Free Murder Mountain by Stacy Dittrich Page B

was going through. I knew Larry was pretty sure that Lizzie was dead, too. He just wasn’t facing it, instead, holding on to that one percent chance of hope. It was hard to watch someone go through that.
    The tow truck arrived. I left the Johnston house and headed back to the department. What little evidence I had so far—the receipts and the map—backed Matt Hensley’s story. It wasn’t much, but at least I knew some of it corroborated his statement. Merely glancing at the receipts when I carried them to my car, I saw several were from West Virginia, which confirmed that Lizzie had traveled there, as Matt had said. If, and when, the crime lab confirmed the hidden compartment in the trunk and traces of anhydrous ammonia, Matt’s credibility would climb considerably.
    I needed to type up everything that Larry had told me for the case file while it was still fresh in my mind. I also wanted to look over the receipts and the map. When I got back to my office, I saw a note that Kincaid wanted to see me—always a high point in my day. Just as I’d suspected, she wanted a briefing on what was happening with the case. I’m sure she was hotly eager to phone the commissioner. I told her the basics, not going into much of the details.
    She shrugged her shoulders and turned back to her computer, “Okay,” she said in a normal tone of voice, “just keep me posted.”
    What is this?
I thought.
No bitching?
If I cared, I might’ve asked her if something was wrong, but, since I didn’t, I went back to my office.
    Sitting down on the floor, I spread all the gas receipts out in front of me, along with the map. I counted 56 receipts and began putting them in order by their dates. I was specifically trying to find the very last time Lizzie had bought gas, and where.
    What I thought would be a minor task took me forty-five minutes to finish. The last place where Lizzie had bought gas was at a station in Ovapa, West Virginia, wherever that is. I looked on the map and found it, and, when I looked closer, I saw a small red x marked there. I found the phone number of the gas station on the receipt and went to my desk.
    I called dispatch and gave them the address and phone number of the gas station. I asked them to find which law enforcement agency has jurisdiction there, and to find a phone number for it as well. Who patrolled rural areas, which you didn’t need to be a mental giant to assume that in Ovapa was varied. It could be a village police department, a county sheriff’s department, or the state police. I wasn’t familiar with West Virginia law enforcement enough to know who it would be.
    While I was waiting for dispatch to get back to me with the information I’d asked for, I called the gas station directly. I asked to speak to the manager, assuming he or she was there since it was still business hours.
    Whoever answered, set the phone down and yelled, “Ya’ll go get Annie, she’s got her a call!”
    After five minutes of listening to the employees bitch about their jobs, a female finally picked up the phone saying she was the manager. I identified myself, and began to explain what I wanted, but she cut me off with, “Ya say ya from Ohio?”
    “Yes, ma’am. That’s right, Ohio,” I said, and again began to explain what I wanted.
    “What parts? I got me a cousin over there somewhere,” she drawled loudly.
    I was starting to lose my patience. “Annie? Your name is Annie, right? Like I said, I’m calling from the Richland Metropolitan Police Department, located in Mansfield, Ohio, which is directly between Cleveland and Columbus. If you do have a cousin in Ohio, congratulations, I’m not calling about confirming family trees. What I need to know is if you have video surveillance inside and outside of your store.”
    “Jeez,” she whined, “Ya don’t have to be so snotty. All’s ya had to do was ask. We got us a video only on the outside to keep these suckers from takin’ the gas.”
    “Perfect,” I told