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“Right. The cops. The same group who lied and covered up about the transfer of evidence? What does Randall Isley have to say?”
“He’s the cop who is coming clean about the evidence chain?”
“Right. He goes by ‘Randy.’ I’m thinking maybe his memory can be jogged and he’ll come up with some other detail he forgot in his original testimony.”
“Speaking of testimony. You’ve heard it all, right? Read the transcripts?”
“Yeah. And one always bothered me.”
“Just one? Like Kara McIntyre’s?”
“No—she was too young. Yeah, what she said was scripted and obviously rehearsed, but the one that got to me was Lacey Higgins, Jonas’s girlfriend who slept with his brother.”
“Stepbrother.”
“Right.” Tate scratched at the beard beginning to shadow his jaw. “What was that all about?” He remembered how she’d almost demurely admitted that her boyfriend would take an axe to her lover before killing her. “Check her out.”
“Haven’t you?”
“Working on it. But I’ve come up dry,” Tate admitted, not bothering to hide his frustration. “Lacey Higgins is married now. Has a couple of kids. It all seems on the up-and-up, but dig a little deeper if you can.”
“Do you really think you can learn more after all this time?” Connell walked to the railing, gloved fingers working as he thought. “Books have been written, true crime episodes aired about what happened in that mansion on the mountain. I even heard that someone’s working on a podcast now that it’s the twentieth anniversary of the crime, along with a revisiting of the event by the production company that first aired the story.”
“So maybe that will help. Now that McIntyre is a free man, people who were involved, witnesses who testified and those that didn’t, they might be thinking about the case and might remember something they’d forgotten or weren’t asked about in their depositions or at the trial.”
“A long shot.”
“My shot to take.”
Connell nodded. “Okay, so you want what? Me to chase these people down? Ask them questions, or just observe and maybe tail them. GPS tracker? That kind of thing?”
“Whatever you’ve got.” Tate rested his hips on the railing. “Poke around. See what you can dig up. See if you find anything irregular.”
“Like what happened to Marlie Robinson?”
“Especially what happened to her,” Tate said, remembering the older sister who had flat out disappeared. “I figure she’s the key.”
Wayne Connell frowned as snowflakes piled onto the bill of his Padres cap. “Irregular how? In the phone records, bank statements? Computer records? Emails?”
“I said you do it your way. Nothing illegal or anything you’re uncomfortable with, okay? But come on. Wouldn’t you like to be a part of this? Maybe break a twenty-year-old case wide open?”
Connell snorted. “Don’t try to con me, Wes. I get it.” He turned away from the view to face his friend again. “You want justice for your father. That’s normal. I’ll work on it, okay, but I’m not making any promises and as I said before, I’m not breaking any laws. Got it?”
“Got it.” Tate figured he could handle the illegal stuff himself. “One last thing.”
“Yeah?” He paused.
“See if you can locate a woman named Hailey Brown from Modesto, California. Could be a fake. Or her maiden name. It’s used online on a fan website for Jonas. You’ll see it. I think she’s a phony.”
“Talk about a needle in a haystack. Common first name and surname.”
“I know, but if you can locate her, that might help.”
“Why?”
“Just a feeling.”
Connell snorted. “Great. Anything else?”