Page 8 of Justice for Aleta

“What if it’s in a weird place? What if it’s somewhere you wouldn’t look?”

“But there was no brass,” Dexter pointed out, referring to the shell casings from a bullet.

Jack had already thought of a retort to that. “What if it was a revolver and not a semi?”

“Oh, so you think WyattEarp was out on the BluegrassParkway that morning?” He could hear the scoffing way Dexter was deflecting his ideas, and he didn’t like it, not one bit. He’d been with KSP long enough that a forensics guy should take him seriously, and this one didn’t.

“How about if I look at it?”

“At what?”

“The car.”

“The car is in the impound lot, unless it’s been taken to the scrap yard already.”

Well, shit!“Is it here or not?”

“Hang on, InspectorClouseau.” Jack didn’t appreciate hisPinkPantherreference one bit, but at least Dexter was beginning to be a little cooperative. He pulled a screen up on the lab’s computer and scrolled through it. “Looks like you’re in luck. It’s sitting out in the lot, but it’s slated to be crushed in three days.”

“Thanks. Where is it? What area? Bay? How do I find it?”

Dexter shook his head and sighed. “Good god. I can’t believe I’m doing this. Come on.” Jack practically danced behind him as Dexter opened the back door and shuffled out.

They wandered through the lot where cars in all manner of demolishment sat. There were also many that were part of investigations, sitting there whole, but Jack knew they’d been completely taken apart and put back together. Finally, at the far edge of the lot, they stepped up to a small, red car. “Here it is. Knock yourself out. Oh, you might want these.” Dexter handed Jack a pair of latex gloves and ambled back toward the building as Jack snapped them on.

The trooper went to work. He looked all over the car, but he didn’t see anything that looked like a bullet hole, not in the metal and not in the windshield. It was hard to tell in the area that was smashed up, but it was obvious the forensics team had tried to stretch out the wrinkles in the metal, and there were no holes there either.

Then he moved his attention to the tires. The right front tire was shredded, so it was impossible to tell anything about it. Some of the rubber was missing, and he assumed it had been ground to a powder on the asphalt, so much so that it couldn’t be recovered. The steel belts were torn and twisted, and in several places they’d been cut, no doubt by the team as they tried to figure out what happened to the tire. He couldn’t find a slashing cut on it, but it was almost impossible to tell. Still, there was something about that tire that was bothering him. Why hadn’t the other one come completely apart like that? The rim was bent too, not badly, but enough that Jack could see it, and it wasn’t on just one side. No, it was all the way around the wheel, and pretty evenly too, not as though it had just slid across the pavement.

That could only mean one thing?the tire was flatbeforethe car hit the van. Had anybody realized that? How could a whole forensics team miss that fact? Oddly, the sidewalls had stayed on the wheel, their bead intact, and Jack peered up into the darkness of the interior space. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Valve stem.Wait. That’s not the valve stem.He pulled out the pen light he kept in his pocket and turned it on, then flashed the beam inside the tire.

For a split second, he couldn’t breathe. Aleta was right. There was a slug lodged in the inside of the wheel, looking for all the world like a rivet or some other automotive-type thing, but no. It was definitely a slug. Jack took off at a dead run for the building, threw open the lab door, and tore up the hallway. When he hit the auto bay, five techs working over a stolen Rolls Royce coupe looked up. “I need some help out here in the lot! Please!”

Ten minutes later, Dexter was apologizing profusely. “Jack, I don’t know how we missed that. I’m so fucking sorry, man. So fucking sorry.”

“I’m just glad I found it,” Jack responded, but inside he was seething. That was an important piece of evidence. It did two very important things.

It proved Aleta had seen and heard what she believed she had. And it proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, there had been another vehicle there. The big question was, where was it? And who was driving it?

That, JackFletcher decided, was something he was going to find out.

He drove like a maniac back to Elizabethtown, almost threw the Camaro into a slide at the pancake restaurant, and ran through the front door. “Is Aleta here?”

“No. Today’s her day off,” one of the servers said.

Jack felt like an idiot. “I can’t believe I didn’t realize that. I had lunch with her,” he muttered to himself, then barked out, “Do you know how I can get in touch with her?”

The manager glared at him. “We can’t be giving her phone number out.”

“Then call her! Call her and tell her JackFletcher is here and he needs her number.Do it!” he almost screamed.

Hands firmly planted on her hips, the manager scowled. “And why should we do that?”

“Because I’m a Kentucky State Trooper and I insist. Badge twelve eighty-five.Call her!” he bellowed.

“Okay, okay! You don’t have to go gettin’ all huffy,” the burly woman answered, then disappeared into the kitchen. When she came back, she handed Jack a piece of paper. “There. Her name and address. Have at it.”

“Thank you. Thanks very much.” Jack ran back to the car. He pulled out his phone and looked at the number, but then made a very bold decision.

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