Page 49 of Every Deadly Suspicion

Mandy nodded. “Amen.”

They both bowed their heads and prayed. Hanna still felt anxious, but not about Joe. She’d made the right decision there, she was certain. But had she made the right choice where Jared and Nathan were concerned?

CHAPTER 24

NATHAN WENT OVERColby Ellis’s statement several times before sending him back to a holding cell. Ellis tried to get Nathan to forget about the warrants, but there was no way that would happen. Ellis had looked at pictures of large, late-model, black SUVs and told Nathan he was certain the car he’d seen was a Chevy Tahoe. That didn’t narrow things down. In this part of the county, that was a very popular vehicle, for ownership and as a rental.

Seeing aVote Keyes for Chiefbumper sticker told Nathan that not only was the SUV not a rental or someone passing through, it was local. He wished they could narrow it down to only SUVs in the Dry Oaks area, but Hanna’s campaign had been supported by people all over the county. Hanna made an impression on people. Even if they couldn’t vote for her, a lot of people in the county supported her. They saw her as competent and trustworthy.

He took out all the paperwork related to all three cases and spread it out on a table in the conference room. He pored over everything while he drank strong coffee. Manny had left right after they’d talked to Ellis in order to attend Edda’s autopsy. That it was happening so quickly was a good thing. Nathan had been going over the cases when Manny sent a text.

Same caliber bullet—9mm—but too fragmented to test for a match to the same gun.

Nathan was glad to hear that. It pushed the pendulum back to one killer. It had to be one killer. For some reason, he changed tactics with Edda, but it still had to be the same guy.

Manny got back to the office, bearing an expression of guarded optimism. “We got another break. Edda had skin under her fingernails. It looks as if she scratched her attacker. There was enough material that we should get a DNA match.”

“Some good news. How long will DNA results take?”

“Don’t know yet. Here’s a little more good news, though. I stopped by tech crimes on my way here. They got something when they went back over the first two computers.” He put a paper down in front of Nathan and pointed out some numbers. “It’s interesting and a likely lead...”

“But?” Nathan raised an eyebrow.

“Comparing the computers, the first two victims were contacted at least once from the same local network. It’s a coffee shop in Sonora. They were both on a dating site called Mix and Match.”

“Did they get IP addresses for the computers used?”

“No, suspect used a VPN and/or a burner. All the techies can tell is that the victims were contacted once by someone who was using the coffee shop’s network. They can’t trace back any further than that.”

“Just the first two?”

“Yeah, the third was different. The local address doesn’t show up on Edda’s device. And she was not on any dating sites. It looks like she connected with this Diego through her son’s memorial page on Facebook.”

Nathan considered this information. “Could anyone access the memorial page for Bobby?”

“She had it marked public.”

“So anyone from anywhere could have engaged her on the site,” Nathan said.

“True.”

“Still, Edda thought he was pretending, thought she knew him. To me that says we’re dealing with a local who did know her.”

“Agreed,” Manny said. “Even the way he asked for money was softer. He might have been experimenting, fishing, and Edda took the bait. He doesn’t seem to need money; he’s killing the women giving him money. Maybe it’s the con that turns him on, and when he gets bored of the con, he kills.”

“And Edda saw through the con, surprising him. He killed her for a different reason than the first two, maybe that upset his MO.”

Manny nodded. “Makes sense. I put in the paperwork for the coffee shop warrants, cameras, receipts, everything. We can check the place out.”

“Can we speed up the DNA?”

Manny glanced at his watch. “I’ll call again tomorrow. Everything concerning the state is slow. Hanna still doesn’t have the toxicology back on Scott Buckley from a month and a half ago.”

“True. We’ll just have to catch this guy without relying on the lab.”

“Not a problem, partner. I think this lead at the coffee shop confirms for us that he’s local. We will have to dig into every bit of evidence we have in our hands.”

“That’s what detectives do.” Nathan felt energized. The two men shared a fist bump.

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