Wrong Turn by Diane Fanning Read Free Book Online Page A

likelihood, illegal and a violation of his oath of office? No, not Boz. Anyone but Boz.
    She dug into her memory but could not even recall ever hearing Lisa Pedigo’s name or anything Boz said that could have related to the contents of her interview. Every other transcript she reviewed tinkled little bells of recall, stirring up at least some level of familiarity. But not this one. Not the beginning of the interview. Not the few words that remained intact on the redacted pages. Not anything in the final section. Did she simply forget or did she never know?
    Tomorrow, she decided, she’d return to the warehouse, find the audiotape or videotape of the conversation and get her answers. There had to be an explanation – a simple, ethical, legal one – for this situation. She hoped that she would be able to find something that did not smear Lieutenant John Boswell with posthumous shame.

SEVEN
    J ake knew Lucinda was being far too harsh on herself but she was right about Martha Sherman. That woman deserved to be released from prison immediately. The fact that she’d spent seven years behind bars for a crime she did not commit was an outrage. Every day she remained there compounded the injustice of it all. He also knew that governments often tried to find ways to avoid paying damages for wrongful incarceration and vowed to do everything he could to make sure that did not happen to Martha Sherman.
    He knew that the best thing he could do to speed up her release was to locate Mack Rogers. He began another round of calls to fifty-four of the fifty-six FBI field offices across the country; for now, he was not being proactive with the locations in Hawaii or Puerto Rico because nothing indicated that Rogers had obtained transportation outside of the continental United States. Wherever he went he had to have travelled by road.
    Most of the agents he called had nothing to report. Some did have leads that were followed up and then fizzled out to nothing. Jake struggled to keep the discouragement and weariness out of his voice as one fruitless contact trailed after another. Everything changed when he called the Salt Lake City field office.
    ‘We sure do have a lead, Lovett,’ the agent told him. ‘We got a call from our satellite office in Pocatello, Idaho. Three different individuals claim to have seen him on the Snake River. We’re scrambling now to get adequate personnel in place.’
    ‘In Idaho?’
    ‘Yup.’
    ‘You find it credible?’
    ‘As best I know, he’s never been known to be this far west but we’ve got three people who spotted him in roughly the same location and I understand there is a fishing connection. Is that right?’
    ‘Certainly is,’ Jake said. ‘One of the bodies found in his basement belonged to sixteen-year-old Lindsey Johns. She disappeared from the Fly Fishing Festival on the South River in Waynesboro, Virginia, less than two years ago.’
    ‘Well, there you go. Listen, I’ll update you as soon as I know anything. Right now, I need to get back to it.’
    Jake got off the phone pumped up and ready for action. He wanted to hop the first flight headed west. He knew, though, that unless Mack Rogers was actually in custody, his travel request would be denied with the generic ‘there are plenty of trained personnel on the scene at this time. Your presence is non-essential’.
    Not being there made him a bit crazy. Just sitting here and stewing about it would make him totally bonkers. He had to do something. He picked his phone back up and continued the round of calls. It was after six p.m. in Virginia but offices in the Mountain and Pacific Time zones were still open.
    The call to the Denver Special Agent in Charge was less than productive. ‘Damn it, Lovett, you are draining our resources. Seems like half the population of Colorado thinks they’ve seen Mack Rogers. Every single lead turned out to be an obvious case of mistaken identity or seemed to be based on some idiot’s dream or a psychic’s