“Murphy,” Isaac says, nodding. Wearing his uniform. Probably did some press today on Annie and Dede.
“Need you to come down to the substation,” he says.
“You can talk to me right here.”
He takes a deep breath, grimaces. “Don’t make this difficult. Come down with me voluntarily. Make a good decision for once in your life.”
“You don’t have anything better to do?” I ask. “After finding two dead bodies today?”
He gives me a funny look.
“The two dead bodies,” he says, “are the reason I’m here.”
95
I SIT IN the same interview room where I’ve sat many times, only on the other side of the table. I used to be good at this, questioning witnesses, sizing them up, reading them, making them sweat, gaining their trust, taking them on a roller-coaster ride from fright to horror to despondence to remorse to confession.
The door opens, and in walks Isaac Marks. He stands against the wall, arms crossed.
What is he capable of? Did he kill all those people, with Aiden as his accomplice? And maybe Noah, too?
Did he do something to me, along with Aiden, at 7 Ocean Drive when I was a little girl?
I’ve never had a bead on the guy. I was his partner for less than a year, and he was a phone-it-in cop, a guy who liked to strut around with the badge, enjoyed the power more than the responsibility. Never one to put in the extra hours necessary. Never one to go the extra mile.
But a killer? If it’s true, I missed it. Never saw it.
Then again, I wasn’t looking for it.
“I want some answers, Murphy,” he says. “Some straight answers.”
“So do I.”
He shakes his head. “Doesn’t work that way. Maybe you forgot.”
“It does now. Or I take Five.”
Most people are afraid to invoke their Fifth Amendment rights. They think it makes them look guilty. They’re right, but they’re wrong. Yeah, you look bad if you won’t talk. But how you appear at that moment to a cop pales in comparison to the damage you do by answering detailed questions, locking yourself in.
Maybe I should be heeding that advice right now.
“The bodies were Annie and Dede?” I ask.
Isaac closes his eyes, nods. “We have a rush on DNA. We won’t have it for another day or so. But there was a missing finger, and some personal articles on the bodies that the families confirmed. It’s not official, but unofficially? There’s no doubt.”
“How did you make the discovery?” I ask.
Still planted against the wall, still stoic, but now with a gleam in his eye. He knows Ricketts and I are friends. He knows I know.
“Anonymous tip,” he says.
“How convenient.”
He cocks his head. “Convenient? How so?”
I shrug. “Maybe someone was getting too close to solving this whole thing. Maybe Aiden’s being given up as a sacrificial lamb. A scapegoat.”
“A scapegoat.” Isaac’s eyes narrow. “Meaning he’s innocent.”
“Meaning,” I say, “that he wasn’t the only one. He has a partner.”
Isaac doesn’t move. Expression doesn’t break. Tough to read, because interrogators are playing a role, acting out a scene, so it could be just him doing his job. Or it could be he’s sweating bullets underneath that uniform.
“A partner,” he says. “Two people?”
“At least two,” I say, “and the partner just fucked Aiden.”
Isaac pushes himself off the wall and pulls out the chair across from me. He takes his time getting seated, settling in, training his stare on me.
“How did the partner fuck Aiden?” he asks.
My heartbeat ratcheting up. He has me in an enclosed room, in his custody. But it’s a police station. There are witnesses, other cops watching through the one-way. It’s not like he can silence me.
Do I want to do this? Right here, right now?
Hell yes, I do. With other cops as witnesses.
“Let’s say Aiden was getting nervous,” I say. “He talks to his partner. He says, ‘They’re getting close.’ So his partner tells Aiden to leave town. Get out of Dodge for a while. Let things settle down.”
Isaac nods, listening intently.
“Maybe the partner tells Aiden, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll take care of this.’”
Isaac does a double blink with his eyes. I’ve just quoted what he said to Aiden on the phone last night—when he didn’t see me hiding outside.
“Go on,” he says, his voice flat and cold.
“But once Aiden scrams, his partner makes an anonymous tip to the cops. Bodies are discovered a stone’s throw from Aiden’s property line. And ten gets you twenty there’s incriminating evidence found at that burial scene, evidence that implicates Aiden and Aiden alone. My guess? Aiden’s fingerprints on the murder weapon.”
Isaac is silent, his eyes deadened.
“So now Aiden’s an obvious suspect,” I say. “Gift-wrapped, practically. And his partner walks away scot-free.”
Isaac takes a breath, leans back in his chair.
“Cat got your tongue, Chief?”