The Running Girls(35)
Laurie glanced in the rearview mirror, searching for sight of Frank in the back of the patrol car. The news of Grace’s death had clearly rattled him, and she was trying to determine if that was because of a guilty conscience. The brothers’ alibi needed to be verified, but Frank had allegedly been away from Galveston when Grace had gone missing. She thought again about the possibility that Grace had suffered the injuries to her legs when she’d been alive, shuddering as she imagined the pain and helplessness Grace would have endured.
But that was all conjecture. There was a danger in trying to arrange the details so they conformed to her preconceptions. It was something she was going to come across when she returned, as most people had already reached their conclusions. Laurie understood that—Frank had only been out of prison a few months, and Grace’s death was identical in so many ways to Annie’s—but she wouldn’t be forced into thinking along those lines unless there was proof. She still found it hard to believe that Frank had anything to do with Grace’s death, and not just because she’d found him good company these last few weeks. He was frail, and his bad leg would have greatly hampered any attack. That didn’t mean he didn’t do it, and with Maurice as an accomplice, it was definitely something they could have achieved together. But there were still so many unanswered questions, none more important than why target Grace Harrington?
News had spread of Frank’s arrest, and the station was full by the time she returned. The state cops accompanied her to the charging desk with Maurice and Frank still in their cuffs. No official charges were made, but the pair were led to separate holding cells to await questioning.
Laurie noticed the looks her colleagues trained on Frank’s hunched figure being led away, and marveled at her own sense of defensiveness on behalf of the man. She’d behaved the same way herself in the past, assigning a guilty verdict to a suspect before they’d even reached trial. It was wrong to presume anyone’s guilt, but sometimes you just knew. Cops didn’t always need a court of law to tell them when someone was guilty and, in Laurie’s experience, once her colleagues made an absolute decision on a suspect, they were rarely wrong.
Remi had returned from Houston and walked over to her. “I’m glad you’ve found our man,” said Remi. “Can I buy you a coffee?”
By “buy,” Remi meant pouring her some of the lukewarm liquid from the breakroom, but she readily agreed. As she took the coffee into the bullpen, which was full of colleagues despite the late hour, she was dismayed to catch sight of Warren in Filmore’s office. “What the hell is he doing here?” she said, taking a seat.
“You can’t really blame him, can you? It would appear that the person who killed his daughter has returned, one way or another.”
She supposed Remi was right, and she did sympathize with Warren. He would be reliving the agony of losing Annie all over again and she couldn’t blame him for playing the ex-cop card. “As long as he doesn’t interfere with the investigation. So you’re on the Frank Randall bandwagon for this?” she asked, grimacing as she sipped her coffee.
Remi’s youth and inexperience meant he wasn’t as jaded as the majority of her colleagues, and he never reached any conclusions without a train of logical thought. “That’s why I wanted to speak to you. Actually, I’m growing concerned about Glen Harrington.”
“Concerned?”
“It seems Bonnie Webb wasn’t the only young woman he’d been seeing. I managed to speak to another former intern, Natalie Morton, nineteen years old. She interned for Harrington last summer.” He showed Laurie a picture of a young woman with flowing auburn hair. “She had an affair with him pretty much the whole time she worked there.”
Laurie rubbed her face as she looked at the image of the smiling girl. “When did it end?”
“That’s the thing that makes this all the more unpleasant, if that’s possible. She was eighteen when they were seeing each other. Ended not long after her nineteenth birthday.”
Laurie sipped her coffee again, fighting the wave of nausea from both the taste and from what Remi was telling her. “The same age as Grace,” she said, shaking her head.
“It gets worse. They split up when she found out Mr. Harrington was fucking one of her college pals, Regan Yates. She’s in Europe at the moment. One-night thing, by all accounts, but still.”
“Have you spoken to her?”
“Not yet.”
“Let’s make sure we do. Christ, this is one headache I can do without. What the hell is he thinking?” She sighed. “Rhetorical question, I know.” Glen Harrington clearly had a serious thing for very young women. That his obvious age preference coincided with the age of his daughter could be just queasily coincidental, but it might not be. Harrington wouldn’t be the first sick bastard to have a fixation with his child, and it was easy to see how that obsession could have caused him to attack his daughter. If Grace had denied him what he wanted, or threatened to reveal him, then it was feasible to imagine him taking her life. And, with Frank Randall back in town, what better way to disguise his actions?
Laurie realized she was making some great leaps, but at the very least it was apparent that Glen Harrington needed to be questioned in depth, along with Sandra and Tilly. “How far did you question Natalie Morton?”
“Just the basics. She’s happy to speak to me again. She’s not Mr. Harrington’s number one fan.”