He’d kept it vague enough that he couldn’t be accused of giving me anything he shouldn’t. I understood anyway. He believed Terrance wasn’t the guy, but it was possible he’d be outvoted and Terrance, if he survived, might still be tried for Cary’s murder and for stalking Ahanti. That likely meant the attack on Terrance hadn’t turned up any knew evidence, at least not yet. It could take weeks before they had the DNA results from the lab.
Worse, unless something changed, we were on our own for figuring out who was really behind it all.
“I don’t know what to do next,” I said to Mark as we drove to Skin Canvas. “Since Terrance sent the picture of Geoff, the list Ahanti made earlier isn’t even a starting point. Her stalker might have been there that day, but he might not.”
The only thing we knew for sure anymore was that her stalker was a man. My private investigator was sure the attacker was a man.
With only a couple of days left before Mark and I headed back to Fair Haven, it didn’t look like we were going to solve this before we had to leave. Detective DeGoey hadn’t sounded confident that the police would pursue other suspects. And Ahanti would remain at risk, the focus of a man who’d killed already.
“When we eliminate what Terrance sent, what do we still know?” Mark asked.
The words not much came to mind, but that wasn’t entirely true. “Many of the messages still showed up at Skin Canvas, and the stalker wrote to her about her touch, so it’s likely one of her clients.”
Mark gave an affirmative grunt and hit the brakes to avoid a car that jammed itself into a space that barely fit it. “What I do sometimes is look at anything strange that doesn’t seem to fit, and I focus on that.”
The fact that he could still come up with that while navigating the traffic was impressive.
The thing that had troubled me since we first catalogued this creep’s messages were the strange gaps. “He doesn’t maintain consistent communication with her.”
“It could be someone who travels for work,” Mark said.
I pulled my phone from my purse and opened the note feature. I typed in Mark’s suggestion. “It probably isn’t multiple incarcerations. She’d know if one of her clients kept ending up in jail.” I tapped the edge of my phone against my chin. There wasn’t much in the way of specifics in the messages, but the comments about her touch still made my skin crawl. “Maybe he sends her messages either when she’s working on one of his tattoos or when she isn’t.”
“Isn’t would make more sense.” Mark parked the rental car. “If she’s as much a pack rat about her calendars as she was about her fan mail, you should be able to see if any names come up regularly shortly before she received a message. Did you want me to stay and help you sort through?”
It would make the work go faster since Ahanti wouldn’t be able to help. Unfortunately, it would also mean he wouldn’t be able to scope out the real estate situation for us. That would make the decision about whether or not to move even harder than it would already be. And if he stayed, Ahanti would ask questions. “I don’t want to get her hopes up if this turns out to lead nowhere. She must already feel like a yoyo with all the ups and downs.”
Finding a parking space almost made us late. I waved at Lucas sitting in his car out front as we passed. He raised his bandaged hand in return. I couldn’t keep a private investigator sitting out front of Ahanti’s shop forever—at least not on my dad’s dime—but, thankfully, Lucas agreed to come back today, despite the short notice.
Inside, Mark and I sat in the cushy chairs Ahanti kept in her waiting area and looked through her portfolio as if we were a couple intending to design matching tattoos. Ahanti did her consult with the new client.
The new client at least didn’t strike me as a viable suspect. He wanted Ahanti to ink a picture of his wife and two kids on his back.
Mark left to meet the realtor as soon as the new client was safely out the doors. Ahanti locked the door behind him and went back to her chair to finish her notes and see when she could fit another client into her schedule.
I peeked sidelong at the calendar. Because she liked to keep everything, Ahanti still used a paper and pen planner to schedule all of her appointments. I’d be out of luck if she kept them at her apartment.
I meandered back into the office area as if I were simply killing time until Eddie arrived.
Ahanti labeled everything, so she should have it clearly marked if the calendars were here. I knelt down by the filing cabinet and opened the bottom drawer.
“What are you doing?” Ahanti said from behind me.
I lost my balance and grabbed for the filing cabinet drawer. It pulled all the way out, metal screeching against metal. I stayed upright. Barely.
Ahanti stood over me. Her arms were crossed, but another expression flickered across her face. Like for a second she was afraid she couldn’t trust even me.
The part of me that always felt not quite good enough ached in protest. The more rational part of me knew I might feel exactly the same way if our roles were reversed. Maybe more so since I was naturally paranoid and suspicious.
I clambered to my feet and brushed off my knees. Mark should have stayed because I was going to have to tell Ahanti, after all. “I was looking for your old calendars. I thought that I could use them to figure out whose appointments matched the pattern of the stalker’s messages.”
Her bottom lip jutted the tiniest bit. “Why were you doing it behind my back?”
This was quickly turning into one of those situations where in trying not to harm, I’d ended up doing more harm than if I’d been honest in the first place. Note to self—don’t try to keep secrets from your best friend or you might not have one once it’s over. “I didn’t want to get your hopes up. It might be another dead end.”
Ahanti cringed slightly. Dead end might not have been my best choice of words.
A knock sounded on the front door.
“That’ll be Eddie.” Ahanti pointed at the second drawer up. “The calendars are in there.”
She turned on her heel. Based on the lingering sharpness to her tone, I’d need to apologize again later, once Eddie was gone.
I opened the second drawer. Laying in a neat row inside were nine planners.
I wriggled them out and took them to Ahanti’s desk. I opened my phone to the notes I’d taken.
The first message from the stalker had come right after Ahanti had left Cary’s studio, but that wouldn’t point to anyone since it was linked to a move she’d made in her life.
I checked the month that the second note came, opened the planner for that year to the month before, and wrote down all the names. I did the same for the following month. He might have sent the message a few weeks after his appointment or a few days. By cataloguing the names in both months, I’d spread the net wide enough to capture his name either way.
The list was long, despite the fact that she was technically a new business. Many of her clients would have followed her from Cary’s, though.
Terrance’s name was on the list. I touched the tip of my pen to the paper beside it. My hand itched with the desire to cross it out. It’d be much easier to convince the police that Terrance wasn’t their only possible suspect if he didn’t correlate with the missives at all.
But if I omitted it and they found out, everything else I’d done would be called into question. Besides, this was only the first month. Eddie’s name was on the list, too, along with a couple of other regulars I remembered from when I used to hang around the studio. Obviously, they weren’t all guilty.
