Page 64 of Edge of Steele
Russ set down the marker. “Anyone have anything else to add or are we ready to get back at it?”
“Ready for sure.” Ryleigh got out her phone to call Eckles and his wife and demanded they come in for an interview. She couldn’t wait to get back to questioning them and unearth whatever it was they seemed to be holding back.
Finn didn’t like being excluded from another interview, but at least Russ had allowed him to watch through the one-way glass in the interview room. Ryleigh sat next to Russ at a small table, and Pauline Eckles had slumped into a seat across from them. Russ had separated the couple to interview them one at a time to see if he could trip them up in a lie.
Pauline rubbed her belly. “You know this stress isn’t good for a pregnant woman.”
“I’m sorry for that,” Ryleigh said, sounding sincere. “But if you don’t have anything to hide this shouldn’t be stressful at all.”
“Come on now.” Pauline rolled her eyes. “You know being called in here is stressful. Likely why you did it.”
“Then let’s get to our questions so you can go on home.” Russ sounded surprisingly gentle. “When we last talked you didn’t mention knowing Uri Gates.”
“Uri? Oh, wow. That’s a name from the past. I went to school with him.” She blinked several times. “What’s he got to do with anything?”
“He’s the night supervisor at Shadow Lake Logging.”
“Are you sure?” She scratched her cheek. “There’s only one night supervisor, and Virg said the new guy’s name is Smokey.”
Finn watched for duplicity in her expression, but she looked at Russ and Ryleigh with a level gaze. Finn had learned how to read people and it looked like she hadn’t been hiding the fact that she knew Gates.
“That’s Uri’s nickname,” Russ said.
“Okay, wow. Just wow. That’s crazy that he would end up working with Virg. Uri was a year behind me in school, so we didn’t hang out, but he was on the wrestling team and I was a cheerleader, so I knew him.” She flashed her gaze to Russ and held on. “Don’t think I’m involved because of this. I haven’t seen Uri or talked to him since high school. After he graduated, I’d heard he went off somewhere to start logging.”
“What did you do out of high school?” Ryleigh asked.
“Me?” Her eyes flashed wide open. “I couldn’t wait to get out of that stinking little town, so I moved to Birmingham with my best friend. We took minimum wage jobs as file clerks and shared an apartment.”
“How did you get involved with Sovereign Earth?” Russ asked, his tone more direct now.
Pauline frowned and hunched over the table. “Same way Carla did and the way a lot of the females in the group did. I met Dean in a bar. Started going out with him and he brought me in.”
Ryleigh leaned closer to Pauline. “Where did Dean and Carla hook up?”
“Georgia.” The word came out on a spit of disgust. “Dean got more and more radical, and that just wasn’t me, so I broke up with him. I tried to leave the group then, but he hounded me. So I lied and said I got a job transfer to Atlanta, figuring he’d finally leave me alone. I didn’t really get a transfer, but I did move there. I met Carla at work, and one night when we were out, Dean showed up. He started by begging to get back with me, but when I told him to take a hike, he hit on her. No matter how much I warned her, she fell for his charms and got involved with him.”
“Did she remain in Atlanta and have a long-distance relationship?” Russ asked.
“Stayed in Atlanta, but no long-distance for Dean. He moved in with her and sponged off her. His true MO for women.” Pauline shook her head. “I don’t really blame Carla. He’s very charismatic, drop-dead gorgeous, and hard to resist.”
Finn didn’t like to hear that. The guy’s charisma and charm could make him hard to find because he could locate women all across the country who would let him hide out with them.
Ryleigh and Russ dismissed Pauline and brought in her husband. Russ’s hope for tripping them up in a lie grew slimmer by the minute as a sullen Eckles gave the same answers as his wife.
“Did you ever mention Gates to your wife?” Russ asked.
“Yeah, sure,” Eckles said. “We called him Smokey at work, so that’s the name I would’ve used.”
“Did you know Gates was from Alabama?” Ryleigh asked.
“Is that so?” His tone rose. “Wonder if he knew Pauline.”
“They grew up in the same town.”
Eckles shook his head. “Now isn’t that something? I mean, I knew he had a southern accent, but we never got into personal details.”
Russ planted his palms on the tabletop. “Don’t you find it a coincidence?”
