Less “accommodating” than Dorian? I couldn’t begin to guess what that might mean.
“Given your findings on the car trunk, do you think we should go back out to the mountain?” I asked.
“I would. It’s dry now, and I’d like to take another look, in the light.” She turned to Bailey. “You putting in the request?”
“As of now.”
I was buoyed by the possibility that we might have the DNA of the killer. Then I considered who our killer might be from a logical standpoint. I didn’t like where my train of thought was taking me, but maybe Bailey would find a way to knock it down.
“We’re pretty sure at this point that Brian and Hayley engineered this kidnapping scheme,” I said. “But obviously someone else got into the mix. Brian didn’t have any friends, so if someone was in on it from the start, that person didn’t come from his end-”
“And we know it couldn’t be anyone in Hayley’s circle.”
“But here’s the question: Why would Brian and Hayley have even wanted to bring in a third party?”
“No reason I can see,” Bailey said. “She knew how to reach her dad, how much money he had, all the important stuff. It didn’t take much to set up the drop in Fryman Canyon-”
“They didn’t need any help. So I’m betting our killer was an uninvited guest at their party. That means he had to have found out about the kidnapping while it was in progress.”
“You two want to blab, take it outside,” Dorian said. “Some of us work for a living.”
We started to apologize, but Dorian had already turned back to her computer. When we got to the elevator, Bailey started to speak but stopped when some others joined us. After we got out of the building, she said, “What about Legs? He ‘sniffed’ the ransom note before it was sent.”
“True. But I have a hard time believing that the guy who called us with the tip-”
“Yeah. Hard to believe, but you never know.” Bailey shrugged.
“He just doesn’t fit the bill.” The skinny, pierced, and tatted soon-to-be doctor of neuroscience was a tough sell as a killer. “But you’re right. I guess we should at least check his alibi.”
“I’ll put Harrellson on it,” Bailey said. “Assuming it doesn’t turn out to be Legs, who else could’ve found out about the plan in time to jump in?”
“Other ‘cyber-sniffers,’ I guess-”
“Jeez, I don’t know. Legs Roscoe was enough of a coincidence. How many others could have jumped in at just the right time?”
“But it wouldn’t hurt to try and run down everyone who was in that cybercafé,” I said.
