Page 88 of Everything She Feared

“Can you prove that?”

“I’ll swear to it in a statement.”

Benton’s eyebrows rose. “You’ll swear to it?”

“And so will the other guys on this site.” Robson turned to the house. “And the coffee truck guy who comes here every day, and our suppliers. So what’s this about?”

“You’re a bit protective,” Benton said.

“Cut the crap, okay? I know J.J.’s done time. I did time, so did most of my crew. That’s in the past. We’re straight and we’re clean. Yet whenever you guys get any kinda beef, you jam us up.”

“So you’ll swear J.J. was here working on the morning of the tenth?” Pierce said.

“Absolutely. I picked him up that morning for work.”

Pierce threw a silent question to Benton to indicate something was off with these guys. She got her phone, cued up a clip of the video showing Smith’s pickup truck in the lot at the park.

“Explain why the camera at Sparrow Song Park, with this time and date stamp, recorded his pickup behind the Sunny Days school bus moments before a teenage girl in the group was killed?” Pierce said.

Smith and Robson leaned closer to the phone as Pierce replayed the video, pausing on Smith’s plate.

“You’ve got a history with teenage girls in wooded areas, don’t you, John?” Benton said.

The blood drained from Smith’s face; he shot a look at Robson, then the detectives.

“What the hell is this?” Smith said. “Some kinda setup? Some kinda joke? I wasn’t there. I was here.”

“Clearly you were at the park,” Benton said.

Smith shook his head, then raked his hands over his face.

“I did all the programs, took all the treatment. I stick to the conditions. I’m working, doing everything I’m supposed to do. Why’re you doing this with some kinda doctored video? I’m telling you I was never at that park.”

“That’s right,” Robson said. “I picked him up that morning because he didn’t have his truck.”

“Your truck is in this footage, John,” Pierce said. “You going to tell us it was someplace else?”

“It was in the shop, getting the transmission fixed.”

Pierce and Benton stared at him, their faces filling with doubt.

“I can prove it,” Smith said.

Robson, Benton and Pierce walked down the street with Smith.

Coming to Smith’s truck, the detectives took no risks. Because Smith was a convicted felon, they took his keys from him, then patted him down. Benton then unlocked the passenger door and Smith directed him to look in the glove box. Tugging on gloves and rummaging through the compartment, Benton withdrew a folded yellow sheet of invoice paper.

Pierce took a photo of it.

It was all there: transmission repair, parts, labor, drop-off and pick-up dates. Benton and Pierce looked at the name of the auto shop at the top of the invoice.

True Ocean Auto Dealers in Lake City.

The same shop where Tanner Bishop worked moving vehicles in and out of the service bays.

39

Seattle, Washington

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