“What did you do next?”
Strickland shook his head. “I saw the gun on the side of the bed and I just backed away. I hit the stair railing and that sort of jarred me. I don’t know. I just turned and ran. I just wanted to get out of there.”
“Did you touch her?”
Strickland emphatically shook his head. “No. There was blood and . . .” He closed his eyes.
“Did you touch the gun?”
“No,” he said softly.
“Where did you go after you left the apartment?”
“I didn’t know where to go.” Strickland blew out a breath, as if about to throw up. If this was an act, he was giving a superb performance. “I didn’t know what to do. I drove around and tried to reach Phil, but he was in court. When I finally reached him he told me to come here.”
“Why didn’t you call the police?”
“And tell them what?” Strickland’s voice rose in a challenge, but it was only momentary. He sighed and slumped away from the table. “What was I going to say, that there was a dead woman in my bed? The DA had already called me a suspect in Andrea’s disappearance, and I know you think I had something to do with Devin’s disappearance. Who was going to believe me?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“It’s my loft. She was in my bed. You saw her with me a couple of hours earlier. I’m an attorney. I know how it looks.”
And that’s what was bothering Tracy. How it looked. It was easy, too easy. Then again, maybe Strickland had intended it to look that way, so easy that Tracy’s first thought would be it could not possibly be him.
“Is it your gun?”
“I don’t own a gun.”
“Did Megan Chen own a gun?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Why did you ask to talk to me, Mr. Strickland?”
His eyes went wide, pupils dilated. Fight or flight they called it. Strickland had fled but now seemed intent on fighting. “Because someone is deliberately trying to ruin my life.”
“Why would someone want to ruin your life?”
Strickland rocked in his chair and gazed up to the corner of the ceiling. A tear trickled down his cheek. “Because of Andrea.”
“What about Andrea?”
He wiped at his tears before redirecting his attention across the table. After several long moments he said, “Look, I did intend to kill Andrea.” He paused again. Phil Montgomery never moved. Tracy waited. “She wanted to climb Rainier. I didn’t want to do it. That’s the truth. I didn’t make it the first time and really didn’t want to try a second time. I got altitude sickness and I really didn’t want to go to the effort to train again. But then . . .” He swallowed and wiped more tears. “. . . I thought about it.”
Tracy looked down at her phone to ensure it was continuing to record. She spoke softly, deliberately. “And you saw it as an opportunity to kill your wife.”
“He didn’t say that,” Montgomery said.
Tracy ignored him.
Strickland closed his eyes, rocking in his chair. “Yes,” he said, though it was nearly inaudible.
“Did you say, ‘Yes’?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Did you kill her?”
“No.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I was going to push her off the mountain. But I didn’t,” Strickland added quickly. “I didn’t do it. What I told that detective about her getting up to use the bathroom was the truth. I didn’t do it.”
“Tell me,” Tracy said. “What happened to her?”
Strickland took a few additional deep breaths. Montgomery sat with his chin resting in his hand, elbow propped on the table. He hadn’t taken a note.
“My business was failing. I’d invested everything we had and I was going to lose it all, everything. I’d forged a letter from one of the partners at the firm saying I was going to be made partner and earn a higher salary, and the bank was intimating that I would be prosecuted if I couldn’t find a way to pay back the money. I begged Andrea to let me borrow some of the money from her trust account, but she wouldn’t give it to me. So I told her that I’d forged her name on the personal guaranties to the bank and to the landlord, and if she didn’t give me some of the money to pay off our creditors she was going to lose it all.”
“What was her response?”
“She got angry. We fought.”
“Did it become physical?”
“I was angry. I’d been drinking. I grabbed her and she kicked me. I hit her. I’m not proud of it, but I hit her. Then I left.”
“Had you been abusive before?”
“No. It was just that one time. It was just the heat of the moment.” Tracy doubted it. “I felt like everything was crashing down around me and she wouldn’t do anything to help me.”
Tracy couldn’t muster any sympathy, but she went where Strickland directed the conversation. “Where did you go?”
“A bar. I went to a bar near our loft, and I thought about what to do, about how I could get the money.”
“You started thinking of ways you could kill her.”
“He didn’t say that,” Montgomery said, giving Tracy a second, quick glance.