Chương 9
“What number did Sutter call from?”
“The phone showed private.”
“Did you report that he was alive?”
“No.”
“Did you tell his sister?”
“No.”
“Did you tell anyone?”
Rourke shook his head.
Lena looked at Benton.
The lawyer’s face had tightened with anger, not at the detective but at her client.
“You let his family think he might be dead,” Lena said.
“I thought he would contact them when he was safe.”
“You made that choice for him.”
“I was trying to protect him.”
“You keep using that word.”
Rourke looked away.
Lena gathered the map.
Before leaving, she said, “Luis Ortega’s widow asked why her husband had to know more about the sprinkler system than the people paid to inspect it.”
Rourke closed his eyes.
“I don’t have an answer for her.”
“That has not stopped the department from giving her several.”
St. Matthew’s kept handwritten intake records because its aging computer system failed whenever too many staff members logged in. The night coordinator remembered Sutter.
“He called himself Dan,” she said. “Didn’t want a bed. Just wanted to talk to Paul.”
Paul Renner had retired from the fire department after twenty-two years and now counseled first responders three nights a week. He agreed to meet Lena only after receiving written assurance that the conversation would not seek confidential therapy details.
“Sutter was frightened,” Renner said. “I can tell you that without betraying him.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
“No.”
“Did you help him leave?”
“I gave him money.”
“How much?”
“Two hundred dollars.”
“Cash?”
“Yes.”
“Did you drive him anywhere?”
“To a twenty-four-hour diner near the interstate.”
“What happened there?”
“He used my phone.”
“To call whom?”
“I stepped away.”
“Did he take anything with him?”
“A blue folder and a backpack.”
“Any weapon?”
“No.”
“Was he injured?”
“Yes.”
“Did he identify who hurt him?”
Renner studied Lena for a moment.
“You already know.”
“I need to know what he said.”
“He said Malcolm Vale hit him with a metal flashlight.”
“Why?”
“Because Sutter told him he had copied the original inspection records.”
“Did you report the assault?”
“Sutter refused.”
“You were a fire officer.”
“I was a counselor talking to a frightened man.”
“You were also looking at an assault victim.”
Renner’s expression hardened.
“I spent twenty-two years watching people turn help into an administrative process. Sometimes the process saves them. Sometimes it teaches them never to ask again.”
“And which happened here?”
“I don’t know.”
“That uncertainty did not save Luis Ortega.”
Renner looked down at his hands.
His fingernails were rimmed with blue paint.
“I’m restoring a boat,” he said unexpectedly.
Lena waited.
“My wife says I restore things so I don’t have to admit I’m no longer useful.”
“I don’t think that answers my question.”
“No.” He rubbed a thumb along the paint on his nail. “It explains why I thought giving Danny a ride counted as helping.”
“Who did he call from the diner?”
Renner was silent for a long time.
“His sister,” he said.
Sutter’s sister, Beth Coleman, had denied contact with him in three separate interviews.
When Lena arrived at her house with Hollis and a warrant, Beth opened the door before they knocked.
She was a high-school librarian, forty-eight, with Sutter’s pale eyes and none of his hesitation. A basset hound stood behind her, barking with deep, offended exhaustion.
“You have scared my children,” Beth said.
“Your children are adults.”
“They can still be scared.”
“Where is your brother?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he call you from a diner nineteen days ago?”
Beth’s face remained steady.
“Yes.”
“Why did you lie?”
“Because he asked me to.”
“Did he tell you he had been assaulted?”
“Yes.”
“Did he tell you where he was going?”
“No.”
“Did you send him money?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Gift card codes.”
“How much?”
“Four hundred dollars.”
“To what email address?”
Beth looked over Lena’s shoulder at the unmarked car.
“You arrested Owen.”
“Yes.”
“Danny will blame me.”
“Daniel is alive?”
“He was three days ago.”
Lena felt Hollis shift beside her.
“How did he contact you?”
“Email.”
“From where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Show me.”
Beth hesitated, then stepped aside.
The house smelled like dog hair and cinnamon candles. Stacks of library books covered the dining table. Some had sticky notes protruding from the pages.
Beth opened a laptop.
Sutter’s message had come from a new account using an encrypted email provider. It contained no location, only four sentences.
I saw the news about Harrow Street. Luis is dead because we waited. Do not believe anything Vale says about Owen. I will come back when I know the records cannot disappear with me.
Lena read it twice.
“Did you respond?”
“Yes.”
“What did you say?”
“That coming back was the only way to keep the records from disappearing with him.”
“Did he answer?”
“No.”
“Do you know where the original files are?”
Beth rubbed the hound’s ears.
“He said he mailed them to someone.”
“Who?”
“He would not tell me.”
“Why did he distrust you?”
“He didn’t. He knew I would tell the police if a man died.”
“But you didn’t.”
Beth’s hand stopped moving.
“I thought the fire proved Danny was right to be afraid.”
“Luis Ortega was afraid too.”
“That is not fair.”
“No.”
Lena closed the laptop.
“It is still true.”
The email provider responded to the warrant with limited information. The account had been created through a public library network in Mason City, eighty miles north. The most recent access came from the same network three days earlier.
Sutter was either in Mason City or wanted police to believe he was.
Lena and Hollis drove north before dawn.
Hollis bought gas-station coffee and a package of powdered doughnuts. Lena took one doughnut, bit into it, and left the rest in the cup holder.
“You do that every time,” Hollis said.
“What?”
“Take one bite of food, then abandon it like it disappointed you morally.”
May you like
“It’s dry.”
“It was dry before you bought it.”
