Page 113 of Lost Lake
El joined her. “He have any priors?”
Mina slipped out of the car and closed the door. “Three convictions for trespassing, reckless driving, and burglary. Not the kind of guy who would escalate to accomplice-to-murder and kidnapping.”
“Trent must’ve coerced him somehow.” El stared at the backseat window and wanted to go over and throttle the guy for terrorizing her.
Ward focused out the opposite window, making her want to talk to him even more. “I’d like to interview him. See if I can get something out of him.”
“Knock yourself out. I need to cancel the Amber Alert, call the ME, and get someone out here to transport Ward.”
El looked around at her fellow deputies for someone who could do the transport, and everyone on scene had been involved in the shooting and would need to remain on-site to give a statement to an impartial investigator. “You call OSP to send out an investigator?”
“First thing I did. Someone is being dispatched out of Medford and should be here in a couple of hours.”
A couple of hours to sit around there and wait, twiddling their thumbs. They couldn’t investigate. She shouldn’t really even conduct the interview, but no one would stop her from doing that. “Okay, if I talk to this guy?”
Mina paused for a minute, eyeing El but then clicked her key fob, unlocking the vehicle.
El walked to the back door and opened it. Working hard to control her fury at this man, she waited for him to look at her. When he did, his angry glare gave her pause. Thankfully, he hadn’t turned wrath like this on her the night he’d broken into her home.
“Well, Justin Ward.” She tried to stay impartial and not blurt out that she knew he’d invaded her privacy. “What exactly have you gotten yourself into here?”
His glare remained firmly in place. “I didn’t take the kid, and I’m not in charge of this screw-up. I was just watching her. You want Jonas Trent for all of that. He offed that kid’s mother then abducted her.”
After Trent’s confession, that wasn’t news to her, but it would be good to hear this guy’s side of things. “Do you have any proof of that?”
“I was there. At the ravine and lake. Seen it all.”
She funneled her anger at his lack of caring into clenched fists. “And you did nothing to stop it?”
“What could I do?” Ward shrugged. “I was sittin’ there with the boat like he said. Waitin’. Then he slammed her van and crashed it right off the road into the ravine. I thought he was done, but nah…he went after her. Found her alive in her van. She stabbed him with a screwdriver, and man…he just lost it. He closed his hands around her neck and squeezed like there was no tomorrow.”
“And you didn’t try to stop this either?”
“I ain’t stupid. I wasn’t gonna get in the way. Guy’s a freak once his mask drops. Looks like Mr. Nice on the outside, but underneath? Cold, cruel, and nasty. Real vindictive.”
“You willing to put in writing what you just told me?”
“As long as you make sure the DA knows I cooperated.” He challenged her with his gaze.
“Sounds like your previous convictions taught you how to game the system, but in this case, Trent confessed, and now he’s dead, so you’re the only one who’ll be on trial as an accessory.”
“But like I said, I only did what he told me to do.” He narrowed his gaze. “Are you gonna work with me or not?”
“Not,” she said. “Unless you give me a solid reason why you followed Trent’s directions, other than he told you to. Or maybe give up the names of others involved. Otherwise, I don’t really see how we can help you.”
“What else do you wanna know, man? Trent didn’t even tell me why he killed her or why he took the kid.”
His uncertain expression was exactly what El needed to get additional information from him. “Tell me how Howard Mason was involved?”
“That guy? Yeah, I forgot about him. No one wanted to work with him. He was a former cop, and he thought he could boss us all around. Mason was Trent’s favorite. Until he wanted out.”
Now they were getting somewhere. “What exactly did Mason do for Trent?”
“He used the boat for…” He trailed off and looked away. “Transferring kids from the home to illegal buyers. But don’t jam me up in this. I didn’t do nothin’ with those kids. Wouldn’t touch something like that.”
“Go ahead and tell yourself that, but if you knew the kids were being trafficked and didn’t tell anyone, you most certainly had something to do with it.” El tried to control her temper. “Where were the buyers from?”
Ward shook his head. “That I don’t know. Trent kept it secret. All I know is Mason talked about taking his boat to the harbor and moving the kids from his boat to a ship in the Pacific. But then his eyes must’ve opened to what he was doing, ’cause he decided it was wrong and wanted out.”
