Page 85 of Solid as Steele
18
Mackenzie eyed Hobert Tovar outside the casting company as he tossed the sponge into his bucket from washing his truck, suds and water flying everywhere. He swiped wet hands on his jeans and strode toward the building, which was nothing more than a one-level concrete structure with a set of concrete steps under a canopy. A small sign on the wall said Office. Tovar didn’t go willingly, but Owen had threatened to haul Tovar into the sheriff’s office for questioning if he didn’t sit down and talk with them. That got him moving.
She and Owen followed their suspect across the lot, passing tall cement towers with white smoke billowing into the air. She remembered the things Owen said Della King had mentioned about him hitting on women. Mackenzie shuddered at the memory of his leering gaze when she’d introduced herself. Even as Owen threatened the guy, Tovar had tried to charm her. The creepy guy coming on to her was more painful than the ache in her arm.
Tovar entered the building and led them to a small room with a table and four chairs, a Coke machine, microwave, and refrigerator humming loudly in the corner. He sat at the head of the wooden table caked with food residue and jutted out a pointy chin.
Owen sat across from him, and she took the chair next to Owen.
She studied the guy in the bright light from the fluorescent fixtures above. She could only come up with one word to describe him. Homely. He exceeded two hundred twenty pounds, and he was at least six feet tall. His out-of-control frizzy head of red hair topped a face put together all wrong. His nose was crooked. Not as if it’d been broken, but as if it were placed askew on his face in the womb. His lips were too full, forehead too high, and his ears reminded her of car doors left open.
Owen held out his phone. “I’ll be recording this interview.”
“No,” Tovar said. “Don’t want you to.”
“Fine,” Owen said, sounding not at all putout. “We can run down to the sheriff’s office instead and record it there. Or we can do it here. Your choice.”
Tovar slunk down in his chair and crossed his arms. “Just get to it.”
Owen tapped his phone and announced the date and time and who was in attendance for the interview. Then he took a deep breath. “You like to hunt with a rifle?”
Tovar didn’t respond, just cast a come-on look at Mackenzie.
She glared at the guy. “Answer the detective, or he’ll be slapping cuffs on you and hauling you in.”
Tovar lifted his chin higher. “So what if I hunt? You one of those Bambi lovers or something?”
“Nothing wrong with hunting as long as it’s not for humans,” Owen said.
Tovar’s mouth dropped open. “Who do you think I am anyway?”
“We have an eyewitness who places you hitting on a woman named Cassie Collins in Ernie’s Bar and Grill.”
“Hah, shows what you know.” Tovar sneered. “Ain’t been in there in weeks.”
“This didn’t happen in the last few weeks.” Owen shared the date Ernie had provided.
“I’ve never known any woman named Cassie. And I talk to a lot of women and don’t consider it hitting on them as you say.” He leaned his chair back on two legs and rocked. “I’m single and always looking for the right woman.”
“She clearly wasn’t the right woman as she asked you to leave her alone and you didn’t.”
Tovar stopped rocking midair. “That doesn’t sound like me at all. Women really enjoy talking to me. Your eyewitness must be mistaken.”
“No mistake.” Owen opened a picture of Cassie on his phone and held it out to Tovar. “Her hair was brown when you harassed her.”
He looked at the picture. “Don’t recognize her.”
“You also threatened her after she put you in your place.” Owen’s tone held a healthy dose of irritation now. “Telling her this wasn’t over.”
“Nah, doesn’t sound like me at all.”
Owen’s nostrils flared. “How about being a man and fessing up to it?”
Tovar lifted his shoulders. “Not gonna say I did something I didn’t do just to make you feel better. Now if that’s all, I have work to do, and I need some shuteye after my long haul.”
Mackenzie didn’t want to walk away. She wanted to keep pressing Tovar, but he clearly wasn’t going to confess to harassing Cassie, much less killing her.
“Where were you last night?” Owen asked.
