Free Goodbye to the Dead (Jonathan Stride Book 7) by Brian Freeman

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    ‘No, I hear you. Do we have any idea who this guy could be?’
    Maggie shook her head. ‘I passed Jay’s photos around. No one recognized him. Whoever he is, he’s under the radar.’
    ‘Well, let’s make sure our guys keep their eyes open around town.’
    ‘Do you want more bad news?’ Maggie asked. ‘Jay wrote about this guy in his column.’
    ‘The guy in camouflage?’
    ‘Yeah, Jay did a column in November on gun control and the expiration of the assault weapons ban. Camo Guy was Exhibit Number One. Jay talked about gun nuts carrying military-style hardware in our parks. Talked about chasing this guy, reporting him to the cops. And naturally how the cops did squat.’
    Stride leaned against the yellow Avalanche next to Maggie and lit a cigarette. He stared at the pack in his hand with disgust, then shoved it into the rear pocket of his jeans. ‘Do you think this guy is a legitimate suspect in Jay’s murder?’
    ‘Probably not, but if we don’t rule him out, it’s raw meat for Archie Gale. Plus, I want to find him and see what makes him tick. He worries me.’
    ‘Okay. We’ll let the dogs out. Speaking of Jay’s columns, what about this prescription drug addict he wrote about last summer? The woman he called Holly. Do we have any way of tracking her down? He threatened to blow up this woman’s life in his column. That’s certainly a motive if she thought he was serious.’
    ‘Unless he made up the whole thing,’ Maggie said.
    ‘Is that possible?’
    ‘Jay wrote that he was picking up Lipitor at a pharmacy when he saw this woman Holly. The thing is, I checked, and there weren’t any pharmacy charges on his credit card last year. His medical records don’t show that he was taking any prescription meds. He wasn’t on Lipitor. So if you ask me, Holly is a fake. He made her up to make a point about prescription drug abuse.’
    ‘Okay. Well, that’s one we can cross off our list.’ Stride blew smoke into the night air. ‘How’s Nathan?’
    ‘You know what I think about him,’ Maggie said.
    ‘Yes, I do. Does he have an alibi?’
    ‘Sort of. I found the Sammy’s driver who confirmed that she delivered a pizza to Nathan at his apartment that night. It was too early for an alibi, but she said he looked half-dead and was hacking up phlegm. He put the moves on her anyway, which she said was pretty gross.’
    ‘Some things don’t change,’ Stride said. ‘How about the tip on the white Toyota Rav? The one that the kid spotted on Skyline Parkway?’
    ‘We’ve got a list of Rav owners in the northland who have some kind of criminal record. We’re working our way through them. So far, there’s no one that looks promising. I re-interviewed the kid, too. He admits smoking a few joints at Enger Tower that night. I’m not sure we can rely on his memory for details.’
    ‘Great.’
    ‘I’ve been backtracking through home break-in reports around the state, too, and I can’t find any MOs that look similar. The idea that this was a murder-robbery seems far-fetched. We’ve been watching pawn shops, but none of the missing jewelry has shown up.’
    ‘I think if we find the gun, we’ll find the jewelry, too,’ Stride said. ‘Wherever Janine hid it.’
    ‘I agree,’ Maggie replied, ‘but as much as I like Janine for this, we keep digging up new suspects faster than we cross them off.’
    ‘Like who?’
    Maggie fished in the pocket of her red jacket. She pulled out an evidence bag with a handwritten piece of paper inside. ‘Guppo was going through papers from Jay’s desk. He found this. It’s a letter to Janine from last May. Jay had it in his top drawer.’
    Stride glanced at the paper. The script handwriting was impeccable, but it was too dark outside to read the text. ‘What does it say?’
    ‘It’s from a woman named Esther Rose. Basically, she accuses Janine of murdering her husband.’
    Stride’s eyebrows rose. ‘Excuse me?’
    ‘Esther’s husband Ira had a heart problem.