her face and started to cry.
Ryan picked up his folders and left the room. He asked the deputy standing outside the door to release Ms. Taylor.
She might be an accessory, but he didn’t think she’d killed anyone. He dropped the files into his backpack, shut down his computer, and headed home. He couldn’t think of anything else he could do tonight.
~*~
Shandra sat on the couch reading the transcript after Ryan left. The conversation ran all the way up until the forensic techs printed it out. Miss Chevious had obviously tried to talk down The Joker and after Mr. Huntley’s death Shade had stopped commenting. Had Shade been Lenny? He’d said he’d been on the forum to monitor what was going on. Lenny wore sweatshirts. She didn’t like the way her thoughts were going.
After a cup of chamomile tea, she drifted off to sleep on the couch.
The transcript scrolled in the background as the young woman, Lucy, stared into a mirror. Was this all connected to the photo Mr. Huntley took of her? Ella sat on a cloud not moving or saying a thing. If the deaths were caused by the photo of this girl...Mr. Pawner was the murderer. She shuddered thinking how many lives the man had hurt. Could he have been so calloused to go all the way to murder?
A door closing and a soft woof, yanked her from the dream and to a groggy consciousness.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you,” Ryan said, placing his backpack on the coffee table and shucking out of his coat.
“I needed to wake up. My dream was only confusing me more.” She sat up and made room for him on the couch. “Did you learn anything that will help solve your cases?” She picked up her tea cup and sipped the cold brew.
“I don’t think Rachel Taylor had anything to do with the actual murders, but her forum might have instigated them. Making her an accessory.” Ryan wandered out of the living room and returned with a beer.
“You must be done for the night,” she said, nodding toward his beer.
“I am. The woman and girl you saw Mr. Pawner with are his wife and daughter. Though they have a legal separation.” He pulled the file out of his pack. “It appears the daughter goes to a Christian high school.”
“With what Mr. Huntley was doing, Mr. Pawner probably wanted to keep his daughter away from the pervert.”
“Yeah, but the photo I found at Huntley’s looks a lot like Lucy Pawner. I’m thinking Huntley went too far by following her.” Ryan’s phone buzzed. He pulled it of his belt.
“Greer.” He listened.
“Thank you.” He hung up the call and said, “Damn!”
“Who was that?” Shandra rose to get a refill of tea.
“The forensic lab. The blood and fibers we found on the stairs up to the roof are that of the victim, Ms. Tait.”
Shandra stopped. “That means she was dragged up the stairs, not carried. Mr. Pawner would have been able to carry her.” Her thoughts shot back to Rachel.
“According to Boyd, Rachel was arguing with Ms. Tait and pushed her.” Ryan sipped his beer.
“Do you think she killed Nancy, dragged her up the stairs, and tossed her off the roof?” Shandra wandered into the kitchen and started the tea kettle. She returned to the living room. “Did she have an alibi for the time of death?”
“Yes and no. If Ms. Tait was killed after their argument, Rachel does have an alibi. She purchased gas on her way out of town and the time stamp on the receipt is four-thirty. Mr. Shepard saw Ms. Tait fall about five.” Ryan patted the couch next to him.
Shandra held up her finger and returned to the kitchen to replenish the tea in her cup. She returned and sat by Ryan. “But Boyd saw Rachel arguing with Nancy last period. So around three. That’s two hours before she was thrown off the roof.”
“And thirty minutes after Rachel got gas.” Ryan pulled out his note pad and started a timeline.
“You know, Rachel could have easily fueled her car and returned by five and tossed Nancy off the roof.”
“That would mean she killed her before she set up the fake suicide.” Ryan tapped his notepad. “And it doesn’t account for the fresh blood smear on the roof. It was from a male.”
“She was working with someone. You said before that someone had to have Mr. Huntley’s attention when the killer hit him with the prop.” She stared into her tea. “Do you think that maybe the murder was a prank gone wrong? They had planned to just knock him into the wall and he ended up hitting his head and dying?”
“Whose prank? The Rid the Scum group or Ms. Tait’s pranksters?” Ryan circled Rachel and Nancy’s names on his notepad.
“Do you still have Rachel in custody?” she asked.
“No. I let her go. I didn’t have enough to keep her any longer. Why?”
“If she was in on the two murders, do you think she’d get in contact with the other person who helped her?”
Ryan sat up. “That’s a possibility.” He pulled out his phone and dialed.
“Sheriff Oldham, I’d like to put surveillance on Rachel Taylor.” He listened.
“Yes. I have reason to believe she had an accomplice in the murders at the high school and I’d like to see who she contacts.”
“Yes, I understand. Thank you.” Ryan closed the connection then dialed again.
“This is Detective Greer. I’d like your patrol cars to locate a car.”
Shandra listened as he rattled off the make, model, year, and license plate of Rachel’s car.
“Yes, when it’s found I’d like to be contacted. No, I don’t care what time it is. Thank you.”
He pulled the blanket on the couch over them. “That’s settled. Let’s see if we can get some sleep while we wait for the call. Once they locate her, we’ll start following her.”