Tough Justice Series Box Set: Parts 1-8. Carla Cassidy

to his work. “I have living space on the other side of the loft,” he explained.

      As they followed him across the room it was like walking through a junkyard with welding tools and metal sculptures of abstract items Lara couldn’t begin to recognize.

      Was Sam successful as an artist? At one time the rent for one of these loft spaces had been cheap, but those days were long gone. She made a mental note to ask Cass to run a full background on the man, especially a financial workup.

      God, she was definitely grasping at straws if she really believed that Moretti or some rival gang would hire a middle-aged starving artist to stamp and kill anyone. Besides, if he hadn’t called the TIPS line, nobody would have even known that he was in the park on the morning of Lara Bowman’s murder.

      The living area he’d spoken of was small and sparse, consisting of a kitchenette with a table for two, a love seat and a television. There was a doorway that she assumed led to a bathroom.

      He motioned them toward the love seat and then pulled up one of the table chairs to sit in front of them. He raked a hand through what was left of his sandy brown hair and released a deep sigh. “I don’t know if what I have to tell you will be of any help to you at all.”

      “Why don’t you tell us what you know, and we’ll be the judge of whether it’s helpful,” Lara said.

      “That morning when Lara Bowman was murdered, I was there. I mean, I didn’t see her murder, and I wasn’t on the trail, but I was close to the reservoir, and I apparently saw her just before she was killed.”

      “What were you doing there?” Lara asked.

      “I had just arrived when she ran past. I like to see the sunrise from the reservoir. It kick-starts my creativity for the day.”

      “So, you saw Lara that morning,” Nick said.

      “Yeah, I saw her. It was hard not to notice her. I mean, she was pretty.” His cheeks flushed with color. “But I didn’t stop her or speak to her or anything like that. I was just sitting down on the bench when I noticed another guy on the trail just behind her.”

      “Another guy?” Once again Lara’s adrenaline spiked.

      “Did you know him?” Nick asked.

      Sam shook his head. “I’d never seen him before. I mean, he might not have anything to do with what happened to her.” He frowned. “That’s what kept me from calling until this morning after I saw on the news she’d been murdered. Like me, he could have just happened to be on that trail and have had nothing to do with her death. But, I finally decided I needed to tell someone about him.”

      “You did the right thing,” Nick assured him.

      “What did he look like?” Lara asked.

      “It was still dark out, but I could see he was wearing a gray jogging suit, and he was tall and he wore a baseball hat. Even with the hat I could see that he had blond hair. I didn’t pay him enough attention to notice much of anything else.”

      “Oh, come on,” Nick said with a faint hint of derision. “You’re an artist. Surely you can give us a little more detail than that. How old was he?”

      Lara flashed her partner a look of annoyance. Couldn’t he see that hard-ass cop attitude wouldn’t get them what they needed? The man was distraught and needed a gentle hand. “Mr. Wilmington... Sam...this is really important. You might help us catch a murderer,” she said softly.

      Sam held his hands out helplessly. “He could have been anywhere between his mid-twenties to his forties. The early morning light made it hard to tell, and like I said, I didn’t know this was going to be important when I noticed him.”

      “We still don’t know if it is important. What did you do after you left the reservoir?” Lara asked.

      “I met a friend for breakfast. We meet every morning about the same time. He’s an artist, too. Watercolors.” He gave them the friend’s name, address and phone number and the name of the deli where they’d had breakfast.

      “I’ve got to be honest with you, if I didn’t have a solid alibi for the time around the murder, I wouldn’t have made that call this morning. The people who work at the deli know me. They’ll tell you that my friend and I eat there almost every morning around the same time.”

      “You were afraid you would be a suspect?” Nick asked.

      “Wouldn’t you be?” Sam retorted. His eyes squinted as if he was fighting back emotion. “I keep thinking I should have followed behind her. Maybe if I’d just struck up a conversation with her or something, then I could have stopped her from being murdered.”

      “Or you could have wound up as a second victim,” Nick replied.

      Sam nodded, his eyes even more troubled. “Check out my alibi. There are regular customers who eat at the deli who don’t know me. They’d have no reason to lie for me.”

      “I believe him,” Lara said a few minutes later when they were back in Nick’s car. “But we’re still going to check out his alibi just to be sure.”

      “And then I think we should head back to Sally of the splendid T-shirts and see if she noticed if the driver of the SUV was a blond man wearing a baseball hat.”

      Lara nodded. At least they had a new lead to follow, a lead that hopefully would bring them some answers.

      Fear knotted tight in her stomach, a fear she knew wouldn’t go away until she knew exactly what was going on, exactly what kind of monster might be targeting these people...potentially targeting her.

      She desperately needed answers before she spiraled down into the bottom of a whiskey bottle or the fear and doubt inside her became so great she became of no use to anyone.

       CHAPTER NINE

      “If there was another person around our victim at the time of her murder and if he isn’t the perp, then why didn’t he call the TIPS line?” Lara asked.

      “Maybe for the same reason Sam hesitated before calling. He was afraid he would be seen as a potential suspect.”

      “If Sam’s alibi checks out, which I’m pretty sure it will, then we have a mystery man on the trail at the same time Lara Bowman was murdered.” Lara frowned thoughtfully. “And Cass has already checked the security camera located on the trail near where Lara was murdered. The one that might have shown us the actual murder taking place was broken.”

      “As are half of the cameras in Central Park,” Nick replied drily.

      “We should have Cass pull footage from all of the cameras around the time of the murder and see if we can get a glimpse of a blond man wearing jogging clothes and a ball cap entering or leaving the park.” Lara pulled out her cell phone and made the call.

      By that time they’d arrived at Dawson’s Deli to check out Sam’s alibi. Owners Sherri and Harold confirmed that Sam and his friend, Kevin, were regulars.

      “Kevin gave us the watercolor over there,” Harold said and pointed to a framed watercolor of white lilies floating on a greenish-blue pond.

      “And you’re sure they ate breakfast here Saturday morning around seven o’clock or so?” Nick asked.

      “Positive,” Sherri replied. “The two of them come in like clockwork every morning. They order the breakfast special and talk art.”

      “How long do they usually stay?” Lara asked.

      “A couple of hours or so,” Harold answered.

      “Have you ever seen either of them in here with a tall blond man?” Lara asked, even though her gut told her they were on the same kind of dead end that they’d been on for the past four days.

      “No,