Cassie bit her bottom lip, looking more vulnerable than at any time in the past. That included earlier today when she lay passed out in front of the house. She glanced up at me. I tried to offer a reassuring smile. She glanced away.
“Not to rush you,” Pennington said, “but there’s a woman out there, hopefully still alive. The sooner you help us narrow down suspects, the sooner we can get her back to her family.”
Cassie extended a hand, palm facing us, to silence him. “No pressure,” she whispered.
“My bad.” Pennington leaned forward, turned the folder and shifted it in front of the empty seat.
Cassie pulled out a chair and slid into it. I caught another distracting whiff of her hair. She opened the folder and spent ten seconds staring at the first photo. In all, it looked like there were a dozen, give or take. Without a word, she flipped the picture over and set it to the side. Over the next two minutes, she moved through six more pictures, her eyes locked on those of the potential suspects. They were homogeneous in nature, those men. White guys. Closely cropped hair. Scraggly stubble on their jaws. Looked like young punks to me. Every year it seemed I said that more and more, though. If I had to guess, these were all connected to the women by romantic relationships.
The next picture seemed to pique her interest more than the previous ones. The guy was older, with dark, receding hair. His forehead was wrinkled. Looked like a career criminal to me, thrown in to throw her off.
“Something about this guy,” Cassie said. “I don’t think it has anything to do with this case, but there’s something there.”
Pennington scrawled something into his notebook as Cassie moved through two more pictures, giving them the same scrutiny as the others.
Then on the second to last, her expression changed and the color left her cheeks.
“What is it?” I asked.
“This guy,” she said, tapping her finger on his forehead. “I saw him while we were at the house.”
“What’d you see?” Pennington asked.
“His face.” She waved her fingers in front of her. “It was just there, and it wasn’t a positive feeling.”
Pennington set his pen down. “Did you ever get a glimpse of the murder?”
“Not in the way you think. And certainly not with a face attached. I saw him—” Cassie lifted the photo “—when I went to Alice’s room.”
Pennington leaned toward the picture. I presumed he was taking note of the serial number as he scribbled something into his notebook.
“Who is he?” Cassie asked.
“Alice’s boyfriend,” Pennington said. “Ex or estranged, possibly.”
“So you think there’s a motive here?” I said.
“To hurt Alice?” he said. “Maybe. To kill the others, I’m not so sure.”
“Already questioned him?”
Pennington nodded.
“And you think he knows something?”
“I think he’s hiding something.” Pennington dropped his pencil and wrapped his hands around the back of his head. “He was very apprehensive, sweating like a damn pig. Contradicted himself seven or eight times. Had no alibi for the night of the murder, other than he’d hunkered down in his apartment due to the storm. No one could vouch for that, of course.”
“Sometimes no one can,” I said.
Pennington lifted an eyebrow. “Suppose so. Anyway, he remains a person of interest.”
“You got any others?”
He stopped short of saying yes. “Look, Tanner, I’m fine with you coming along and helping out. You might spot something we missed, or put two and two together when we’re banging our heads trying to solve one plus three. But at some point, I gotta cut you out. And I think that point is when we start talking about additional suspects. I don’t want to taint the investigation, and I don’t want to put ideas into Cassie’s head. That’s by her request, as I’m sure you know, having worked with her in the past.”
All valid points. Hell, I wouldn’t have allowed him this far into an investigation. I wished he hadn’t brought me along, though. I felt invested now, and that’s a bitch of a problem.
“You need to talk to him again,” Cassie said. “There’s a question you need to ask.”
“What?” Pennington said.
Cassie tilted her head back until her neck rested on the chair. Her hair hung in thick strands, past the seat. She whispered something as she reached out and placed her palm over the face in the picture.
“Where were you?” she said almost imperceptibly. “You weren’t in your apartment. Where were you?”
I glanced over at Pennington. He looked as confused as I felt.
The moment ended with Cassie leaning forward again. “He couldn’t have been at his apartment.”
“Why not?” Pennington said.
“He’d rented it out for the week,” she said.
“Where was he staying?”
“Makes sense he would have been staying with his girlfriend, right?” I said.
“Only they were broken up, or on a break, something like that. Things weren’t on an even keel, as he put it.”
“All right,” I said. “So where, then?”
We both stared at Cassie, waiting for her to deliver the answer. She shrugged. “Got me, guys. You’ll have to question him again to get to the bottom of that.”
“Okay,” Pennington said. “We’ll locate him asap and hit him with this. Any way you think we can verify that?”
“The internet.” I spun my cell phone. “Plenty of home sharing sites out there for people who don’t like staying at hotels. In some cases, people rent out the place they live in, able to secure their mortgage payment in exchange for a week on someone else’s couch.”
“Good point, Tanner. I’ll jump on that, too.” He grabbed the photo and set it to the side. “What about the last photo?”
It was another older guy. He looked a lot like the first one. Judging by the look on Cassie’s face, she seemed to think so, too. I glanced at Pennington in time to see him craning forward a bit. His fingers danced on the table. His gaze darted between the picture and Cassie. He was definitely waiting for confirmation on something.
She turned over the stack of discarded photos and rifled through them until she found the other picture. Side by side, there was no doubt the two men were related in some way.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“You tell me,” Pennington said.
“Kind of like the first one, he’s got some baggage, but I can’t see how it’s related to this.”
“Fair enough.” Pennington rose and shrugged his coat on. “If anything else pops into your head, you let me know.”
Cassie stood and started toward the hallway. “I want to go back to the house tomorrow.”
“I’ll arrange it.” Pennington gathered his things and tucked them into the binder. “I can see myself out.”
I followed Pennington to the door to see if there was anything he had to get off his chest, but didn’t want to say around Cassie. He never looked back. What was the deal with the two older men?
When I returned to the kitchen, Cassie remained in the same seat. She stared through narrowed eyes at the table where the photos had been.
“What’s up?”
She didn’t look up at me. “Maybe there is something there.”
“Where?”
“With those two men. The older ones. Looked like brothers.”
“You think you’ve seen them before?”
“Anything’s possible, Mitch.” She wiped the edge of her hand across the table as though sweeping the images away. “I could’ve run into them at a gas station once or twice. It’s not so much the way they look, as it is a feeling.” She paused for a deep breath. The air whistled as she exhaled. “I can’t really explain it.” She looked up and smiled. “Why am I telling you that? You already know.”
“I think I’m gonna get going. I’ve gotta digest all this, and I’m sure you do, too.”
“You coming along tomorrow?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.” I squeezed her shoulder as I passed. “And hopefully your detective friends don’t mind.”
“I’ll tell them I’m done if they give you trouble. Seems to be working so far.”
“That it does.”