“I’ve got everybody and his dog blowing up my phone,” Myles told him. “And in three hours, I have to meet with the mayor and tell him that we haven’t got a clue who killed Pat. Needless to say, I’m not looking forward to that. I want to be able to offer more than what I’ve been telling the people who’ve checked in with me already.”
Wearing a put-upon expression, Jared jotted a few notes on the outside of a manila folder. “Fine. Give me ten minutes.”
“You got it.”
Myles planned to spend that time reading the coroner’s report, which the M.E. had faxed over a few minutes earlier. Instead, he received a call from Chrissy Gunther, who wanted to find out what he’d done with her tip about Vivian’s gun. He tried to convince her to trust him with the information, but she was having none of it, so he was infinitely relieved when Jared and Linda knocked on his open door. Waving them in, he told Chrissy he had a meeting. Then he hung up without even waiting for her to say goodbye.
“Sit down.” He eyed the files his detectives were carrying. Several were quite thick—a sign that they’d been doing their interviews. “So?” He rubbed his hands. “What have you found?”
Frizzy dark hair with a sprinkling of gray framed Linda’s face. The only way to tame it was to wear it in a ponytail, which she did, every day.
Dropping her stack of files in the middle of his desk, she slouched in her seat and met his gaze through a pair of glasses that always sat a little crookedly on her nose. “We don’t have a lot, but we’re making progress.”
That was a fairly standard answer. One he’d given himself at least a dozen times this morning. It wasn’t enough.
“Be more specific.”
She glanced at Jared, who nodded for her to continue. “What do you see here?” she asked, opening the top file.
Myles stared at a picture of the shoe impressions he’d already seen on the linoleum of the vacation rental. “Looks like the perpetrator was wearing athletic shoes.” Which he’d surmised when he saw them the first time. He hoped Linda wasn’t going to suggest that this was some kind of breakthrough.
“Correct. Do you notice anything unusual about them?”
He picked up the photographs so he could study each one. “No.”
“Look at the wear on the soles.”
“There is no wear.”
“Exactly,” Jared said. “All the nicks and gouges and wear patterns that make a pair of shoes unique to their owner are missing.”
The lack of imperfections suddenly jumped out at Myles. “They’re new?”
“They’d have to be, right?”
Linda seemed pleased by this conclusion, but Myles couldn’t imagine why. New shoes would only make it harder to tie a suspect to the crime scene. “And this is good why?”
“Hang on,” she said. “What else do you see?”
Tired of playing her guessing game, Myles put down the pictures. “I don’t see anything unusual. Tell me what you’re driving at.”
She set two pictures side by side. “We didn’t spot it at first, either. It wasn’t until we tried to figure out the size of those shoes that it became apparent.”
“What became apparent?”
“Pat had more than one assailant.”
Grabbing the two pictures again, Myles held them close. “That would mean two different pairs of shoes. But…every shoe impression here looks exactly the same.”
“Because they’re all from the same type of shoe. Both pairs are new. The only difference is size. Give me your ruler. I’ll show you.”
Myles searched through his top drawer. It wasn’t as messy as Jared’s, but he’d stuffed too much inside it.
Eventually he came up with a ruler and Jared measured.
“See? One is a size eleven. The other a twelve and a half.”
“You’ve verified this?”
“More than once.”
“You’re saying two men bought the same shoes at the same time.” Myles thought of the guys he’d found on the side of the road. They’d entered his mind so many times. Maybe it was worth stopping over at Reliable Auto to see if they’d picked up their vehicle. If not, maybe he could get hold of them, talk to them again…?.
Linda smiled. “They probably even bought them at the same place.”
Now they were making progress. “Where?” If they could find that out, maybe they could get the store’s surveillance tapes for the two weeks prior to the murder, see who came in to buy athletic shoes.
“According to the database, they’re Athletic Works Brand, which are sold at Walmart.”
They didn’t have a Walmart. The closest one was in Kalispell. There was no guarantee they were even bought at that location, but Myles was willing to try anything. “Have you spoken to the manager of the Walmart in Kalispell?”
“Yes. We’re going out there this afternoon.”
“Good,” he said, but his brief flash of hope had already dimmed. He tried to focus on how the shoe details fit with all the rest. “The odd thing is…this information contradicts everything we’ve established about the murder.”
Linda blinked at him from behind her thick lenses. “What do you mean?”
“If two men bought shoes to avoid leaving prints that could be traced back to them, they were planning a crime. Yet everything about the scene indicates that Pat’s murder wasn’t premeditated, from the choice of weapon to the lack of any effort to conceal the crime or dispose of the body.”
Resting his elbows on his knees, Jared clasped his hands together. “Maybe the murder wasn’t premeditated. Maybe it was meant to be a robbery.”
“You do that much planning? Get your buddy to go with you to buy shoes, then call up a Realtor and ask to see a house, just to grab a guy’s wallet?”
“Why not? It’s the perfect way to have a stranger meet you at a private location.”
“But a guy like Pat isn’t likely to carry much on him. Hitting a gas station would probably net you more.”
“They could’ve taken his car.”
“They didn’t.”
“I know. I haven’t quite figured that out,” Jared admitted.
“Maybe Pat fought them, like you were saying earlier,” Linda said. “Maybe he hurt one, and it really pissed him off.”
“If someone else was hurt, there should’ve been some evidence of it at the scene.” “Ron Howard” and his sidekick hadn’t been sporting any scratches or gouges. At least not that Myles could see. But maybe there were marks he couldn’t see. The lame guy had been covered from head to toe. His excessive tattoos had reminded Myles of prison inmates. Did they have a couple of violent ex-cons on their hands?