Page 35 of Finding Carly
Baker nodded and continued. “Barrowman admitted he knew what Keyes had planned, but swears he didn’t have anything to do with it. Told me that he wanted nothing to do with a kidnapping plot, even if he didn’t like Carly.”
“Do you believe him?” Midas asked.
“It doesn’t matter if I believe him or not,” Baker said. “His alibi checks out. He was at work, or at least his timecard says he was. He works at the Waialae Country Club and he didn’t clock out until well after everything went down.”
“That’s by the coast, right?” Pid asked. “He could’ve gotten someone to clock him in and then taken a boat from there. It’s not too far from Waikiki.”
“Right,” Baker agreed. “Which is why I haven’t ruled him out.”
“What about the others?” Jag asked. The more Baker talked, the more Jag wanted to get to Carly right this second and make sure she was all right.
“Gideon Sparks and Beau Langford are Keyes’s other two close friends. I guess the four of them got together at least once a week to play poker or watch football, and drink. Sparks doesn’t have an alibi. He’s not married, has no kids. He’s employed at the Honolulu Zoo. I guess he works with some of the bigger animals. He’s kind a loner and the people I talked to who know him didn’t have much to say, just that he keeps to himself. Anyway, he had that day off. Told me he was doing errands. He was able to produce a few dated receipts, but I haven’t had time yet to verify his location on any of the surveillance cameras at the shops where he claims to have been. Beau Langford is the youngest of the three friends, at forty-five. The others are all in their fifties. He works at a marina.”
Jag abruptly stopped pacing. “Yeah?”
“Yup. But I scoured the surveillance videos at the marina from that night and haven’t found evidence that he took any of the boats out,” Baker said.
Jag felt nauseous. He’d been hoping Baker would immediately solve this shit. Help them figure out the threat and neutralize it. He now realized this wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d thought.
“But Langford would know where all the cameras were, since he works at the marina. He’d easily be able to go undetected if he wanted to,” Baker added. “He also doesn’t have anyone to back up his alibi. Says he was stuck in traffic on the interstate. With all the rain that moved in so quickly that night, we all know how easily the interstates flood around here.”
“Cell phone activity?” Slate asked.
Baker shrugged. “Langford said he dropped his phone when he was running to his car. Landed in a puddle and fucked it up.”
“Convenient,” Pid muttered.
“I checked into Wes Schell, Keyes’s landlord, and while they seemed to be friendly enough on the surface, apparently the two men hated each other. Keyes had a bad habit of paying his rent late, which pissed off Schell. I’m ninety percent sure if he had the chance, Schell would’ve turned Keyes in for pretty much anything, just to get him out of his apartment complex.”
“Who does that leave?” Mustang asked.
“I haven’t spoken with Kelly Gregory yet, she was Keyes’s most recent ex-girlfriend. I’m guessing if she was treated as badly as Carly, that she most likely wouldn’t want anything to do with Keyes and his asinine plan, but I don’t pretend to understand women. It’s possible she was jealous and wanted to get back with Keyes. He broke up withher, as I understand it, so she might’ve wanted a chance to get rid of her competition, so to speak, if Keyes approached her.”
Jag pressed his lips together. He wasn’t willing to dismiss the woman. He’d had up-close-and-personal experience with how insane women could be. He pushed the thought away for now and concentrated on what Baker was saying.
“I also need to speak with Eddie Evans, Keyes’s neighbor, and his boss, Jamie Redmon, at the Coca-Cola plant where Keyes worked.”
“Any good leads with either of them?” Midas asked.
“Evans, maybe. His statement to the cops claimed that he didn’t know anything. Apparently he keeps to himself, said he minds his own business. Which I don’t doubt. What the detectivehasn’tfigured out yet is that the neighbor has a good reason to lay low. He’s got half a dozen scams going that I’m sure he doesn’t want anyone to find out about.”
“What kinds of scams?” Mustang asked.
“Charity, soliciting disaster relief funds, identity theft…the man’s a fuckin’ genius, as far as I can tell, except he’s using his smarts to scam people out of their money,” Baker said, the disgust easy to hear in his tone.
“You gonna shut that down?” Pid asked.
Baker shrugged. “Not my concern. Now, if someone I know and respect fell for one of his scams, then absolutely. But right now, my plate’s kind of full.”
Jag didn’t give a shit about the neighbor running his scams. All he cared about was Carly’s safety. “And the boss?” he asked.
“Another asshole. Seems Keyes surrounded himself with people just like him. But his alibi seems solid. He was at work, making someone’s life miserable by conducting their yearly evaluation. It’s why I haven’t made him a priority.”
Jag stomped over to his chair and collapsed into it with a sigh. “So, where does this leave us?” he asked. It didn’t feel as if he was any closer to finding out who might’ve been working with Keyes than he was a week ago.
“I’m still digging up shit,” Baker said. “Someone had access to a boat. Redmon, Langford, and Evans own boats, the others don’t. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t borrow someone else’s. Half the residents on this island own a boat, or at least have access to one. The weather was so shitty that night that most of the cameras at the marinas I’ve checked out so far either weren’t working or were useless because of the rain and wind. There are also plenty of private boat slips on the island that don’t have security cameras. But I’m not giving up.”
“What do you think?” Mustang asked. “Do you think there was an accomplice crazy enough to be out on the ocean that night in the storm? Do you think Carly’s still in danger, or has whoever Keyes was working with maybe slunk back into the shadows after he was killed?”
