Sharp gave him a look. “She is more durable than you think.”
Yet, the fact that Lance was always trying to protect her was a good sign. For the last ten years, Sharp had been wondering if the young man would ever let himself have a personal life. But Morgan was the kind of special that had little to do with her pretty blue eyes and was all about her compassion, smarts, and pure grit.
“If we’d gotten here earlier . . .” Regret slammed into Sharp. A woman was dead, and his first big lead gone before he’d gotten a chance to talk to her.
Staring at the body, Lance’s face tightened. If Sharp was disappointed, he couldn’t imagine how Lance felt.
“We’d better go outside and pretend we left the scene the second we saw the body.” Sharp backed out of the bedroom. “But on the way out, look for signs of a break-in.”
They left the way they came in, doing their best not to touch the windowsill.
Sharp examined the window lock and snapped a few pictures. “The lock is broken. The way it’s rusted, it’s probably been that way for a long time.”
“If she didn’t commit suicide, do you think Ricky killed her?” Lance asked.
“Hanging a person takes a lot of work,” Sharp said. “Ricky doesn’t seem like the industrious type.”
They rounded the house and returned to the driveway.
“She was dead when I got there!” Ricky shouted the moment they were in sight.
Ignoring him, Sharp handed Morgan the camera. “Put this in your pocket.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because the sheriff won’t search you,” Sharp said.
Nodding, Lance gestured between his own chest and Sharp’s. “We don’t intimidate him.”
A few minutes later the sheriff’s vehicle slid to the curb. Two deputies parked behind him.
King climbed out of his vehicle and stomped up the driveway. His face was locked in a stony expression. “What happened?”
“We came to talk to her and knocked on the door. No one answered, but we saw this guy”—Sharp jerked a thumb at Ricky, still zip-tied to the lamp post—“climbing out a window.”
“I didn’t kill her!” Ricky yelled.
Sharp gave the sheriff a very abbreviated version of events. “Lance and I cleared the house, verified that she was dead, and called you.”
Sheriff King propped one hand on his hip and stabbed a finger at Sharp. “You should have called me and stayed the hell out of the house.”
“What if she was still alive?” Sharp asked, though they all knew the chances of someone being alive when hanging by the neck were slim to none.
The sheriff glared. “Wait. Here.”
He led his deputies to the front door. He checked the knob, then led the way around the house. Ten minutes later, he returned to the driveway. “Nobody leaves until I give them permission. And I want all three of you in my office at eight a.m.”
Morgan shook her head. “I can’t be there until nine thirty. I have to take my daughter to preschool and drop my nanny at dialysis.”
The sheriff’s jaw worked as if he were chewing nails. “Nine thirty, then.”
He stomped to his vehicle, leaned in, and grabbed his radio mic.
“He’s pissed,” Lance said.
“Hey, we didn’t kill her.” Sharp shrugged. “But it’s probably a good thing we have our lawyer with us.”
“Who didn’t see you break any laws.” Still cradling the injured little dog in her arms, Morgan stroked its head.
“Exactly.” Normally, Sharp was all about following the rules, but this case was different.
This one was personal.
He would do whatever it took to learn what had happened to Vic Kruger, and he thought Crystal Fox’s suicide was just too convenient.
Chapter Seventeen
Two hours later, Morgan was relieved that neither Sharp nor Lance were in jail, though she wasn’t ruling out that possibility for the near future. In her office, she made a cup of coffee. While the machine gurgled, she dug through her desk for a candy bar.
Sharp walked into her office, a grayish-green shake in his hands. His hair was damp. He’d gone upstairs to his apartment over the office for a five-minute shower and change of clothes.
“Are you sure I can’t make you one?” Sharp took a huge gulp. “When was the last time you ate?”
“Lance and I had sandwiches on the way to Crystal Fox’s house.” Her coffee machine beeped. She swiveled her chair to retrieve her steaming mug of energy. “One liquid meal a day is my limit.”
“That stuff will kill you.” Sharp shook his head. “You need to eat better, sleep more, and stop relying on caffeine to get you through the day.”
But the hot coffee smelled and tasted like heaven.
“Spoken like a person who doesn’t have three kids under the age of seven.” Morgan drank, grateful to the first human who’d decided to crush and boil coffee beans.
Sharp checked his phone.
“Any word from the vet?” Morgan asked.
“Not yet.” Sharp had dropped the little dog at a twenty-four-hour veterinary clinic. “You can go home to your kids.”
“I called and let them know I’d be late.” Again. She hated missing dinner and bedtime with her girls, but her family would take care of the kids and Grandpa. “Lance needs me, even if he doesn’t want to admit it.”
“You’re right,” Sharp said. “And don’t listen to him when he tells you differently.”
“I won’t.”
The front door opened and closed. Footsteps sounded in the hall. Lance walked through her office doorway. Like Sharp, he’d felt the need to shower after being in close quarters with the body. Lance had stopped at his house six blocks away from the office to shower and change his clothes.
In Morgan’s office, he made himself a cup of coffee.
“I can’t believe you’re going to drink that.” Sharp’s face wrinkled with disgust.
“Not now, Sharp.” Lance drank deeply. “It’s been a crappy day. I need some sustenance.”
“Go ahead. Poison yourself.” Sharp flipped a hand in the air. “Let’s get down to business.” Sharp tapped the open lid of his laptop on Morgan’s desk. “I’m downloading the photos I took of Crystal Fox’s body. We can view them when I’m done.”
“I’m adding Crystal and Mary Fox to the list for background checks. I’ll work on those tonight from my mother’s house,” Lance said.
“We all know the sheriff won’t share beans with us,” Sharp said. “What do we know about Crystal Fox?”
Morgan began, “Crystal Fox was sixty-two years old. She lived at her current address for the last thirty years. She married Warren Fox in 1983. There’s no divorce on record.”
Sharp made notes on the board. “What do we know about Mary?”
“She was twenty-one years old when she died in 1994. She dropped out of high school at the age of seventeen. She’d been arrested once at eighteen for shoplifting, and again at twenty for solicitation of prostitution. She plead guilty to both charges, paid a fine for the shoplifting offense, and received probation for soliciting.” Morgan scrolled. “She worked as a waitress at PJ’s and supplemented her income with prostitution.”
“We need to talk to someone who knew Crystal.” Sharp studied what was now their murder board.
“There was one house down the road, but it would be best to wait until tomorrow to knock on the door,” Morgan said. “The sheriff has had quite enough of us tonight. We’ll be seeing him again early tomorrow morning. At that time, I’d rather be able to honestly say that we haven’t tampered with his case.”
Sharp glanced at the clock. “After we’re done with the sheriff, then.”
Lance set down his cup. His face was drawn, and dark circles lay like bruises under his eyes. He needed a good meal and a full night’s sleep. But he wouldn’t allow himself either. “We need to know how Mary was connected to my father.”
“They knew each other from PJ’s,” Sharp said. “But you’re right. That isn’t enough. Your father wasn’t at PJ’s that night. Both your mother and the responding patrol officer verified that.”