Page 97 of Night Watch
“Wayne Villanueva,” the man said. “I manage this place.”
“I think one of my brothers interviewed you.” Erik handed him a business card.
“Right. About Wanda.” He frowned. “I was sad to hear of her passing.”
Erik held out his phone displaying one of Jeremy Miller’s photos from Facebook. “Do you know this man?”
Villanueva studied the image. “Don’t know him, but I did see him here before, sitting in his pickup for hours. Big black Ford F-450. Noticed it right off the bat as you don’t see that many of the bigger Ford trucks. He just sat there, so I went to ask what was going on, and he took off before I could talk to him.”
“Did you get a plate number?”
Villanueva shook his head. “Truck was too muddy. Only caught a G in the first few digits.”
“When was this?”
Villanueva took a small notebook from his pocket, licked his finger, and paged through it. “Week ago Friday.”
Before the break-in.
“He do something wrong?” Villanueva asked.
“Broke into Wanda’s home, but he’s been arrested.” Erik pointed to the business card he’d handed Wayne. “If you remember anything else or hear anything about this guy, give me a call.”
Villanueva gave a serious nod, and Erik went back to his SUV. Each step he had to force his feet to keep heading away from Kennedy’s house. He took a minute to look up Miller’s DMV records and found the truck Villanueva described.
During the drive home, Erik forced his mind to run through the case so when he got back to the office, he could spend his day reviewing every lead and holding the whip over his brothers to keep going with the Responsible Officials list.
Which he did, but they didn’t uncover a single lead. The guys went home to have dinner with their significant others, reinforcing for Erik how alone he was except for his trusty buddy Pong.
Back in his condo that evening, after scarfing down a mediocre frozen pizza, he stood at the window overlooking the city.
So what if he was alone? It gave him time to do what he liked to do. No one depended on him, and he was free to spend his time however he wanted. Like keeping up with this investigation until he dropped from exhaustion so he wouldn’t miss Kennedy.
He went back to the table and looked at Wanda’s contacts and the Responsible Officials list. Not a single gardener other than Oscar Edwards, and not a bit of evidence pointed to him as having been involved in Wanda’s death.
Should Erik interview him again? He didn’t think he’d get any additional information, but maybe he should stop by the professor’s house unannounced in the morning and ask for a tour of his garden to look for the prickly caterpillar bean.
A text from Detective Johnson dinged on his phone.
You wanted permission to have Veritas look at the denture. I got approval, and the denture is waiting at your front desk for you.
Thanks.Erik raced for the door and then the stairwell. He bolted down the steps.
Who should he have look at the plate? Sierra? Maybe. Or maybe Maya. Sierra should be home with Asher instead of working, so he would start with Maya.
He reached the lobby, signed out the denture, and rushed up to Maya’s lab. Thankfully, she was still working at a machine on the back wall. Just inside the door, he stopped to catch his breath from jogging up the stairs.
She turned and smiled, but immediately frowned and crossed over to him. “You’re not here because of your anthrax exposure, are you?”
“No.”
“Phew. What can I do for you?”
He held out the denture plate. “It might be more Sierra’s thing, but I’ve already bothered her too much on her leave.”
Maya looked at the plate, and her eyes lit up.
“You’ve come to the right person.” She smiled up at him. “I think I can help you prove Wanda was murdered.”
