“Your father’s friends remembered Mary. You talked to them yesterday, right? Brian and Natalie Leed and Stan Adams?” the sheriff asked. “How well do you remember them from your childhood?”
“I have some memories.” Lance shifted his weight. The hard plastic chair dug in to his back. “But once my dad went missing, I didn’t see any of them.”
The sheriff leaned forward. “Do you remember your mother acting strangely back then?”
“No,” Lance said. His father had hidden that well.
“Do you remember your father being depressed?” the sheriff asked.
“No,” Lance answered.
“Kids don’t always know what’s really going on with their parents.” The sheriff leaned back and crossed his arms.
Discomfort swam around in Lance’s chest. Where was the sheriff going with his questions?
King turned to Sharp. “Your original reports mentioned that Vic was upset, depressed about his wife’s deteriorating mental health.”
Sharp nodded.
“Mary Fox had a prior arrest for soliciting.” The sheriff scrutinized their faces, one at a time. “But I suspect you already knew that.”
Discomfort curled Lance’s fingers into fists. Next to him, Morgan must have felt his tension building. She pressed her leg against his, a silent plea for him to cool it.
“Where are you going with these questions, Sheriff?” she asked.
Sheriff King straightened. “Once we cleared the mud from the vehicle, we found a brick on the floor on the driver’s side, as if someone had used it to jam the gas pedal down so the car would drive into the lake all by itself.”
Lance’s gut twisted. He wanted the sheriff to get to the point, but his mouth would not form words. He felt like King was toying with him, leading him along, like a cow being coaxed into the slaughterhouse. They all knew Mary hadn’t driven the car into the lake.
“Yesterday, the dive team scanned the lake bottom where we found the car. They found no other remains.” The sheriff leaned forward, his elbows hitting the table. “You’re sure you haven’t heard from your father over the years?”
“What?” Shock freed Lance’s voice. “No.”
“How about your mother?” King interlaced his fingers. “Are you sure she hasn’t heard from him?”
“Yes.” Lance’s spine snapped straight.
“I’m giving this to you.” The sheriff pulled a folded paper from his pocket and dropped it on the table. “These are the things I’d like from your mother. Either you get them for me, or I’ll be forced to go to her.” His big hand settled on top of the page. “I’m doing my best to be considerate of her fragility, but I can’t let it undermine the investigation.”
Morgan beat Lance to the paper. He kept his eyes on the sheriff while she unfolded and read it. “He wants the last twelve months of your mother’s e-mail and phone records.”
“My mother is a victim here.” Anger replaced Lance’s unease.
The sheriff held up a hand to cut him off. “Here’s what I think might have happened. Your dad was depressed and lonely. He turned to Mary for comfort, maybe even paid for it. But she was known for being less than kind. Maybe Mary threatened to tell your mother. Maybe Vic strangled her, put her in his trunk, and sent his car into Grey Lake. Maybe that’s why your father left town, never to be seen again. And if Vic is alive, I also have to wonder if he’s contacted your mother over the years.”
Lance surged to his feet. Morgan had him by the arm on one side, Sharp on the other.
Morgan was whispering in his ear. Her tone was calming, but Lance couldn’t hear the words over the roar of fury in his head.
She shoved her way in front of Lance, blocking him with her body. “This interview is over, Sheriff.”
“My father was a victim.” But Lance’s voice was strained. Could the sheriff be right? How much did Lance really remember about his dad? Some of his memories had already been proven false.
“Will you call your mother about these records or should I?” the sheriff asked.
“I’ll do it.” Lance forced the words out of his locked jaws.
The sheriff’s posture eased and his tired eyes gleamed with satisfaction. He didn’t retreat from his position or his statement. “I think your father skipped town because he’d committed murder. Now I need to know if your mother was an accomplice.”
Lance wasn’t sure how he left the sheriff’s station. Suddenly, he was outside. The sun broke through the clouds, blinding him.
Morgan took his arm and led him across the parking lot. “Your mother doesn’t have to comply with the sheriff’s request. He doesn’t have a search warrant, nor does he have the grounds to get one.”
“She’ll give him whatever he wants, and he knows it.” Lance put both his hands on his head. “He’ll tell her not providing the information will slow his investigation. But giving him access to her personal records will upset her.”
His mother wanted nothing more than to find the truth. She’d been waiting more than two decades to move on with her life.
“You can go for a power of attorney and block him from seeing her,” Morgan said.
Lance shook his head. “I’d have to convince her psychiatrist that Mom is incompetent at the same time that she’s been making improvement with her new therapist. It won’t fly. And she would feel that I’d betrayed her.”
And that would hurt her more in the long run than anything the sheriff could do.
“Then let her comply.” Morgan stopped next to his vehicle. “He won’t find anything. He’s just spinning his wheels.”
Lance swallowed a lump of anger the size of a volleyball in his throat. If Morgan hadn’t dragged him out of King’s office, he might have taken a swing at the sheriff and ended up spending the night in jail. Losing control would help no one.
But was he losing his shit because the sheriff’s theory was way off base?
Or because it was all too logical?
Sharp came out of the building and crossed the parking lot. “The sheriff is a dick. You want to get even with the SOB? Let’s find out what happened to your dad before he does. King will never get over it.”
Lance breathed. Angry air hissed out of his chest. “As much as I don’t want to, I can follow the evidence to the sheriff’s theory that my father killed Mary. In fact, if I wasn’t too close to the case, I would have already considered it. But to suggest my mother conspired with him is too much.”
“Your mother did nothing wrong, and she will be fine,” Sharp said. “She’ll send him copies of her e-mail and phone records. Hell, she’s better than any forensic computer tech I’ve ever worked with. Even if she had been in contact with your dad, the sheriff would never find the evidence in her permanent records. All communication would have been routed through some village in Turkey.”
Lance paced a tight circle in front of his Jeep. His mother was in no danger from Sheriff King. Right?
“I might not have been right about my parents’ relationship when I was ten,” Lance said. “But I know that my mother hasn’t been in contact with my dad since that night.”
“Of course she hasn’t.” Sharp waved off his comment. “The whole line of inquiry is ridiculous. Unfortunately, it makes me think the sheriff is desperate, and that he doesn’t have squat in evidence or leads to follow.”
“Did the background checks reveal anything useful?” Sharp asked Lance.
Lance looped a hand around the back of his neck. The hours he’d spent online the previous night had given him a stiff neck. “Brian and Stan both have multiple mortgages on their homes. Stan is the more leveraged of the two by far.”
“Brian had a sports car in his garage,” Morgan said. “Maybe he has other expensive toys. Stan has a big house, a Mercedes, and expensive furnishings. But as a partner in an established accounting firm, I’d think he’d be able to afford those things.”
“Maybe the firm has problems,” Lance said.
“It’s worth a deeper dive,” Sharp agreed.