An Evil Mind--A Suspense Novel (12 page)

1

“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” Edward Phillips said. “Are you still mad at me?”

“Did you tell Leonard Barlow that Edward Phillips switched bodies with you?” Mark asked.

There was a moment of silence, then Phillips nodded. “Yes, I did.”

“Why did you tell him that?”

“Because it’s true.”

“It’s true? Phillips actually switched bodies with you?”

“Yes. I used to… I used to reside in Sam Curtis’s body. Edward Phillips took my body because he knew he had no chance of acquittal.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I know it sounds unbelievable, but it’s true. Edward Phillips stole my body.”

A thought flashed through Mark’s mind: This story is too crazy to be a lie.

“So you’re Sam Curtis?”

“Yes. You asked me why Jeff Phillips hung out with Sam Curtis. Now you know.”

“When did he swap bodies with you?”

“January eleventh.”

“How do you think he did it?”

“He probably used some kind of black magic.”

“Black magic?”

“Do you know how to switch bodies without magic?”

“No.”

“Neither do I. It had to be something supernatural.”

“Something like a spell?”

“Yes. I believe Phillips killed your daughter and Laura Sumner because the ritual requires him to make a human sacrifice.”

“You mean the body switch ritual?”

Phillips nodded.

“What did he do just before he swapped bodies with you?”

The knife. He still hadn’t handed the knife over to Detective Blanco. Was it because he thought that Phillips might be innocent?

No, I just forgot.

“I didn’t see anything. He did it while I was asleep. There was a full moon on the night we switched bodies. I don’t know whether it’s a coincidence or not.”

Phillips wouldn’t have mentioned this fact if he thought it was a coincidence, would he?

“Barlow didn’t believe you, did he?”

“No, he didn’t. Do you believe me?”

“Can you prove that Phillips swapped bodies with you?”

Would he believe Phillips if his proof was convincing and irrefutable?

Being a rational man, Mark did not believe in any kind of magic. However, he would believe Phillips’s body-switch story if the proof presented by him was
truly
convincing and irrefutable. It would be irrational not to.

“I can prove that I’m Sam Curtis.”

“Go ahead, I’m listening.”

“I know things only Sam Curtis would know.”

“What are they?”

“The gun in the vent. I was the only one who knew where it was.”

“You mean the gun used to rob that convenience store in Garland?”

“Yes.”

That was not convincing proof. He might have heard about the pistol from Sam Curtis.

“What else do you know?”

“My email address is [email protected]. The password is tigger123. I’m the only person who knows it. Try it when you get home. You’ll see that it’s the correct password.”

“How do I know it’s Sam Curtis’s email address?”

“Ask my parents. They’ll confirm it’s my email address.”

“All right, I’ll ask them. And I’ll try the password.” Mark took out his notebook and pen. “Can you repeat the email address and password?”

Phillips repeated his email address and password, and Mark jotted them down.

Could Curtis have told Phillips his email password? Mark didn’t think so. People rarely shared their email passwords with others.

“What are your parents’ names?” Mark asked.

“My father’s name is Brian Curtis. And my mother’s name is Caroline Dolman.”

He had to verify that these people were really Phillips’s parents.

“Are they divorced?”

“Yes, they are.”

“Where do they live?”

“My father lives in Dallas, and my mother in San Antonio.”

“What are their addresses?”

Phillips told Mark his parents’ addresses and then said, “I know my Social Security number.”

“Okay, give it to me.”

Phillips told Mark his Social Security number.

“Sixteen years ago my mother cheated on my father with a guy named Aaron Townsend,” Phillips said. “Ask my dad about it when you meet him.”

“Okay.”

“When I was fifteen, I broke my dad’s video camera. I dropped it from the roof of our house. I had a Border Collie named Bruno. I got him when I was eleven. He died when I was twenty-two. I could give you my ATM PIN code, but I’m sure Phillips has changed it.”

“Did you have an eBay account?”

“Yes. The username is rogue999, and the password is Sherlock123, with an uppercase S.”

After Mark wrote down the username and password, Phillips asked, “If everything I said checks out, will you help me bring Edward Phillips to justice?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it. Why did you rob that store in Garland?”

“I needed money.”

“Did you commit any other robberies?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Did you ever kill anyone?”

“No.”

Was he really going to check out what Phillips had said?

Why not? What if Phillips was telling the truth?

He had to do it for Helen.

“Who do you think Phillips told about the body switch?” Mark asked.

“His father. You saw them together in a bar, didn’t you?”

“What about his mother?”

“He probably told her, too.”

“His girlfriend?”

“If I were him, I wouldn’t tell my girlfriend about this.”

“Did you have a girlfriend at the time of your arrest?”

“Yes. Her name’s Sandra Chandler.”

“Do you think Phillips broke up with her?”

“Yes. Don’t ask his parents about the body switch, please.”

“Okay. Did you tell anyone about this besides Barlow?”

“No.”

Mark put his notebook in his pocket and said, “Do you have anything else to tell me?”

Phillips hesitated. “Have you given that knife to the police?”

“No, not yet.”

“Thank you, Mark.”

“Goodbye.” Mark hung up the phone.

2

At 1:17 p.m. Mark switched on his laptop, opened the web browser, and went to gmail.com. He typed samcurtisx into the Username field and tigger123 into the Password field and hit Enter. The inbox appeared on the screen. The password worked.

Mark opened the Sent Mail folder and saw that the latest email had been sent on December 15 of last year, the day before Sam Curtis’s DWI arrest.

The last read email had been received at 12:13 p.m. on December 16 of last year.

