"Anything?" Vera and Kat had stayed at the office, trying to piece together more about Joseph's case. The team had the luck, at least, of having looked into Joseph's life already, when he was thought to be dead the first time. Lainey's team had come in with a court order, but they'd already made copies of everything.
"Nothin'. Offloaded her cats to the neighbour, managed to sneak out so the surveillance guy didn't even know she was gone."
"Still doesn't." Jeffries added, shaking his head. Much as they were worried about Lil, everyone allowed themselves a small smile at the thought of the surveillance team watching an empty house.
"So, what, you think she's done a runner?" Kat looked between them; she didn't know Lilly as well as they did, but she'd picked up a strong sense of loyalty and honour in the team. Running away from things wasn't on the top of any of their to-do lists. There was silence while they considered it.
"I don't know. But our first priority is trying to solve Joseph's crime; undetected. Chances are Detective Rush will call us in a few days. I'm going to put her down as on leave; anyone asks, she requested time off. What've you guys come up with this morning?" Stillman effectively ended the speculation on Lilly, but Scotty and Jeffries shared a look; if she'd told her neighbour to call an animal shelter for the cats, she wasn't going to call them in a few days. Stillman knew this as well as they did, but if they thought the worst, they weren't going to be as productive. In the car, he'd told them to keep the last line the woman had said to themselves.
"We've looked over all the suspects that we checked out the first time around. Cory is still in lockup; B&E they found he was involved in lengthened his jail time, and word is he hasn't been a model citizen on the inside. Mr Robinson is still banged up, and Mrs R. has moved to New York, probably to chase her dream of finding another Cory."
"Plenty of drug addicts in New York," Will agreed, before Kat continued.
"We've got everything the hom team's got; his movements in the weeks before his death, as much as they can make out. He was working at a few of the rehab places as a counsellor, but it didn't seem like anyone there had a motive. Besides, they can do the legwork on that. His foster mother isn't the type to seek revenge for her son's death. They tracked down Crystal, she's still on the streets. They both have alibis for that morning."
"Which leaves us with a big, fat zero." Vera felt like he had to give voice to their depression at the lack of leads.
"Means we've got to start looking at Lilly." Kat shook her head as all eyes snapped to her, all mouths opened to start abusing.
"Not as the perp. Someone killed Joseph because of his association with her, maybe. It's the only thing left; no one else really knew him. And it's too frenzied to be random. Besides, no one stole anything. You stab a guy, you're going to want to take something for your efforts." Kat shrugged, keeping her distance, not wanting to say it would be Lilly's things they'd be taking. Any time a case got personal, it got harder. Your judgement got clouded, and you made bad decisions. She had a bullet scar in her leg to prove that.
"So, we look at Lilly. We've got the advantage that we know a little more about her. Nicky and Will, make a list of all the cases she's closed, all the perps that have been released from jail since. Scotty, you try and make a list of anyone you know of in her personal life."
"There was that Harley guy." Scotty interjected.
"See if you can look up his address, and go see him with Kat. We'll meet up this afternoon; see what we've got. I'm going to check out at the farm." Stillman left for his office to get his keys as Scotty logged in to the computer. All he had was a first name for this guy. But searching for a needle in a haystack was what detectives did; he'd find this guy if he had to look at every Ray that existed in the DMV database.
"What's that guy's name?"
"Ray." Scotty put in the approximate age he thought Ray would be, waited while the computer whirred and spat out 3,204 results at him. In the Philadelphia area alone.
"There's a Ray in her personal file. Second emergency contact, after the Boss. Guess she never got around to changing it." Kat turned the screen so Scotty could read it. Updating the search fields, he got Ray's current address and wrote it down.
"Priors on a juvvie record; sealed. Nothing since then. Work address at the Harley resellers on Bridge Street." Kat had already logged off her computer and was grabbing her coat. Scotty flipped open his phone, dialled Lil's number as they waited for the elevator. Her voice mail answered him, and he flipped the phone shut again. Same as the last twenty times he'd tried to call her.
Jeffries and Will crossed off the next name on their list. They'd been running through Lil's old cases from the past few years. So far, every conviction she'd made had stuck. Everyone was still in jail, either on long sentences waiting for an appeal or yet to be sentenced. Justice was a slow machine, but so far it had always come through in the end.
