Page 13 of Mystic Justice
‘Did she play an instrument?’ Channing asked.
‘The guitar sometimes, but mostly just her voice. That was her favourite instrument.’
Channing slid a look at me and I nodded. With my permission, he continued the questioning. ‘Did your daughter have any relationships we should be aware of? Boyfriends? Girlfriends?’
‘No, she didn’t really date. She’s only ever had one boyfriend and he ended things more than six months ago. He was anotherdryad in the grove. It wasn’t awkward – they were friends and better suited to staying that way,’ Sorrel said gruffly.
‘His name?’
‘Rowan Dewlin. Everyone calls him Dewy.’ He paused. ‘He’ll be at work now.’
‘Where does he work?’ Channing pressed.
‘At the Palm House. He works under the dragon there, Peter.’
Well, now: it looked like we’d be going back to the Palm House even without the imp situation. More women were killed by current or former partners than by strangers, and the most likely suspects in a female victim’s murder investigation were those closest to them emotionally. I would take – and test – the parents’ alibis, but we’d be taking a close look at Rowan Dewlin, too.
‘Where were you both between 10pm and 1am last night?’ I asked softly. ‘I have to ask, just for our records.’
‘We were asleep,’ Bryar responded. ‘I’ve been taking a potion to help me sleep since Moss went missing. I took it around 9pm and I’d have been out by 9.15. The potion hits hard.’
Sorrel cleared his throat. ‘I wasn’t asleep. I went to bed when Bryar did, but at 11pm I grew restless. I got up and left her tree, got into my car and just drove around. Looking for Moss,’ he added tightly.
Her father didn’t have an alibi. I kept my face carefully blank. Despite the emotional devastation I was witnessing, I’d have been remiss if I didn’t take a long hard look at Sorrel Hollings. Killers came in all shapes and sizes; some of them even wept convincingly.
Chapter Seven
The team investigating Moss’s disappearance had collected her laptop. The Criminal Investigations Department had precisely one cross-over officer, Detective Sonia McCaffrey. I’d go through her work later to see if she’d missed anything, but for now I tagged her and let her know her missing person wasn’t missing any more.
‘That was rough,’ Channing said as we walked back to the Palm House.
‘Awful,’ Loki chimed in. ‘Heart sad.’ I wondered whose heart he was referring to, his or Moss’s parents.
‘Notifying someone of a loved one’s death shouldn’t be easy,’ Krieg pointed out. ‘If it is, you’re in the wrong business.’
‘You’re right.’ Channing paused. ‘The dad doesn’t have an alibi.’
‘No, he doesn’t,’ I agreed. ‘What does your gut say?’
‘My gut?’ he frowned.
‘Instinct,’ Loki squawked, dive-bombing Channing and making him duck instinctively. He frowned in irritation at my caladrius companion’s antics.
‘The bird’s not wrong,’ I said. ‘You’re picking up on things all around you all the time, things your conscious mind hasn’t noted but some other part of your brain has. That’s all gut instinct is, your mind telling you something you know but you don’t know you know.’
Channing shrugged. ‘Then my gut thinks he hasn’t got anything to do with it. If he was the killer, he’d have made sure he had an alibi.’
‘You’re giving the majority of criminals more credit than they’re due. The average murder is the result of fury or passion, not cold calculation. Most of those killers don’t have alibis because they didn’t plan that far ahead – they didn’t plan at all.’ I chewed my lip, hesitating to share my thoughts aloud, but Channing wouldn’t learn if I didn’t teach him. He needed to think like a cop, to follow the threads and look at the whole picture they wove.
I continued. ‘I believe that contrasts with our killers in this case. Moss was missing for days before her freshly killed corpse was found. None of her friends had seen or heard from her while she was missing – she wasn’t having a lark or winding up her parents. There was zero phone or banking activity and that was highly unusual for Hollings, who was regularly on social media. Add to that the fact that no CCTV was found of her after she arrived for her shift makes me think that she wasn’t missing at all but had been kidnapped, captured by our killers in a CCTV blind spot and bundled away. That’s why we had no sightings of her, no pings on her phone or her financials. If she was kidnapped – and it is anif– that shows forethought and planning. One of those killers would have thought about an alibi and they’d have locked it down. So the dad doesn’t jibe with me but we’ll run him down all the same. Get Ji-ho onto it. Give him Sorrel’s car reg and see if he can track his movements through CCTV.’
‘Got it. I’ll do a request now on SPEL,’ Channing replied.
Okay, even I had to admit that the damned app was a whole lot quicker than waiting until we were in the office to send across the request.
As we returned to the Palm House, Krieg moved alongside me. His pinky finger brushed against mine, the barest of touches, yet somehow it sent a hot jolt through my bones. I gave him a warning look, which made him smile. ‘I didn’t even ask to hold hands,’ he whispered innocently, low enough for Channing not to hear.
‘Good, because the answer would be no!’ I hissed back. ‘We are not canoodling at a crime scene!’
