Page 76 of Fury In Death

Mel sat back with a shrug. “As sure as I can be of anything. They’re good people, and they came here desperate to find him. His doctors felt he’d come out of it confused, most likely with no awareness of the time that had passed. But—”

“Why wasn’t he seen wandering the halls or looking for help, for answers?”

“Exactly. Instead, the only sighting is of him leaving by that staff door. Just the back of him, with a laundry bag—his clothes. I talked to his friends, multiple times, I went to the site of his apartment building. New building by that time. None of the current tenants had seen or spoken to anyone of his description. Old haunts, went there, Banner-Wyst—spent too much time there. Bus stations, train stations, shuttles. Homeless shelters, sidewalk sleepers, flops. His wife’s family.”

Mel lifted her hands, gave both wrists a turn, then lowered them again.

“I followed a lead. Long-haul driver gave a lift to a man he thought maybe fit the description. The driver remembered, or thought he remembered, the guy had a duffel. Pulled into a truck stop outside of Indianapolis, and that’s the last he saw of the passenger.

“I worked it six months, then a couple more on my own time because it had a hold of me. In the end, I concluded he’d headed west, put some distance between himself and everything he’d lost. Found someplace quiet, self-terminated.”

“Because?”

“One thing came clear—from everyone I talked to who knew him? That woman, that kid, the kid they were about to have? His world. He shut off the night they died. Just shut down. So, he boots back up, and can’t live with it. Doesn’t want to make his family have to deal with him and what he’s decided to do. That was my thinking until now. But I’m stuck on motive.”

Mel waited a beat, shrugged again, smiled. “Didn’t figure you’d fill me in there.”

“Not at this time,” Eve said simply. “Tell me why you now think Redman’s alive and killing. Plenty of people work at that company, with those people. Plenty who don’t have a beef with the company, and those people.”

Mel leaned back again, crossed her feet at the ankles.

“Well, first because coincidences are crapola. I only spoke with Banner once, briefly, but with Wyst a few times. I didn’t like either one of them. I spoke with your first dead guy. Chu.”

She shook her head now, eyes cop flat. “Something there, Dallas. I couldn’t pull it out of him, but something. Nervy, and I could and did read some guilt in it. He could’ve been playing it straight. Upset because his friend and colleague was missing. Upset because of the accident, Redman’s breakdown and situation. To me, it came off nearly straight because some of that was in there. But so was something else. Surveilled him awhile, but no sign of Redman. And why hide him from his family?

“He visited Redman every few weeks in the first year, every few months in year two and a little less in year three. Then he stopped, but that’s not unreasonable.”

“He replaced Redman at Banner-Wyst.”

“Yeah, there was that, got a nice bonus, too, so that could be motive for Redman. But hell, somebody had to step in.”

“Do you know what they were working on when the apartment building blew up?”

“Couldn’t dig that out with an airjack. Nothing more than ‘several ongoing projects.’ I covered the ground up to the line of the law.”

Eve angled her head. “And you never slide across that line?”

Mel’s smile was easy, friendly.

“Not so you’d notice. I respect what you do. I respect how you do it. Sometimes people come here because the official investigation just ran its course, and we can pick and choose where you can’t. We’ve got less work and more time.

“I put the Redman case away about five years ago, but I planned—still do—to schedule reviewing my files on it as my evening entertainment. You can do the same.”

She rose, went back to her desk, then brought Eve a disc.

“I’m juggling some cases, but when I got back to the office not long before you came to the door, I made a copy of those files. I figured you’d either show up here or I’d tag you, see if you wanted them.”

“It’s appreciated.”

“We may not play on the same team, but we’re on the same side.”

Mel looked at the disc, then at Eve. “I didn’t like Wyst or Banner. The first too fucking smooth, the second too fucking cold. I didn’t like the place, and I can’t say just why. Given all of that, I never considered the gas leak as anything other than that. I only looked at all of it as background on Redman, his state of mind. If everyone missed that as something else, if I missed looking deeper, I’m going to regret it.”

Eve got to her feet. “I’ll let you know. Thanks for the files, and the information.”

“Dallas,” she said, so Eve paused at the door. “You’ve looked at him, looked into him. That was a good man.”

“Yeah. He was.”