Leigh couldn’t fix that right now. She opened the top drawer of the filing cabinet. She saw rows of tabs with client names. The sight of the last five folders in the back made her heart wilt.
CALLIOPE “CALLIE” DEWINTER
HARLEIGH “LEIGH” COLLIER
WALTER COLLIER
MADELINE “MADDY” COLLIER
SANDRA “PHIL” SANTIAGO
Leigh told Walter, “I want you to wait in the car.”
He shook his head. He was too much of a good man to leave her now.
Leigh yanked out the folders. She returned to the desk so that Walter couldn’ t look over her shoulder. She started with Maddy’s file, because that was the one that mattered the most.
In Leigh’s legal capacity, she had read hundreds of reports from private investigators. They all had the same predictable uniformity: logs, photographs, receipts. Maddy’s was the same, though Reggie’s notes were handwritten rather than printed from a spreadsheet.
The records of her daughter’s comings and goings had started two days prior to the Sunday performance of The Music Man and were as recent as yesterday afternoon.
8:12 a.m. – carpools to school with Keely Heyer, Necia Adams, and Bryce Diaz
8:22 a.m. – stops at McDonald’s, goes through drive-thru, eats in car en route
8:49 a.m. — arrives at Hollis Academy
3:05 p.m. — sighted in auditorium at play practice
3:28 p.m. – on field for soccer practice （father attending）
5:15 p.m. – home with father
Leigh thought about Andrew screwing with his ankle monitor, but she wouldn’t let her mind go to the possibility that Andrew had ended up sitting in the Hollis auditorium watching Maddy check in with the younger kids or lurking around the stadium where Maddy practiced soccer three times a week, because the loaded Glock was too close at hand.
Instead, she paged to the thick stack of color photographs behind the logs. More of the same. Maddy in the car. Maddy on stage. Maddy stretching on the sidelines.
Leigh didn’t show the photos to Walter. She wasn’t going to turn him back into the feral animal who had been willing to murder Reggie Paltz.
She selected Callie’s folder next. The log had started one day after Maddy’s. Callie was selling drugs on Stewart Avenue. She was working at Dr. Jerry’s clinic. She was living at the motel, then she was meeting Leigh, then they were in her car, then Callie was walking to Phil’s. The photos backed up the log, but there was more: her sister waiting at the bus stop, letting her cat in through the window at Phil’s house, walking outside a strip mall that was so familiar to Leigh that her eyes burned at the sight of it.
Callie was pictured standing underneath a covered breezeway. She was in the exact location where they had buried the butchered chunks of Buddy Waleski’s body.
Leigh asked Reggie, “Where were you last night?”
“Watch—” He cleared his throat. There was no denying the apprehension on his face. He knew that this was bad. He knew that even if he managed to walk out of here, Andrew or the police would be waiting for him. “Watching your sister.”
Leigh examined Callie’s log for yesterday. She had visited the library, then gone to Maddy’s soccer practice, then she had returned home on the bus. According to Reggie’s notes, he had stayed outside Phil’s house from five in the evening until midnight last night.
Investigators were paid by the hour. It was generally frowned upon if they wasted time setting up outside a house unless there was the possibility that the subject would leave. Leigh didn’t have to look back through the logs to know that Callie never left once she settled in for the night. Her sister was disabled. She was vulnerable because of her addictions. She didn’t go out at night unless she had to.
Leigh asked, “Did Andrew know you were watching Callie at five o’clock?”
“Called. Said to stay.” Reggie knew what her next question would be. “Burner phone. Made me leave … other one here.”
Leigh said, “And your logs are handwritten, not backed up onto the computer.”
Reggie gave a slight nod to confirm. “No copies.”
Leigh looked at Walter, but he was staring down at the broken skin on the back of his hand.
She asked Reggie, “Where were you the night that Tammy Karlsen was raped?”
The stunned look that crossed Reggie’s face was quickly replaced with dread. “Andrew hired—I followed Sidney.”
“What about the memory cards in the camera? Does Andrew have those, too?”