Page 13 of The Girl He Crowned

“Maybe from 5until 7?” Willis said. He didn’t sound certain, but even if he couldn’t beprecise about the times, that still meant that his employee had been missingright around the time of the murder. It meant that they had a potentialsuspect.

“What’s this guy’sname?” Christopher asked, obviously realizing the same thing at the same moment.

“Tom,” Willissaid. “Tom Wright. He’s a good worker usually. Good with the welding and the brasswork, always eager to pick up new skills. Never caused any trouble. Just…”

Paige caught thathint of hesitation in his voice. “Just what, Mr. Willis?”

“Just, there’salways been something off about him, you know? Something that doesn’t feelquite right. Not a sociable guy. Not a friendly guy. Keeps himself to himselfrather than going out drinking with the guys. He’s been disappearing prettymuch at random the last couple of weeks. If he weren’t such a good worker, I’dprobably have fired him.”

That just made himsound like the classic guy who didn’t fit in within a particular workplace,except for one thing.

“He goes off atrandom intervals?” Paige asked. She imagined that the killer would need to dothat if he was trying to hold down a job. Everything about the murderssuggested that the killer had taken the time to plan them thoroughly, and whileit seemed that Debbie Danton had come to him, he would still have needed totake time away from his job in order to work out all the details.

“I guess,” Willissaid.

“Does that meanthat he has taking a lot of time away in the last few days?” Christopher asked,obviously getting where Paige was going with that line of questioning.

That got a shrugfrom the big man, along with another look of suspicion.

“Yes, I suppose so.”

All of it soundedsuspicious, but Paige knew that she and Christopher needed more. Their boss wasalready starting a performance review into their work together, based largelyon the way things had gotten out of hand in some of their previous cases. Paigedidn’t want to run off after Tom Wright on nothing more that the word of a guywho seemed to have serious issues trusting anyone.

She needed more,something that could potentially tie Wright to the scene. There were the fibersfrom the work gloves, of course, and maybe his would prove to be a match forthem, but that only helped if they got as far as taking him in, or getting awarrant to have his gloves tested. To get to that stage, they needed more thanthey currently had.

One inkling of anidea came to Paige.

“You said that Tomworked with the brass for the bridge?” she said. “Would his other skills haveincluded woodworking?”

Willis consideredthat for a moment or two, and then nodded. “On these historic rebuilds, you endup doing a little bit of everything. It’s not normal construction work. Youlearn a bunch of specialist skills, so you can reproduce things exactly as theywere. Sure, he helped out with some of the carpentry when we didn’t have muchwelding that needed doing.”

Meaning that hepotentially had the skills to make the wooden pendulum that had hung overSiobhan Maraty. A wooden one hanging from a tree, a brass one under aconstruction site using brass in the repairs…

Paige held up herphone, with a picture of the brass pendulum.

“Does this looklike the metal you’ve been using on your site?” she asked. “Is it the same asthe metal in the bridge?”

Willis looked atit for a second or two. “Sure. That looks like it started life as one of ourrounded finials and a length of sheet brass from one of the fittings.”

So, the killer hadpotentially used materials from the site for his pendulum. A site Tom Wright hadaccess to, and from which he’d gone missing just before the murder of DebbieDanton.

It was suspiciousenough that Paige knew she and Christopher needed to talk to him, and perhapsto test his work gloves against the fibers the coroner had found.

“Is he on one ofyour construction sites now?” Paige asked. She imagined that the bridgewouldn’t be the only site Willis’s people were working on.

Willis shook hishead. “He hasn’t been back to work since yesterday.”

That last pointsuggested that they needed to find Tom Wright quickly. If he’d disappeared,then Paige wanted to know why. Was it because he was busy finding victims tokill?

If so, if hewasthe killer, then he was still out there, and every second they wasted gave himthe chance to strike again. They couldn’t allow that. They had to find him.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Paige sat in thecar, her sense of worry building as she urgently tried to work out how theywere going to locate Tom Wright. Even in a relatively small place like the townof Eddis, finding a single person could still be tricky.

Christopher seemedto be ahead of her on it, though, driving quickly through the streets of thetown with a certainty that made Paige feel a little more secure about thechances of finding their suspect.

“I’ve put in acall to Sheriff May to get her people to look out for Tom Wright. I’ve alsogotten his address from the DMV. It shouldn’t take us long to get there.”

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