The Murder Rule(28)

He’d worked very hard to put Dandridge away. He must have been convinced of Dandridge’s guilt and he must have had a good reason.

Men who rape and murder women rarely strike once. Maybe Dandridge had done it before and gotten away with it and Pierce had somehow known about it. That would explain Sheriff Pierce’s determined effort to put Dandridge away.

Hannah ran a search online for any newspaper reporting about rapes and murders in the years around the Fitzhugh murder. It felt amateurish, to her, to be reading the bits and scraps of reporting she could glean from search engine results and online newspapers. But she wasn’t a cop. She didn’t have access to police or federal databases. After fifteen minutes she had managed to find only one rape with a shooting in Richmond, and one attempted rape with a breakin in Victory Hil . Victory Hil was very close to Yorktown, and the attack had taken place about ten months after the Fitzhugh murder. Hannah searched again; read every article she could find.

The attacker had worn a black balaclava and had climbed in through an open window. The victim had been at home with her baby. The attacker took the victim to her bedroom, threatening to hurt the child if she didn’t comply, but the victim’s husband came home unexpectedly and the attacker had climbed out of the window and fled. According to the police, he’d left no DNA.

Hannah sat and thought. The husband had been on a business trip that had been cut short unexpectedly. Could Dandridge have known the family? Known that the husband had intended to be away that night? It felt like the Sarah Fitzhugh case. Sarah’s husband had been away on a tour of duty. Dandridge had a job working on pleasure cruises; Sarah Fitzhugh’s husband had been a sailor.

Maybe there was some connection between them that had led to Dandridge finding out that Sarah’s husband was away. It was frustrating not to know more about the Victory Hil case. Maybe the husband there had some sort of work connection with Dandridge too? It took her a minute to see the problem—the Victory Hil attack had been ten months after the Fitzhugh murder. Dandridge would already have been in prison. Hannah shook herself and turned back to the case file, started to read again. She had to know the Dandridge case as wel as any of them. Better.

An hour later, Camila dropped into the seat beside her, cheeks flushed from exertion. She put a coffee cup down on the table and unwound a brightly colored scarf from around her neck.

“So,” she said. “After I left you last night I started thinking about Neil Prosper. The guy Michael spent the evening of the murder with, the man who should have been his alibi. I started thinking about what else we could do to try to track him down.”

Hannah was very conscious that her notes were on her desk where Camila could see them. Had she written anything that would look out of place? She couldn’t look at them to check without drawing attention to what she had written. Sean arrived, and when Camila turned to greet him Hannah turned her notepad over. Better safe than sorry.

“It occurred to me that Prosper was an alum of Yorktown High School,” Camila continued. “And every single yearbook for Yorktown High is online. So I trawled through them and I found the name of the girl Prosper was dating when he went to school there. Sweet couple.

They were voted most likely to break up.”

“Nice,” Sean said.

“Wel , I did manage to track her down. She’s on Facebook, so it wasn’t exactly a chal enge. I messaged her last night, asked her if she was stil in touch with Neil since high school. She isn’t, but—”

“She knows someone who is?” Sean asked.

“No,” Camila said. “But she does know who he was dating around the time of the murder. And she gave me the woman’s number.

Angela Meyer. Angie Meyer. She stil lives in Yorktown. She runs her parents’ B and B.”

“Have you spoken to her?” Hannah asked.

“Not yet. I was thinking maybe we should go down there.”

“What, to Yorktown?” Sean said.

“Maybe. She runs this B and B. Couldn’t we stay there? Try to figure out what kind of person she is. Choose the right moment to ask some questions?”

Sean considered.

“Think about it,” Camila said. “This is an actual solid lead.

Someone who not only knew and spent time with Neil Prosper, but who probably knew Michael too. Maybe she knows where Neil is, maybe she doesn’t, but it’s possible she might have other information. I mean, what if she cal ed Neil at home that night, and she could confirm the alibi, or something. Or she might know something else, something we wouldn’t even think to ask.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Sean said. “Maybe we should take it to Rob.”

Camila nodded enthusiastical y. “He’s in his office,” she said.

“Let’s go and talk to him now.”

Parekh was wil ing to be convinced. He was happy for Camila and Hannah to take an overnight trip to Yorktown on the Project’s dol ar, but he wanted Sean in the office. Afterward, Camila was prickly. It was pretty obvious she’d wanted to go to Yorktown with Sean, not Hannah. Camila didn’t trust her, not yet. She needed to work on that.

“Do you drive, Camila?” Hannah asked.

“I can, but I don’t have a car.”

“I do. I can drive, if you like.” After lying to Rob about having a car, she’d booked a rental. The company had agreed to deliver the car to her apartment building and it had been parked outside when she woke up that morning. They agreed to take an hour to pack overnight bags. Hannah picked Camila up outside her place just after ten A.M.