“Yeah?” the young woman asked.
Mackenzie showed her badge and ID, instantly getting a strange vibe from this woman. Everyone else had opened their doors wide, yet this woman looked as if she was using her door as a shield. Perhaps she was one of the residents who had opted for a reaction of absolute fear in response to the murder.
“I’m Agent White, with the FBI. I was hoping to ask you some questions about the hit-and-run that occurred here two nights ago.”
“Me?” the woman asked, confused.
“No, not just you. My partner and I are going door to door to ask all residents. Please forgive me for asking, but you look a little young. Are your parents home?”
A quick flicker of irritation crossed the woman’s face. “I’m twenty years old,” she said. “I live here with my two roommates.”
“Oh, my apologies. So…do you recall anything interesting about that night?”
“No. I mean, from what I gather, it happened very late. I’m usually asleep by ten or eleven.”
“And you heard nothing?”
“No.”
The woman was still not opening the door all the way. She was also speaking quite fast. Mackenzie didn’t think the woman was hiding something, but she was behaving in a way that made Mackenzie start to wonder.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Amy Campbell.”
“Amy, are your roommates home?”
“One of them is. The other is out running errands.”
“Do you know if they saw or heard anything out of the ordinary on the night of the hit-and-run?”
“They didn’t. We all talked about it, trying to figure it out. But we were all asleep by ten thirty that night.”
Mackenzie nearly asked to come inside, but decided not to. Amy was clearly freaked out about the situation and there was no sense in making it any worse. As the tense moment passed between them, Mackenzie caught motion behind Amy. Another woman was walking down the hallway and taking a left into another room. She looked to be about Amy’s age and had an angular face. Her hair, which appeared to be brown, was up in a messy bun. Mackenzie almost asked who this was but sensed that if she did, she might lose any traction she was building with Amy.
“How did you hear about the murder?” Mackenzie asked.
“From the police. They came by, doing exactly what you’re doing, that morning.”
“And you told them exactly what you’re telling me?”
“Yes. Honestly, I saw nothing. Heard nothing. I wish I could help because it’s just awful…but I was asleep.”
It was in that comment that Mackenzie detected some emotion. Amy was either sad or in a state of despair about something—which made sense, given what had happened on her very street just two nights ago. Still, she was acting much stranger than anyone else she had spoken with. Mackenzie reached into her inner coat pocket and took out one of her business cards. When she handed it over to Amy, the young woman took it quickly.
“Please call me if you or your roommates happen to think of anything—or if you even hear some of your neighbors mention anything strange. Can you do that?”
“Yes. Good luck, Agent.”
Amy Campbell quickly shut the door, leaving Mackenzie standing alone on the dirty porch. She walked back down the porch steps slowly, thinking a few things over.
A twenty-year-old renting a house in a neighborhood like this…that’s sort of strange. But if she has roommates, there could be a chance they are college students at some college in Salt Lake City. Maybe it’s cheaper and nicer than on-campus housing.
While the whole situation did seem a bit strange, she had to remind herself that a brutal murder had happened on this street. People were going to handle it differently—especially college-aged girls who knew the victim had been right around their age.
Mackenzie worked it all out in her head as she stepped back toward the street. As she did, she passed the two cars sitting on the little concrete slab that was Amy Campbell’s driveway. They were both rather old, one being at 2005 Pontiac that looked like it might fall apart the next time it hit a pothole.
Before heading further down the street. Mackenzie took her phone out. She typed in Amy’s name and the address for future reference. It was just a hunch but more often than not, Mackenzie’s hunches paid off in the end.
She tucked her phone back into her pocket and headed further down the street to knock on more doors.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Eight minutes and three houses later, Mackenzie’s trek of the Plainsview subdivision was interrupted by a phone call. Sheriff Burke was on the other end, his voice somehow rougher through the phone. He had one of those expressionless voices that made it pretty much impossible to tell what sort of mood he was in.
“Just got a call from the forensics lab. They didn’t find any sort of hidden signature under the UV light. But they did find a partial thumbprint that did not belong to the girl.”
“Any results come up from it?”
“Yeah, I just ran it. The print belongs to a guy named Todd Thompson. I’ve got an officer running a check on him right now.”
“So, no signature at all…which means there’s a good chance the license is legitimately made.”
“Still makes no sense. The name on the license matches nothing in our records. Neither do her fingerprints. If the picture on the license didn’t look almost exactly like her, I’d say she stole it from somewhere.”
“I suppose we could run a search for women who placed reports in regards to losing their purses or licenses in the last month or so.”
“We already did that on the first day. Got a few nibbles, but nothing panned out. We also tried to…hold on, I’ve got an officer here with results on Todd Thompson. Gonna put you on speaker, Agent White.”
There was some shuffling, a clicking noise, and then another voice. This was a female voice, just as stern as Burke’s but with more emotion. There was excitement in her tone as she perhaps suspected what she was saying might very well lead them toward the end of this case.
“A basic state records search shows that Todd Thompson is a native of Salt Lake City. He’s fifty-three years old and—get this—works at the DMV.”
The DMV connection certainly shed new light on the bizarre driver’s license. Mackenzie could nearly hear the clinking of gears in her head as it all came into place.
“Got a home address?”
“I do. I’ll scan this report and send it to you as soon as we hang up.”
“Perfect.”
They ended the call and Mackenzie looked down the street, back the way she had come. The site of the hit-and-run was now out of sight, about six houses down and on a completely different block. She looked over and saw that Ellington was one house ahead of her. He was currently speaking to an older gentleman through an opened door. She was pretty sure he’d be more than happy to end this door-to-door task.
She hurried across the street to give him the latest update as a chilled afternoon breeze swept through the neighborhood.
***
According to the report Burke and his officer sent over, Todd Thompson had a few minor dings on his record. Two unpaid parking tickets (which Mackenzie found somewhat funny, considering his occupation), and a charge of aiding a breaking and entering from nearly thirty years ago. Other than that, Todd Thompson looked squeaky clean. Except for the fact that his thumbprint had been lightly placed on the presumably fake driver’s license of a woman who appeared to have no identity.