Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 83986 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83986 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
“Oh, that’s a man after my own heart right there,” Ash said, motioning to the pittie.
“Good evening, sir,” I greeted him.
“Helluva time you’re having out there in Maine, Davis,” he said with an evil cackle. “I apologize for jinxing you.”
“Little late for that, sir.”
His smile was a good one, and the laugh lines around his eyes crinkled. “It all turned out all right, though, wouldn’t you say?”
Of course it had. “Yes, sir.”
“Okay,” he said with a sigh. “Let me catch you up on what SSA Merriweather and her team have found out so far from the couple.”
As a cop, I’d repeatedly learned the lesson that the truth was, in fact, stranger than fiction. Things I had sworn were made up turned out to be true. This was what happened with Elliot and Carrie Voss.
“Turns out, Carrie Voss had been in contact only with Bob Abernathy. Riggs had decided his writers should reach out to her, not to Voss, since she wasn’t considered a fugitive, yet knew everything that had happened.”
Ash and I remained silent, just listening to the tale unfold.
“So Abernathy contacted Carrie, and she set a date and time to meet and talk. She had him take Interstate 5 instead of the much more scenic Pacific Coast Highway because, as she said, there were far less people on that road. She and Voss arrived at the meeting place, a pay-by-the-hour motel outside Kettleman, and they were only expecting Bob, not his writing partner, Ing, and especially not an actor she knew, Kit Riggs.”
“What was their plan?”
“The first part was to blow up her husband’s car and make it look like he died in an accident, and the second part was to kill Abernathy and have him be the man who burned to death in the car.”
It took me several moments to parse that. I was stunned.
Ash was stunned too. And I knew that because when I turned to look at him, his mouth was hanging open.
Jared grimaced. “Yeah. I know. Very cold-blooded to plan to kill a man who was simply coming to speak to her. But in their minds, they needed a body to burn up in the car and make everyone think Voss was dead. That would solve all their problems. Carrie would be gone, assumed to be killed by her husband, and Voss would be dead, having taken what he did to her to his grave.”
“So really, the only way their escape happens is for everyone to think they’re both dead.”
“That’s correct,” my boss agreed. “They needed a body for their plan to work, and Bob Abernathy made a convenient target.”
“He did initially, but then everything went to hell because he didn’t show up alone.”
“Yep.”
“So what happened?” I just wanted to get to the end.
“Apparently, when the three men went in, they were all faced with Carrie, and when the door was closed behind them, only then did they see Voss.”
“They must have been surprised,” I said sadly.
“They were, and when Ing turned immediately for the door, Voss shot and killed him.”
“Jesus,” Ash whispered.
“And then Abernathy tried to run as well, and Voss killed him. But Riggs tackled Voss, knocked his gun away, and in the struggle, lost his car keys. Carrie got to the gun before Riggs could, and shot at him but missed. He then grabbed the set of car keys on the table, and those turned out to be, as we know, for Voss’s Mercedes. Carrie fired at Riggs several times, she said, missing him, and then Riggs was in the car, driving away.”
“No one heard all the shooting?” I asked.
“It’s a very empty motel on the side of the highway in the middle of nowhere, and the clerk could have been on break, we don’t know. What we do know is no one heard a thing.”
“That’s crazy,” Ash murmured.
“It’s why they picked that motel in the first place. It was out of the way. They planned to kill Bob Abernathy there and were fairly confident they wouldn’t be discovered.”
“Which they weren’t.”
“Exactly.”
“Sorry,” I said with an exhale. “Go on.”
“Voss and Carrie then raced after Riggs in his rental car, a big SUV, caught up to him, and ended up running him off the road, the car flipping over several times before it came to a stop. When they went to check on him, they found Riggs dead. He wasn’t belted in, and the rolling was not survivable.”
“At least he didn’t suffer,” Ash whispered. “I hope he wasn’t scared, just gone.”
“I suspect it was fast,” my boss assured him. “I’ve seen those kinds of crashes.”
Ash nodded.
“Since Riggs was dead, and in the car already, it only made sense to use his body. They had already doused the car in gasoline earlier in the day, the carpet, the seats, everything, and there were several full gallons in the trunk. All they needed was an explosion, which they got from throwing a lighter into the back of the car.”