Page 30 of So Deranged

Then she would show Frank that the only woman he should be obsessed with was Lillian Martin.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Cuthbert might have been a challenge to talk to, but he was nothing if not efficient.He had the list of contacts ready by the time Faith and Michael were checked into a room at the Danbury Marriott less than a half hour after leaving the park.

“Damn,” Michael said appreciatively.“He must drive as fast as he talks.”

“Or he wrote the email out on his phone,” Faith suggested.

“Still impressive,” Michael said.“I’ll get started on the list.”

He stepped into the other room of their suite.Turk trotted in between the two beds in this room, lay down and almost immediately fell asleep.

Faith started looking into Kevin.Step one was to call Maria back and get names for the half-staffs.Maria only knew first names, which wasn’t very helpful, but if Mike, Bill, and Gary showed up anywhere else in her research, she’d know to prioritize them.

She had a little more luck with his employment.Kevin was a four-year employee at Daring Auto Repair in Danbury.When she called the number and told the manager why she was calling, he cried out, “What?Kevin’s dead?”

“I’m afraid so,” she replied.

“What?How?”

“He was found near a walking trail in Collis P.Huntington Park,” she said.“I’m sorry to say that foul play is confirmed.”

“He wasmurdered?That’s crazy!”

“Yes,” Faith agreed.“It most definitely is.”

“Oh man,” he said.“The boys are going to be broken up about this.”

“The boys are?”

“The others at the shop.Kevin was popular here.We called him soldier boy.”

“I see.Who am I speaking with, by the way?”

“I’m the manager.”

Faith rolled her eyes.“I know, but can I get your name for the record?”

“Oh.Sure.I’m Matt Kennedy.I’ve been running the shop here for nine years now.I hired Kevin right out of the Army.That’s why we called him soldier boy, obviously.”

“Figured that,” Faith said.“Can you tell me a little bit about Kevin?You said he was popular.”

“Yeah, he was cool.He always had the biggest smile and the most energy of anyone.Even when his wife left him, he was always happy.”

That fits with the profile of their victims.These were the people who saw his happy side.“When was the last time you saw Kevin?”

“Yesterday at work.He was in until six o’clock.He was our suspension guy.A lot of guys don’t like doing suspension on modern cars because unibodies are tough to work on.Shocks and struts are pretty much the same thing, but in a unibody, you have to remove body panels to get to them, and sometimes you end up hitting brake lines by accident or other things that just shouldn’t be in the way.In a body-on-frame vehicle, the suspension is separate from the body, so you can just pop things in and out.Point is, people don’t like doing suspension on unibodies, so Kevin was the guy for us.He was fast, too.He could replace all four corners in two hours on a good day.”

Faith took Matt at his word that was fast.“Did you spend a lot of time with him outside of work?”

“Not a lot of time, but we’d all go out for drinks every Saturday after work.We were going to go out today, but… shit.I guess we’ll drink here and pour one out to him.Oh shit.His poor family.”

Matt seemed to just be internalizing the fact that his employee was actually dead.His voice was calmer and more subdued as he continued.“We didn’t think to call or anything because he’d already asked for the day off.”

Faith’s ears perked up at that.“He did?”

“Yeah, he said he had something going on with his ex over custody.Nothing serious, just a squabble over payment.”

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