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Which was fine, because being alone suited her perfectly just then.
Idly, because she had nothing better to do, she started to search for Ellis Long on social media. One of his accounts came up with very little in the way of posts – it seemed like he sporadically put up a stylistic shot of a glass of whisky around Christmas each year, or a dark and moody self-portrait on his birthday – no doubt a way to fish for wishes from those who wouldn’t otherwise have known it was that date. The rest was very much of the character she expected from him: a shot of a night sky with leafless branches intersecting it, a dark and grainy shot of the outside of a museum, and so on.
There were very few shots with friends or even family members, that much she noticed right away.
She scrolled back further, and as the years passed by in just a handful of posts each time, she quickly found herself stumbling on a richer vein of images. These were posted much closer together in terms of dates, and they were brighter. There were even shots of Long with friends – and with a beautiful young woman who caught Laura’s eye.
She tapped on the post to open it, and found a caption about celebrating an anniversary with the woman he loved – something almost poetic in its romance, and definitely at odds with the man she saw in front of her now. Laura saw the date under the post – three years ago – and bit her lip. She started to scroll up slowly, reading every post, looking for the moment that everything had changed.
But there was a moment before that which made her stop, almost dropping her phone at the sight of it. A post about how they had just landed in beautiful Rome, Italy, for a two-week vacation.
And the date at the bottom of the post was a week before July Hall had been murdered.
Which meant…
Laura carried on scrolling, biting her lip harder now. The next post had Ellis and the smiling woman exploring ancient Roman ruins; there was another shot of them sitting in a café which was juxtaposed next to a rack of Italian newspapers and magazines bearing headlines about a certain American president, all of which had dates fully visible. The day after July Hall had been found.
Laura sank her head into her hands.
Whatever Ellis Long was – whatever he had been through – he wasn’t the killer they were looking for. He couldn’t be. He had a foolproof alibi. She had no idea why he had refused to answer their questions – perhaps he was just affronted by the way they had approached him, or perhaps whatever it was that had darkened his outlook on life had also made him resentful of law enforcement – but it wasn’t him.
Nate opened the door and came in with the phone pressed to his ear, and Laura didn’t even have the energy to look up.
“Yes, sir, I’m with her now,” Nate said.
And Laura found that she did have the energy to look up – in alarm.
“Yes. Yes, I know that you asked us to stop investigating,” Nate said. “We had a very strong feeling about this suspect, and we have reason to believe we may well have solved the case. We were so close.”
Laura made a quick gesture with her hands, slicing them across the top of one another.Stop. Nate faltered, clearly trying to interpret her message.
“Yes… yes, sir, I do understand. No, it wasn’t a bar fight – he just resisted a little. No, we had it under control right away. No, sir. Not a single punch.” Nate paused, listening. “Tomorrow morning. Yes, sir. I do understand. And that’s completely fair about the motel and food. Yes, absolutely, we’ll leave it in the hands of the locals once it’s all wrapped up. Okay… Yes, sir.”
He looked down at his phone all of a sudden, and from the blank screen, Laura could guess that he had been hung up on.
“What did he say?” Laura asked, knowing full well it must have been Chief Rondelle on the other end of the line.
“He said we have until tomorrow to wrap the case up now that we’ve arrested a suspect,” Nate said. “And also that he’s not paying for the motel or any food and drink reimbursements. I didn’t ask him about the gas, but I’m guessing you won’t be getting reimbursed for that, either.”
“I don’t care,” Laura said irritably. “It’s just gas. But I wish you hadn’t gone so hard on reassuring him about our suspect.”
A look of horror came over Nate’s face. “No,” he said.
“I’m afraid so,” Laura said. She turned her own cell phone in his direction so he could see the post, feeling like she wanted to go lie down in a dark room on her own for about three years.
“Oh, man,” Nate said. “Now I wish I hadn’t said all that, too. I’m going to sound like an idiot when I have to tell him we let the guy go.”
“Being an idiot is the best you can hope for at this point,” Laura said. “Being an idiot means he just tells us to come back home and gives us the worst jobs for a few months until he gets over it. Being an idiot means we’re still working for the FBI.”
Nate gave her a look – a Look with a capital L.
“I told you if I lost my job over this…”
“I know, I know,” Laura sighed. “I owe you a psychic private detective agency. But you also can’t honestly tell me that your conscience would have let you go back and forget about this case if we really were that close to catching the killer.”
Nate nodded ruefully. “If we lose our jobs, it’s as much my fault as yours,” he said. “I shouldn’t try and put this all on you. You’re right. I agreed to stay. And I did it for exactly the reasons you’re saying. This isn’t just a job for us; it’s the right thing to do.”
“Now all we have to do is find a new suspect and confirm them as the killer before, oh, ten in the morning tomorrow?” Laura said. “You know. No pressure.”
