“Can’t be,” Brent muttered.
Rocky had already reached over and picked up the jacket; the sound was definitely coming from a pocket. He reached in and carefully, using only two fingers, pulled out the ringing phone. The caller I.D. said Bro.
The phone was in a pink Hello Kitty case.
Rocky looked from the phone to Brent. “I think we are going to have a talk down at the station.”
12
Rocky, with Sam Hall standing at his side, watched through the one-way mirror as Jack Grail questioned Brent Corbin.
He’d especially wanted Sam with him, since Sam was an attorney and was more knowledgeable on the inclusion of circumstantial evidence.
Because that was all they had so far.
Brent still looked as dazed as he had back at his store.
Jack was good at questioning a suspect. He knew how to keep the subject off balance, leaning forward to attack one minute, then sitting back, sympathetic. Right now he was asking if Brent needed anything—coffee, water, a soda?
Barbara Benton’s cell phone was with the lab techs, who were analyzing her call log. So far, from what he’d been able to gather himself before turning the cell over, there had been no unusual activity since she’d arrived in Salem. She’d contacted the archives of several local museums, and she’d called her work, her parents and her friends. Nothing jumped out.
Except, of course, Brent Corbin’s number.
But that had probably been to make reservations for the tour.
Meanwhile, Brent’s own calls were being traced even as he sat there being interrogated. They had twenty-four hours before they had to charge him or let him go, but in Rocky’s opinion they didn’t need the time. They had the evidence. They were just trying to get him to talk before he was arraigned or asked for an attorney, which so far he hadn’t done.
He just looked lost.
He could be playing them. If he were a sociopath, his own interests would be paramount and the deaths he had caused as meaningless to him as swatting flies.
He was a nerd, Devin had said. Smart. A historian.
So smart he could act this innocent while smiling on the inside?
“Look, I don’t know what else to tell you!” Brent said to Jack, and he sounded desperate. “The woman was on my tour, yes. I had a beer, yes. But I never saw her at the bar. And then I went home.”
“And yet you just happen to have her cell phone. The cell phone the restaurant staff never found—and Barbara never came back to retrieve,” Jack said, not for the first time.
“I’m telling you—I don’t know how it got into my pocket,” Brent insisted.
“You’re going to be charged with murder,” Jack said quietly. “Maybe you have a grudge against the local Wiccan community for some reason. Do they look down on you because you run a witchcraft shop but you’re not a Wiccan? You carry pentagrams, herbs, wands, chalices—”
“Yes, and T-shirts, and souvenirs, and books,” Brent said.
“And yet you’ve only ever ordered one athame.”
“Big Brother is watching,” Brent said bitterly. “I just never bothered to carry athames, because they’re available all over town.”
“So why the one athame, Brent? Obviously you didn’t intend it for sale. Not just one. It had to be for your personal use,” Jack said. “Why?”
“I liked it! It’s a handsome knife. I planned to use it in a Halloween display,” Brent said. “Hell—half the people in this city own an athame.”
“You had her cell phone.”
“What does that have to do with me owning an athame?”
“Because an athame is a double-edged blade—and our murder weapon was a double-edged blade,” Jack said. “But you already know that.”
“I don’t know that!” Brent protested. “Take my athame—test it for blood. Do whatever you want.”
“We will. But it will go easier on you if you just talk to us now.”
“I don’t have anything to say.”
Jack stood up suddenly, excusing himself.
“What do you think?” Sam asked Rocky.
Rocky shook his head. “He had the woman’s cell phone, but he swears he didn’t put it in his pocket. And there were no prints on it at all.”
“It is possible that the killer—assuming that’s not him—put the phone in his pocket,” Sam said.
Rocky nodded. “But don’t forget, I found him in the woods by Devin’s house. Her bird attacked him right before I showed up.”
“They are friends, although that may make him look more guilty rather than less so. Based on the evidence, the women are taken by surprise. He gets them to the murder sites on some pretense, and since they’re not suspicious he easily manages to get behind them and slit their throats. It was the same this time, right?” Sam asked quietly. “No defensive wounds?”
Rocky shook his head. “Of course, the autopsy report isn’t in, but I saw the body. The report won’t be any different.”