“Look, I bought that Hemi in good faith from somebody Cody knew. I had no idea it was hot or I never would have bought it.”
“Well, here’s the thing,” said Maclean. “The wife of the owner was watching from the kitchen window when her husband went out to meet these two young men. She couldn’t get a good look at their car or plate number, but there was something about them she didn’t like. She’s already identified Cody as one of them. And she has agreed to be flown up here to pick you out of a lineup. In fact, she’s here as we speak. Now, your mother had your car with the stolen engine stored at her property. That makes her an accessory.”
“This is bullshit,” said Jason.
“My client is right, Detective. This is ridiculous.”
“Well, the judge didn’t think so, because he’s issued an arrest warrant for your mother. And she’s in custody right now.”
Jason’s jaw tightened.
“Keep working him over about his mother,” whispered Verraday. “That’s the first time I’ve seen him flinch. She’s the way in.”
“I looked in on her right before this interview,” said Maclean. “There are some pretty nasty crack whores in that holding cell with her, let me tell you. And a Criplette who seems to be taking quite an interest in her. We’ll try to keep them separated, but it’s pretty full in there today. Hard for the jailers to keep an eye on everybody, you know? Could take a while to process the papers before she can post bail and head home.”
Jason looked angry now. “Leave my mother out of this. She doesn’t know anything.”
“Only one way to find out,” said Maclean. “We’ll have to keep her here for questioning.”
“I’m about to send you a text,” whispered Verraday. “You know what to do.”
Maclean’s cell phone buzzed. She pulled it out and checked the display.
“Just got a text from the search site. That dog that you think is so funny? It found a hot spot up there on the property your family owned until very recently. So we’ll be bringing a backhoe in on a barge tomorrow morning. It will cost the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, but we’ll find every last one of those bodies, I promise you, Mr. Griffin. And the more money it costs the taxpayers, the more likely it is that the district attorney will go for the maximum penalty. That means that unless you decide to tell me the truth now, the only decision you’ll have left to make after you leave this room is whether you’d prefer to be executed by hanging or lethal injection. It’s your call. And by the way, I’m going to subpoena your mother as a witness. I want her to give me a little tour of the family retreat, so when the bodies of your victims start coming out of the ground, she can see what her precious little boy has done.”
“That’s enough!” said Tarleton testily. “You don’t have a single shred of hard evidence.”
“Oh, and one other thing, Jason. You showed me a rental contract for a car up in Port Angeles. Only twenty miles on the odometer when you brought it back the next morning. The manager at the Red Lion noticed it parked just outside the office all night. He says you spent about an hour down by the shore, watching the waves roll in. Said you looked like you had the weight of the world on your shoulders.”
“I told you about that already.”
“I know you did. You made sure everybody saw you drinking your wine before going back into your room. And you made sure they saw your rental car parked there all night. Right by the main entrance to the hotel. I’m wondering if there was something wrong with that car?”
“Where is this going, Detective?” asked Tarleton.
“Patience, please, Counselor. This won’t take much longer. Mr. Griffin, was there something wrong with that rental car?”
“No.”
“Then why did you rent a second car? One from a place right in town, not from the agency at the airport where you rented the car you parked at the hotel? And since you’re so careful about claiming expenses for the company on your Visa card, why did you pay for the second car with cash? Was it so that there wouldn’t be an electronic paper trail? Because the only way I found out that you rented a second car was by calling every car rental agency in Port Angeles and e-mailing them a photograph of you. Fortunately they had all the records on file, including the in and out mileage on the odometers. The nice young woman on the counter told me that you put a lot of miles on that car for a one-night rental. Two hundred and ninety-four miles to be precise. Exactly the distance from Port Angeles to Issaquah, with a little stopover at Cody’s apartment to plant the evidence after you lured him to that trail and pushed him off the edge. So despite what you wanted people to believe, you were not in your hotel room all night, Mr. Griffin.”
Jason Griffin put his hand on Tarleton’s arm. They whispered to each other, then Tarleton turned to Maclean.
“Would you bring in the district attorney, please?”
*
District Attorney Kirk Weder arrived and before he’d even settled into the seat next to Maclean, looked directly at Tarleton.