Page 113 of Fatal Witness

“You’re jiggling your foot. If this is stressing you out too much—”

“You don’t have to stay.” Mark leaned into Dani. “Hayes can take you home.”

“No! I’ll be fine.” She glanced toward Mae on the other side of her. “If my grandmother can take it, so can I.”

“You sure? I can give you a condensed version later.”

“I’ll be all right. I promise.”

If she were Dani or Mae, Alex wasn’t sure she’d want to hear what they were going to discuss. She studied Dani a minute and nodded. “If it gets to be too much, you can leave.” Alex turned to Mae. “You too.”

Both women nodded, and Alex returned to the front of the room. As she wrote Dani’s name at the top of the third column, the door opened and Morgan burst into the room.

“Sorry I’m late. Had an interview with a Chattanooga TV station.”

“Promising?” Alex certainly hoped so. She’d regretted giving Morgan permission to sit in on this as soon as the words were out of her mouth. But her friend was hurting. Losing the job in Houston ate at her, and from the articles she’d read online about Morgan, she was a good investigator. If Alex had the money, she would hire her as a deputy. Not that Morgan would take the job—she loved being a reporter.

She turned to her deputies. “Here’s what we have so far. According to the files Chattanooga PD sent over, they believed the burglary ring consisted of at least one other person, and possibly more than the three names I have up there.”

She aimed a laser pointer at each name she’d written. Keith Bennett, Robert (Bobby) Bennett, Tobias (Toby) Mitchell. Below those three, Alex had written Kyle Peterson with a question mark.

“The Bennett brothers and Toby Mitchell were captured on video at the jewelry store Kyle Peterson managed. The stolen diamonds have never surfaced. Max Anderson with TBI called before I reached the sheriff’s station and confirmed the victim in the grave is Toby Mitchell, so all three are dead now.”

Alex shifted her attention to Mark. “You spoke to Mr. Peterson,Kyle’s grandfather. You want to fill everyone in on that conversation?”

“Okay to do it from here?” Mark asked from where he sat. She nodded, and he continued. “As Alex said, I went to Peterson’s Grocery early Saturday morning. I intended to talk to Kyle, but he wasn’t there.”

Mark related the information Mr. Peterson shared and then the brief conversation with Toby.

“I spoke with him around nine.” He turned to Morgan. “What time did you talk to him?”

She opened her iPad and tapped on the screen. “At 10:05. I caught him at Peterson’s. We talked about ten minutes, then he told me he had to get the stock up and then meet someone, and we set up a meeting at the coffee shop.” She looked up. “It was like he wanted to get something off his chest—one of the last things he said to me was, ‘It’s time the truth came out.’ But he never came.”

“I’ve asked around, and no one saw him after that.”

Alex steepled her fingers. “Toby went to prison rather than roll over on his accomplices. What could have changed his mind?”

Mae sat up straighter. “I figure he knows what happened that night, and he got tired of carrying the guilt around. He did some odd jobs for me through the years, and more than once I thought he wanted to tell me something.”

Alex could buy that. Guilt was a heavy load to carry, especially for twenty-five years.

“He wasn’t going to tell me anything,” Mark said. “I think he was just being smart with me about the plane.”

Mae reached for her water bottle and uncapped it. “I don’t believe he had a plane either, but he did like to hang out at our little airport.”

“I don’t see him having a valid license either.” Alex nodded to Mark. “Call the manager out at the airport. See if she can tell you anything about Toby.”

“I’ll do it right now.”

“While Mark’s doing that,” Alex said, “we’ll discuss Kyle Peterson. He swears he had nothing to do with the burglaries, and Chattanooga PD never found any evidence that pointed to him. Even without evidence, he lost his job, something he is still very angry about twenty-five years later. That will play into the third column involving Dani. Thoughts on the burglaries, anyone?”

Jenna tapped her pen against her tablet. “Did the Chattanooga PD ever consider Mitchell or the Bennett brothers as the mastermind of the ring?”

“According to their files, Chattanooga didn’t believe it was any of them. Toby pled guilty and received a six-year sentence. Served five years with a year off for good behavior. Even though he denied it, Chatt PD believes Toby knew the identity of the ringleader.”

“What do we know about Toby?” Jenna asked. “Who were his friends? Associates?”

“He lived here in Pearl Springs,” Alex said. “You’ve probably seen him around. Back then he worked in construction with the Bennett brothers.”

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