"You're looking at the wrong line."
"No I'm not; see, under… Oh." Vera had keyed in the name of a witness instead of a suspect.
"Eve Kendall case. I remember that… Girl murdered at lover's lane. Turned out to be a friend of hers and his father. Put the guy away for thirty years. He had cirrhosis anyway, died late last year."
"Yeah, but look at this. Mark Phillips. He got bashed up too, when Eve died. Turns out he wasn't involved, but he's got some priors; mainly bar fights. All after we solved her case."
"Wasn't he the guy with the thing for Lil? He made excuses to show up, talk to her."
"Who doesn't have a thing for Lil? Until she gets them into an interview room and picks them to pieces, they all want to give her their number. Hell, if I was ten years younger-."
"Print him out." Will interrupted him and Vera pursed his lips, shot him a look as his finger pointed at the print button. Obediently, Vera moved the mouse over it, clicked. The printer whirred to life and Will placed it in the small pile of possibles that would require more legwork.
"Ray Williams around?" Scotty flashed his badge at the greasy mechanic who stood up from a hog to greet them.
"Yeah, Boss is out back. Through the glass door there, then past the lounge. Just go through." The mechanic was back under the bike within seconds and Kat looked to Scotty.
"First time I've been to a bike shop and haven't had to wait for them to hide their stash so they could talk to us. Must be above board." Kat looked at the lounge; comfortable, filled with massive arm chairs and pictures of open roads. A guy in a studded vest and tattoos down both arms barely looked up from his New Zealand Roads magazine as they passed through.
"Ray." Scotty didn't need to ask if the guy was Ray; he recognised the scruffy look and leather jacket from their brief conversation when he'd come into the office.
"Hey. You're Lil's partner, right?" Ray flipped shut the accounts book he had open and stood up, offering his hand. Scotty shook it, waited until Kat introduced herself before taking the offered seat.
"So, what's up? Where's Lil?" Ray looked between them, sobered at the silence.
"How long since you've seen her?" Kat started the questions, but Ray refused to answer. He looked to Scotty.
"What's wrong? Is she okay?"
"Did you know she was seeing someone?" Scotty asked.
"Yeah, Joseph. We had a beer at the pub one night; Lil was at some cop thing." Ray noticed their sceptical glances, ran a hand over his hair.
"Look, Lil and I were long over. I mean, we were together when we were teenagers, for chrissakes. We've known each other for a long time." A shrug, palms outstretched. "You think I would have let Lil see him if he was trouble?" Suddenly, Scotty saw beyond the laid back biker to the man underneath, the one that kept coming back to Lilly. The one that held the same protectiveness of her that he had; secret, silent, but strong.
"Do you still love her?" Kat asked. Ray bit his lip, paused before he answered.
"Yeah. I do. But she was happy. And… Well, she doesn't get to be that a lot. So I left her to it. What's going on? Why the sudden questions? Is Lil all right?"
"We think so."
"What?"
"Joseph was murdered yesterday morning. Lil came up as the main suspect, and now she's done a runner."
"God." Ray drew the word out through his teeth, rubbed both hands through his hair.
"You know she didn't do it, though?" Satisfied at the nods they gave him, Ray bit his lip again.
"You haven't seen her?" Scotty was almost ready to cross Ray off his list. He did own a Harley shop, and he did look like he could take a man out with his bare hands, but he seemed more of a live-and-let-live type. And though he cared for Lil, it didn't seem like he cared enough to kill for her.
"Not for a few weeks. Five or six, maybe. When she came to the bar to get Joseph to walk home."
"Gotta ask; where were you yesterday morning between 7.20 and 8.20?" Kat pulled out her notepad, waited while Joseph thought.
"I got here at eight. My head mechanic can vouch for that. The ride takes half an hour, when I take the back way. I talked to my landlady when I left, at 7.30."
"We'll need those numbers." Wordlessly, Ray wrote them down, passed them over.
"You know anywhere she'd go?" Scotty asked. He hadn't known their history had been so long; Ray might know somewhere Lilly would go as a safe house.
"She was always fond of Knoxville. We nearly got married there." Ray half smiled at the memory before he continued. "Doubt she'd go that far, though. Way I see it, she's working her own case. Doesn't want people pitying her interfering. She was always a bit too proud." He smiled again, rubbed a hand over his stubble.