It appeared that this email account hadn’t been used since the day of Sam Curtis’s DWI arrest.

Mark went to eBay.com and tried the username and password he had gotten from Phillips. The username and password were valid. The account belonged to Sam Curtis. Its registered email address was [email protected]. Mark checked the purchase history and discovered that the last purchase (it was a pair of earbuds) had been made on November 21 of last year.

1

On October 27, Aguero received responses from all the cellphone companies from which he had requested geolocation records. It turned out that the cellphone number Jeff Phillips had given him was Jeff’s only number. The geolocation records showed that between eight p.m. and midnight on August 23, the estimated time of Laura Sumner’s death, Jeff’s phone had been in Carrollton. It had been connected to one cell tower the whole time; the tower was located near Jeff’s house, which led Aguero to the conclusion that Jeff had left his phone at home that night.

Jeff’s credit card records showed that his Visa card had been used at a Burger King restaurant in Austin at 6:07 p.m. on August 23. However, this transaction alone did not prove beyond doubt that Jeff Phillips had been in Austin on August 23. The purchase might have been made by someone Jeff had allowed to use his Visa card. Or Jeff might have lost the card on or before August 23, and the person who had found it had used it at the Burger King. 

People rarely—perhaps almost never—went out of town without their cellphones, if they owned one. Why had Jeff Phillips left his phone at home when he went to Austin on August 23?

To prevent the police from finding out his whereabouts on that day?

He had done it intentionally, that was for sure.

On November 3, Aguero called the Allan B. Polunsky Unit and asked if anyone had visited Edward Phillips since October 25. He was surprised to learn that neither Emily Phillips nor her husband had visited Edward Phillips.

Was Emily Phillips too busy to visit Edward? She had seemed enthusiastic about helping her son when Aguero talked to her.

Had she changed her mind? Maybe she had found out that Jeff was Edward’s partner?

On November 4, Aguero went to Carrollton to talk to Jeff Phillips.

2

“When we first met, I asked you if you went out of town on August twenty-third. You said that you didn’t. Is that correct, Jeff?” Aguero said.

“Yes, that’s correct,” Jeff Phillips replied.

“Are you sure you didn’t go out of town on August twenty-third?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Did you let anyone use your credit cards last August?”

“No.”

“Did you lose your Visa card last August?”

“No.”

“Do you have it on you?”

“Yes. Why?”

Aguero reached into his pocket and took out a printout of Jeff Phillips’s Visa transactions. “According to your credit card records, you made a purchase at a Burger King in Austin on August twenty-third. That means you were in Austin on that day, doesn’t it?”

He unfolded the printout and handed it to Jeff. He had highlighted the transaction in question with a yellow marker to make it easy to find. Jeff stared at the document for a long moment, then shifted in his chair and said, “I suppose I forgot I was in Austin in August. I thought I went there in September.”

“What were you doing in Austin?”

Jeff returned the printout to Aguero and said, “I went there to meet someone.”

“Who?”

“A woman,” Jeff said with an embarrassed smile. “Please don’t tell my wife.”

“Is she your mistress?”

“No. It was a one-night stand.”

“What’s her name?”

“She said her name was Kim. She didn’t tell me her last name.”

“What’s her phone number?”

“I don’t know. She never gave it to me.”

“Did you and Kim go to a hotel?”

“No, we went to her place.”

“What’s her address?”

“I don’t remember it.”

“Did you communicate with Kim after this encounter?

“No.”

“Where did you meet her?”

“In a bar.”

“What’s the bar’s name?”

“I don’t remember it. It was somewhere downtown.”

Aguero’s sixth sense told him the one-night stand story was a lie, but he couldn’t think of a way to prove it.

The guy could think on his feet, you had to give him that.

Jeff didn’t look annoyed or nervous. Perhaps he believed that cops found people who showed emotion during questioning suspicious.

“So you went to Austin only to pick up a woman for a one-night stand? There were no other reasons?”

“There were no other reasons. I hate being a cheater, you know. And I would appreciate it if you didn’t tell my wife about this.”

“Why did you go all the way to Austin to find a woman? There are women in bars here in the Dallas area.”

“I don’t pick up women in the local bars because I’m afraid one of Emily’s friends will catch me in the act.”

“When did you leave Austin?”

“About half an hour after I had sex with Kim.”

“Do you remember what time it was when you left Austin?”

“Around one a.m.”

“Did you arrive in Austin the day you met Kim?”

“Yes. I believe I arrived around five in the afternoon.”

Aguero considered asking Jeff if he had taken his cellphone with him to Austin, and decided against it: Jeff would simply say that he had forgotten his phone at home.

“Where were you the night your son killed Helen Hinton?”

“I was in a bar in Dallas.”

“What’s the name of the bar?”

“Cuckoo’s Nest.”

“Did you see your son that night?”

“No.”

“What time did you arrive at Cuckoo’s Nest and what time did you leave?”

“I think I was there from nine to midnight.”

“Were you alone?”

“Yes.”

“Did you pay with a credit card?”

“I paid with cash.”

Jeff didn’t have an alibi for the night of Helen Hinton’s murder. He didn’t have an alibi for the night of Laura Sumner’s murder, either.  

“How many cellphones do you have?”

“One.”

“What time is your wife coming home?”

Jeff looked at his watch. “She should be home in two hours.”

3

When Aguero got behind the wheel of his car, he called Emily Phillips and asked her if she had talked to her son.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Emily said. “No, I haven’t talked to him yet. I’ve been very busy. His prison is so far from Carrollton. I’m sorry.”

She promised to talk to Edward Phillips soon.