“Not them,” Rudkowski barked. “Mallory and Lewis.”
“Oh. They left. About—” The officer consulted his partner, who said, “Twenty minutes ago. About.”
Rudkowski looked over at Locke. “You told them we were on our way?”
“Lewis said they would see us when we got here.”
Rudkowski walked a tight circle, holding onto his temper by a thread. When he came back around to the young policemen, he asked, “Did they happen to say where they were going?”
“To meet you.”
“What car did they leave in?”
“Must’ve been Lewis’s. He was driving.”
“Did you happen to get a license plate number?”
“No, sir, b-but why would we?”
Menundez stepped forward. “Signals got mixed is all.”
Rudkowski’s blood pressure spiked. “After everything I told you on the drive here about this trio, you think mixed signals is the reason Mallory and Lewis have also flown the coop?”
Locke came to his younger partner’s defense. “They may have heard from Easton and had to leave in a hurry. Before we jump to conclusions, why don’t you call them?”
Rudkowski snapped his fingers. “Good idea. Why don’t you?”
Locke bobbed his head at Menundez. As the younger detective moved away to follow the directive, he shot Rudkowski a look of contempt, which Rudkowski ignored. “You two,” he said to the uniformed officers, “get back to what you were doing, which was precious little.”
“Do you want us to call our department or the FBI, get more officers—”
“No,” Rudkowski said. “For the time being, I want to keep this under wraps.”
He didn’t want to appear more of a buffoon than he already did. He’d jumped the chain and placed a call to the SAC of the field office in Columbia, asking him to call him back on a matter of some urgency. He didn’t know whether to look forward to speaking with him and alerting him to Easton’s latest chicanery or to fear the flak he himself would catch for being outwitted again.
Left alone now with Locke, he said, “Show me around.”
“We don’t have a warrant yet.”
“We have a material witness who has skipped out to avoid being questioned.”
“That hasn’t been ascertained.”
“She ran off dressed in pajamas. Wouldn’t you say that indicates flight?”
“Or coercion,” Locke said.
“Which Easton is more than capable of, and, ethically, he’s not above it. But there were four other men on this property. If he was forcing her, why didn’t she scream bloody murder? There’s no sign of a tussle. No, detective, she left of her own volition. Now show me around.”
They went upstairs. From the master bedroom window, Locke pointed out the garage apartment. “There’s a window behind that oak. Easton had a good vantage point. He could surveil them without being seen.”
Rudkowski snorted. “If you call window-peeping and illegal bugging surveillance.”
Locke turned tight-jawed but didn’t comment.
They walked through the rooms on both floors, finding nothing of particular interest. They concluded the tour in a small room behind the main staircase. “Mrs. Ford’s study,” Locke explained. “When she came to the door for us last night, she left her shoes in here. I came to get them for her.”
“Do you extend that kind of courtesy to every murder suspect?”