Criss Cross

Chapter 81

As I walked down the driveway toward the gate, I decided there wasn’t any point in my sticking around outside while Mahoney and his men conducted the search.

And I was having serious doubts that Mrs. Edgerton was physically capable of being M. Her brain seemed largely intact, but the stroke had left her all but blind, and she had serious respiratory issues.

Pete?

Now, that was a real possibility. Pete had the motivation to be M. He also had the money, and at least part of it was in largely untraceable cryptocurrency.

Or was there a conspiracy between mother and son? If it was a shared obsession, two hearts loathing as one, I could almost wrap my head around the Edgertons’ putting revenge ahead of their personal fortunes, lives, and freedom.

Almost.

My doubts all stemmed from one question: Why would they be involved in a kidnapping in Ohio?

No answer I could come up with made sense. I walked through the gate and pulled out my phone to request an Uber to take me back into the city.

My phone buzzed in my hand. A text from FBI Special Agent Kim Tillis:

Going to Alexandria detention center at noon to tell Marty. See you there to deliver good news for a change?

It was ten past eleven, so I texted back: I will be there.

An innocent man freed. The thought made me smile in a way that putting the cuffs on someone guilty did not. This felt lighter, selfless, not like atoning for the dead at all.

That feeling was still building when I got out of the Uber at the appointed hour and spotted Agent Tillis beside a younger, chipper-looking woman in a navy-blue suit.

Sandra Wendover smiled and shook my hand after Tillis introduced her as an attorney with the federal public defenders’ office.

“I’m so happy, Dr. Cross,” Wendover said, still smiling. “We don’t often get to make this kind of visit to an inmate.”

I grinned back. “It does feel good.”

Tillis teared up. “It’s like we’re bringing Marty the best present ever.”

We went through the doors to the security checkpoint. I got out my identification and was ready to pass my shoes through the scanner when a woman called out, “Dr. Cross?”

I looked up to see Estella Maines, the sheriff’s deputy.

“Did you get the message I sent over your way Friday?” she asked.

“My way?”

“To Metro PD.”

“Oh, I’m only a consultant there these days.”

“Well, the fingerprints you asked us to take of Dirty Marty’s visitor? The guy in the stills from the security feed? We got a hit. He’s an ex-con. We got him cold.”

My heart raced. Finally, we were getting a break.

Before I could reply, Kim Tillis said, “Deputy, for the record, Martin Forbes is not dirty. He was unequivocally framed, and we’ve come to get him freed.”

Deputy Maines didn’t know what to make of that and she looked at me.

“It’s true. The guy in the security stills was in on the scheme to put Forbes behind bars. Who is he? What’s his name?”