Page 58 of Counter Attack

“Get some rest first,” she said. “Starting now.” Alex turnedto Harvey. “Thanks for taking over yesterday. What can you tell us about the murder?”

“Not a lot.” He took out a notepad. “I assigned a couple of deputies to canvass the neighborhood alongside Jared Westbrook, Chief Landry’s sergeant. They had to wait until late yesterday afternoon since almost everyone on that street works. I think they pretty well talked to everyone.”

“What did you learn?”

Harvey shrugged, and then looked down at his notepad. “No one had talked to her since she rented the house. No one saw or heard anything because they all claimed to be at work.”

“Do you have anything on the victim other than what we already know?”

Harvey shook his head. “We’re still looking into it, although I think it’s a waste of time—Tom Weaver isn’t renting to anybody he can’t check out.”

“Verifying our information is never a waste of time. Let me know when you get something.” Alex kept her tone even and didn’t miss Harvey’s frown as she turned to Mark Lassiter. The handwriting was on the wall—she was going to have trouble with Harvey.

“Mark,” she said, and he looked up from his notes. The teenage girl who’d found Norman’s body had given them a list of students who gathered at Tom Weaver’s rental house to smoke pot, and she’d assigned him to interview them. She hoped her show of confidence would encourage him to keep the interviews strictly professional. “What do you have for us?”

“Not much. The students clammed up, claimed they only stopped by the house to chill and none of them smoked any pot. Ever.” He rolled his eyes. “I told them if we ever so much as suspected they were doing something illegal, we’d contact their parents. As for the victim, none of them including MaryBeth knew her. Claimed they didn’t know Weaver had rented the house.”

In other words, nothing. “Thank you. I need you to follow up with Weaver on Norman’s rental agreement. I understand he requires two references from former rental agents as well as neighbors. Would you interview her references?”

“Sure.”

“Good. And I’d like to have a strategy meeting with you and Harvey today at one.”

The two exchanged looks, and she gritted her teeth.

“Do you expect us to have the information you requested by then?” Harvey grumbled.

“You should at least have a start on it. See you at one,” she said evenly, dismissing them. They were not going to disrespect her in front of the other deputies.

Why had she let her grandfather talk her into taking this job?

33

The question of who wanted Alexis dead followed Nathan into the next morning, making it difficult to focus on the stack of paperwork he had in front of him. On his way into the police station, he’d dropped his pickup off at the glass company to get the window replaced.

Twice he took out his cell to call and remind Alexis to check out the undercarriage of the patrol car she was using until the SUV was released. Twice he put the phone back in the case on his waist, the call not made. Alexis would not appreciate the implication that she wasn’t on top of this.

The next time he took out his phone, he scrolled to the CSI tech and called him. When Dylan answered, Nathan asked about the electronic device that had allowed someone to take over the Controller Area Network in her SUV.

“It’s more than a device—the device I can get rid of,” Dylan said. “It’s the software someone downloaded into the CAN. I can’t be sure I got rid of all of it. We’re calling in an expert.”

Good. “Where do you get software like that?”

“Dark web for sure, or maybe a hacker who has the software. The actual device we found is the same kind mechanics use tohook up to the electrical system to diagnose a problem. So it could belong to someone in the automotive field.”

“How familiar are you with the dark web?” he asked.

“I like to troll it, see what’s going on. No law against it.”

“Don’t take offense, I was just curious,” Nathan said. “I don’t suppose there were any fingerprints on the controller or anywhere else?”

“No. Sorry.”

“How will you prevent it from happening again?”

“That expert I talked to said he could install a warning system that will detect if any type of software is loaded onto the system.”

That should take care of a repeat problem. “Thanks. I owe you one.”

---