Page 24 of Inside Silence
Savvy
* * *
The man across from me looks absolutely broken.
There are times when I hate my job with a passion, and this is one of them.
I’ve dealt with the death of a lover and I’ve been betrayed by one as well, but not at the same time or by the same person. I can’t even imagine what this man must be going through right now.
Yesterday, I was going over photos sent to me by the state forensic lab once again. The crime scene Auden and I discovered yielded blood and tissue we could confirm as the victim’s, but there had been little else to come out of it. No new leads, and I needed one desperately.
There was a picture showing the small bathroom trash can from the cabin Franklin Wyatt had rented. I’d seen it before, but this time the edge of a foil wrapper visible between discarded tissues jumped out at me.
It looked like a condom wrapper.
A quick check of the content list for the cabin confirmed the presence of a handful of condoms of the same brand in the drawer of the bedside table. When I called the state lab and asked the tech to check the contents of the victim’s wallet, they found a receipt for condoms from Walgreens in Coeur d’Alene, dated the same day Franklin left home for his mental health break.
That made me wonder; why would a man need condoms for a soul-searching expedition?
With the help of his telephone records and his text log, I was able to come up with an unknown individual, who Franklin had communicated with several times in the days leading up to his trip. The number that stood out was connected to a pay-as-you-go phone or, as we call it in law enforcement, a burner phone. Basically, a dead end.
Except, in one of the text exchanges between our victim and this individual, Jeremy’s name is brought up in a way that implies he might actually know who the unknown person is. It left me no choice but to visit the Carriage House for a word with the dead man’s husband.
“I can’t believe it,” he sobs in the wad of tissues I grabbed him from the bathroom. “It has to be David. He’s the only one who calls me Jerry.”
“And who is David?” I prompt him as gently as I can, even though I am vibrating with excitement on the inside.
This could be a genuine lead. Something for me to put my teeth into when I feel I’ve done little more than spin my wheels these past days.
“He’s been my best friend since high school. At least I thought he was.” Jeremy covers his face with his hands and rocks back and forth. “Oh my God…he was the best man at our wedding,” he wails.
People suck. They really do.
My heart goes out to this poor man whose reality has so dramatically and painfully changed. He’s lost his husband, his trust, and now his best friend all in one cruel sweep. I feel like an absolute bitch for pushing him, but I still have a vicious killer to find.
“I’m so sorry, Jeremy. More than I can express. Can you tell me David’s last name?”
“Trotter. David Trotter.”
“Have you been in touch with him at all these past days?”
Jeremy shakes his head. “I left a message for him. He travels all the time; he does the buying for several online fashion outlets. I didn’t think much of it when he didn’t get back to me right away, he’s supposed to be traveling through parts of Asia until the end of the month. It’s not unusual for him to be out of reach for days when he’s on the road.”
He lifts his head and pins me with red-rimmed eyes.
“Except he’s not in Taiwan or Korea, is he?”
I can’t answer that question. Not with any degree of certainty anyway, not until I track him down. But my gut says we’ll find David Trotter much closer to home.
“Silver Lexus RX, Idaho license plate K32682.”
“Nice ride,” KC observes.
It is.
It’s also a vehicle you don’t see very many of out here. It wouldn’t necessarily be out of place in Coeur d’Alene or Spokane, but here in Edwards County we don’t see too many luxury vehicles.
The good news is that will make it easier for us to find it. Provided David Trotter is indeed somewhere close by, and he didn’t rent a car or something. I put a call in to the Coeur d’Alene police department for an assist on trying to locate the man. I’m hoping I don’t have to wait too long, but the detective I spoke to in their investigations department mentioned they had their hands full with a double murder that just landed on their desks.