"You know anyone that would want to hurt Joseph?"
"Not offhand. He was decent, didn't seem the type to make enemies easily." Another shrug.
"Sorry I can't help more."
"Thanks." Scotty stood, shook hands again.
"You ask me, she'll be back. Making murder cop was her dream; she's not just going to throw it away." Ray offered them this last sentence as they were walking out the door, and Scotty half turned, nodded. Ray didn't know that Lil had already almost thrown her career away on this guy.
After booking in, Lil took her coat off and draped it over the table. She looked out the window over a tarmac parking lot; plain, boring and somehow soothing in its sameness. She knew she needed to get started; suspect list, motive list, who Joseph might have opened the door to. Problem was, he was too trusting. He'd probably open the door to anyone, especially if they asked for her. He'd probably invited whomever it was in and offered them a coffee. That would have put them in the kitchen able to grab a knife out of the knife block and start stabbing him with it.
Suddenly, she felt even more alone than she had this morning in bed. His presence was slipping further away from her, and even though it had only been a little over a day, she was forgetting the way he smelt and the way his arm had always draped so easily over her shoulder. Now she realised she was here, in an impersonal hotel room in a part of the city she didn't know with no phone. She'd given it to a homeless guy on the other side of the park, as well as slipping his friends a few bucks each. She knew they'd just get drunk, but someone may as well be happy. She was sick of her phone buzzing in her pocket, and she didn't want the temptation to call someone to overpower her. Not that she had anyone to call; they'd all want her to tell them where she was so they could come to her rescue, save her from herself. Straightening her spine, Lilly took a deep breath, got a pen and pad out of her bag. Shuffling her coat, she cleared room and sat down at the table, pen poised.
Half an hour later, the page was still blank. Everyone who had wanted to kill Joseph the first time around was locked up. She didn't know of any jealous lovers in her past that would be capable of this; Ray looked tough and he rode a Harley but he was a pussy cat underneath. Kite was long gone, and the rest were ancient history, not worth thinking about. Anyone involved with a case would be still in jail. Or they'd have forgotten about her; although anger flared quickly and potently enough towards the police, it was usually spent by the time a case went to trial. She couldn't remember any strange phone calls she'd had. The crazy letters she'd started getting after she shot George had slowed to a trickle before petering out completely a few months ago. Basically, she was at a dead end. Then there was a knock on the door.
It only took twenty minutes to get out of the city, and another ten to make it down the dirt road to the farm. Stillman hoped she'd be there, finding some solace in the place she'd first come face to face with the man who had made her deviate from protocol and lie to her team. Stillman still didn't understand why she did it, but he sensed she didn't either. In the weeks after the Shaw case, they'd all noticed a change in Lilly. Obviously she was still seeing Joseph; sometimes he walked her to work, holding her hand and kissing her goodbye on the steps. Sometimes her cell would ring and she'd take it into the break room to answer, returning smiling. It was happiness that was slowly seeping its way into Lilly. Though still as dedicated to her job, there was a new lightness to her that animated her, made her laugh more often. On one occasion, John had caught her humming as she read over a case file. She'd looked up, caught his eye, fallen silent. He'd asked her how she was and she'd looked to her shoes before finally nodding.
"I'm happy, Boss." That had been the most that had passed between them about Joseph, even though neither of them had said his name. Stillman knew it was Joseph that had prompted the change. And now some senseless bastard had taken that from her, and prompted her to run.
"Lil." The door was unlocked, and Stillman walked in, calling her. He'd unsnapped his holster, as was protocol, and his right hand hovered near it. It took him five minutes to cover the rooms. It looked as though Joseph had been staying with Lilly mostly; there was only old packet food in the cupboards and there were barely any clothes left out here. The only evidence that a female had been here was one of two jackets hanging at the coat rack near the back door. One was large, and obviously belonged to Joseph but the other was small, dark grey, Lilly's size. Stillman picked it up and took a long look before hanging it back on the rack.
"Where are you, Lil." He murmured. He hadn't entertained thoughts of suicide yet; Lil was stronger than that. But she wasn't the type of person to let her demons overtake her, and she had let herself slip off the radar too thoughtfully and easily. But John was still concerned about her cats; he couldn't imagine her leaving them for anything other than a suicide mission.