Mariah Stewart - Last Words

“Then let’s get started. Duncan, you’re first up.” Beck pointed to the officer who sat halfway down the table to his right.

As Duncan cleared his throat, about to begin, the door opened and Christina Pratt hurried into the room.

“Am I late?” she asked.

“We’re just about to start,” Beck told her.

“Great.” The woman settled into a seat to the left of Mia and took a small notebook and pen from her handbag.

Mia caught Beck’s eye to see if he’d noticed, but he hadn’t appeared to. She made a mental note to call it to his attention. Letting civilians have confidential information made her nervous, whether that civilian was the mayor or the guy who sold you coffee in the morning. When that information was written down, it made her doubly so.

“Do I need to remind you all that what is said here, stays here? Anyone not understand what that means?” His eyes surveyed the room. “Anyone?”

No one spoke up. Mia hoped the mayor understood that that meant her as well.

“We’ll be having a community meeting once I’ve sorted through everything we discuss here today, but I will be the one who decides what information is made public and what we keep close to the vest.” He leaned over the chair, his arms resting on its back. “ Duncan, let’s do it.”

Duncan Alcott’s fingers tapped so lightly on the table that only those seated to either side could hear the sound. He was tall and thin and wore military-style glasses and a crew cut. He’d joined the force under Hal as a patrolman, and had never distinguished himself as either a great cop or an especially poor one. He was pretty much average in every way. There’d been a few flare-ups over the years-like the times he’d been bypassed for a promotion he’d wanted, and about a decade ago there’d been an incident in a bar down in Cambridge-but for the most part, he’d been reliable and trustworthy. Because he had no family in the area, he could be depended on to work holidays and weekends, which made him popular with his fellow officers. He had nearly twenty years in uniform and preferred traffic and night patrols, and Beck was content to let him remain in his comfort zone. Efforts over the years to fit him into any other mold hadn’t been successful anyway. Hal had once described Duncan as “a good soldier,” and Beck found it still fit.

“Um, well, Chief asked me to figure out Holly Sheridan’s itinerary between Colorado and Maryland. What roads she took and that sort of thing.” Duncan cleared his throat again. “The victim left her parents home in Denver on Monday, July second. She filled up her Explorer right outside of Denver, headed onto to Route 70, took it all the way to St. Louis, then dropped down onto 64 into Kentucky, then picked up 79 into West Virginia. Around Morgan-town, she got onto 68, took it as far as 70, took it straight on over to Baltimore.” He looked up at Beck and asked, “Do you want every stop she made? She had an overnight in Columbus, Missouri, and made a number of gas and food stops.”

“Are any of them particularly relevant?”

“Just the last one.”

“Which was?”

“She stopped in Wye Mills.” He glanced at the two FBI agents and added for their clarification, “That’s in Maryland, not far after you come off the Bay Bridge. You probably drove through it on Route 50.”

Mia nodded. She remembered.

“Anyway, the victim stopped for gas at a mini-mart off Route 50, 1:00 A.M. on Thursday, July fifth. Filled up her tank, went inside, got a soda and a snack. Got her on tape,” Duncan said. “Can’t see outside near the pumps, though, so I checked in with the manager, which is how I got a copy of the tape.”

He held it up.

“The manager called in the guy who was working that night, showed him the tape.” Duncan continued his flat recitation. “He did recall the victim, but he-”

“Holly Sheridan,” Beck reminded him. “Let’s use her name once in a while. She was someone’s daughter, someone’s sister. Let’s give her a little dignity.”

“Right.” Duncan reddened. “Anyway, the witness recalled Holly Sheridan coming in that night. She bought a diet Pepsi and a packaged sandwich. She opened the soda and drank it standing there, said she’d been on a long drive and how good it felt to stand and stretch her legs and how happy she was to be back.”

“Did you ask if there was anyone else pumping gas at the time?”

“Yes, but he said there was no one there when she arrived.” Duncan held up the tape. “I noted to him that maybe a minute before she left the store, you could see a flash of headlights reflected in the window, and he said he thought someone did pull in. The manager pulled the receipts for the night and found a cash sale was made about five minutes after the vic-after Holly’s credit-card sale.”

“So the other customer would be on the tape when he came in to pay,” Hal Garrity spoke up. “Let’s see it.”

“Sorry, no. After seeing the tape, the attendant remembered he had walked Holly outside and was standing by the door. The second customer had a ten dollar sale, handed the guy a ten, and didn’t want a receipt.”

“Any description, of the customer or the car?” Beck asked hopefully.

“Said the guy was maybe mid-thirties, medium height and build, had a baseball cap on, didn’t see his hair, didn’t really look at his face. Doesn’t really remember much about him except that he was driving a dark SUV. Didn’t catch the make.”

“Guy works in a gas station and doesn’t notice what someone was driving?” Hal shook his head skeptically.

“He said he too busy watching Holly walk across the parking lot to her car. He said she was wearing some pretty hot shorts.”

“Swell,” Beck muttered. “Well, at least we know she made it to Maryland, and if she ran into someone, or someone followed her, it was close to home.”

He turned to Duncan. “Nice work.”

“Thank you.” Duncan went red again.

“Guess her car still hasn’t turned up,” Beck said.

“No, sir. But this morning I did check again with the state police, just to make sure they know we’re still looking.”

“Great. You keep on that.” Beck turned to Hal. “You were going to show Holly’s face around town.”

The older man nodded. “I did. I made fifty copies of that photo you got from her roommate, and I passed it around. Turns out she’s been just about everywhere. Barbie down at the bookstore said she was in once a week, picked up a mystery or a romance and whatever new food magazine had come in since her last visit. Rocky at the gallery said she’d stopped in the weekend of the art show; there were several works she admired but she didn’t buy any.”

“Either Barbie or Rocky mention if she was with anyone?”

“She was alone the three or four times she stopped in at Barbie’s, and Rocky thinks she came into the gallery alone and left alone.” Hal shook his balding head. “Steffie says she was in for ice cream a couple of times, but doesn’t think she was with anyone. Said she chatted with her a few times, that Holly was pretty outgoing. Said she talked to whoever was in the shop whenever she was there.”

Hal glanced down the table at Beck and added, “And no, she doesn’t remember anyone in particular, just the usual assortment of locals you get at any given time on any hot day.”

Hal passed a photo of Holly around the table. When it reached Christina Pratt, she said, “I’ve seen this girl around. I think it might have been at Steffie’s. Founders Day weekend, after the concert, I think it was.”

“Do you remember who else was around?” Beck asked.

“Only half the town. Including you and your sister.” The mayor took a final look at the photo before passing it across the table to Lisa Singer. “I remember seeing you there, because my son had his kids that weekend and my five-year-old granddaughter was fascinated by Vanessa’s shoes, and-” She stopped and laughed self-consciously. “Well, suffice it to say, half the town was in line for ice cream at Steffie’s after the concert.” She turned to Lisa Singer. “You were there too, weren’t you? You and Todd and your boys?”