Simply Lies

Chapter 6

On the drive back Gibson kept looking in the rearview mirror at Sullivan in his sedan. She was trying to gauge whether the man seriously considered her a suspect in the murder or not. His look was focused yet distant, as though he had a great many scenarios flitting through his head. He reminded Gibson of herself on a case, consuming all the facts of a crime scene, but then taking the time and distance to weave them into plausible theories that might, or might not, turn out to be supported by the facts.

When they arrived at her house, Gibson introduced Sullivan to her mother, but didn’t elaborate on why he was here.

“It’s work-related, Mom. Can you hang around a bit to watch the kids? I have some things to go over with Detective Sullivan. Thanks.”

Dorothy Rogers eyed her daughter and then glanced at the tall and attractive Sullivan and smiled. “Well, I’ll just leave you two alone then.”

Gibson had to work extra hard to keep the groan inside her from coming out.

He doesn’t want to date me, Mom, he wants to figure out if I’m a murderer.

She took Sullivan into her office and slipped out her iPhone. “This is my business phone.” She scrolled down the screen. “Here’s the number she called me from. It didn’t have a name because it wasn’t in my contacts, or a location tag, but I usually answer because my job pretty much requires that.”

Sullivan punched in the number on his phone and held it to his ear. It rang and rang but no one answered. “Probably a burner or something like it. Or voice-over-untraceable-IP bullshit. We’ll try to track it, but don’t hold your breath.” He looked around at her office setup and the two monster screens. “So this is where the investigatory magic happens?”

“If you want to call digital drudgery that, yes it is.” Gibson sat down, took off her shoes, and rubbed her feet. “Sorry, not used to wearing even low-heel pumps anymore.”

Sullivan sat down across from her. “Anything else you can remember from the call?”

Gibson knew he could have asked her all this back at Stormfield, but he obviously wanted to see if her suburban mom story checked out or not.

“I’m naturally skeptical like any good ex-cop, but she played every beat perfectly. She threw in the conversation with Zeb first, which took away any doubt I might have had.”

“Which means either your boss is in on this—”

“—or she does work there, used a fake name and phone and overheard the conversation, or she tapped Zeb’s phone or mine and got the necessary intel that way.”

Sullivan nodded appreciatively. “You’re not showing any rust at all from your detective days.”

“Really? I think I need a full lube job after what happened. She reeled me in hook, line, and sinker. Like you, I would normally have checked out the place online, but she provided a history for it that sounded plausible, and they wanted this done really fast, or at least she said that. And she never told me the name of the place. That was probably so I wouldn’t check it out and determine everything she said was bullshit. And, on top of all that, she used the name Rutger Novak.”

“Why is that significant?” asked Sullivan curiously.

“Long before I joined ProEye they had a battle royale with Novak. He ended up winning because he disappeared and ProEye couldn’t find a single asset to grab for their clients. It was a big black eye for the firm, so every employee that they hire, during the orientation, gets a snootful of info on Novak, as if to say, you better work hard and cover every angle, or the big fish slips away. She must have known that about the firm and mentioned his name to me so I would have no doubts she worked there.”

“Mickey Gibson. It says that on your license. But isn’t it short for Michelle?”

“No, my given name isn’t Michelle. It’s Mickey.”

“Okay? Is there a story behind that?”

Gibson sighed resignedly. “To say my late grandfather was a diehard Yankees fan would be a gross understatement. He bled the navy blue pinstripes. Family lore has it that he threatened to strangle my father unless he named his first grandchild, regardless of gender, after Mickey Mantle. So voilà, here I am.”

“Well, it is different.”

“Very kind of you to say so. Growing up with that name I would have used a different word to describe it.”

“Made you tougher, I take it.”

“Made me something.”

“Which then leads us to the question of why you? Out of the entire universe of people she could have made that call to?”

“I thought about that all the way on the drive back. I didn’t come up with much other than I work for ProEye and live close to Stormfield. She obviously wanted me to go there and find that body. Today. The wall had been opened a bit and there was a fan just inside the space to create airflow and noise, and a vase had been placed on the shelf there to draw my attention. Chances were very good I would stumble upon it.”

“Any possibility you could know the woman under another name?”

“I didn’t recognize the voice, but she could have altered that. I don’t know all that many people around here, other than some other moms and dads in my neighborhood.”

“So you think the crime scene was arranged?”

“There’s no power on in that house; fan was battery operated. Wall left partially open, dead body, fan on. Yeah, it was staged and then the call came to me.”

Sullivan said, “And the techs estimated the fan had a decent charge left.”

“So whoever turned it on was there probably today. Maybe this ‘Arlene Robinson’ even called me from there. She knew where I lived and she knew how long it would take me to get to Stormfield, because I basically told her it would be about an hour after I left my house.”

“So the question becomes: Did she kill him?”

“How long has he been dead?”

“It wasn’t today. I can tell you that.”

“I could see that for myself. Why would anyone want to kill Pottinger? Did he have any enemies?”

“Early for all that. We’re checking out various possibilities.”

“I was told the place was abandoned. But if Pottinger was still living there, where’s all the hired help? He couldn’t have taken care of that place all by his lonesome. But it was empty when I got there, and the power was off. And the place didn’t really look lived in. There was stuff that I inventoried, but it just had the feel of being abandoned.”

“Checking into all of that.”

“So am I off the suspect list?”

“Not quite, but you’re getting there.” He rose. “We’ll be in touch.”

“Look, if you need another pair of eyes on this?”

“Not the way the Virginia State Police work, sorry.”

Gibson took a symbolic step back. “Of course.”

He eyed the computers. “I guess it was a big change. Going from the streets to this.”

“It was. But being a parent is an even bigger change in your life, maybe the biggest.”

He left Gibson there staring at the screens around which her work life now flowed.

What the hell have I just stepped in?