Page 90 of Wild Frost

"Do you know Ian Harrison?”

His face wrinkled. "No. Never heard of the guy."

"You know, we’re going to pull phone records, dig into your background, your bank accounts, everything. Investigators are going to crawl so far up your ass?—"

He laughed. "This is outrageous. I didn't do anything." He paused. "How long has that evidence been sitting there? By the dates on that evidence bag, it hadn’t been touched in 15 years. Maybe somebody got to it a long time ago."

"Then why did the lab tech smell bleach when she opened the bag?”

"You guys searched my van, right? Did you find any bleach? Did you find anything?"

I frowned and didn't respond. Deputies had gone over the van and his personal vehicle when he was brought in for questioning.

"Am I free to go?”

I reluctantly nodded. We didn't have anything to hold him on.

He stood up and marched away from the table. A guard buzzed us out, and we followed him into the hallway.

JD and I moved to the next interrogation room and spoke with the property clerk. Deputy Simmons sat at the table in uniform, waiting for us. It was an unusual sight.

"I know this is all part of the process, but you don't really think that I had anything to do with this, do you?” Peggy said.

She was a slightly frumpy brunette with dark eyes, curly dark hair that hung above her shoulders, and a round face.

"Just procedure," I assured. "What time did you come on shift?”

"3 o'clock. I get off at 11:00 PM."

"Did anyone else access the property department at that time?”

"No.”

"Did you leave the property department at all during your shift?”

"Around 6 o'clock, I left and got something to eat."

"How long were you gone?”

She shrugged. "15, maybe 20 minutes."

I shared a look with JD. It was enough time for someone to get in there and potentially do some damage. The power surge knocked the system offline at 5:20 PM. The cameras went down, and the logs stopped recording entries and exits to the property department. There was no record of Peggy leaving to grab dinner. There was no record of her return.

The standard procedure was for all evidence to be logged with the property clerk, who would then store it. A strict chain of custody was kept, logging everyone who handled a particular piece of evidence. Date and time of access were noted.

Somebody tampered with the evidence, but at this point, it was impossible to say who or when.

I called Isabella and had her run background on both of our suspects. I asked her to do a deep dive into their phone records and bank accounts. A phone call to or from Ian would be damning.

Isabella told me she’d get back with me shortly.

48

"I've gone through all the call logs for Zach and Deputy Simmons,” Isabella said. “There is nothing from Ian. If he did contact either one of them, I'm sure he used some kind of encrypted messaging app.”

I thanked her for the update. Isabella said she'd keep working on it.

We left the station and met the guys in the band at Red November for a few drinks. The cold weather kept people indoors. The patio at every bar was empty. Nobody swam in the outdoor pool at Tide Pool. Nobody swam in the indoor pool for that matter, either. Temperatures weren’t Arctic yet, but everyone was bundled up.