There was the first detective; he was Good Cop, according to Luis. Detective Ward Montgomery, early forties, nice enough suit on a detective’s salary, easy enough on the eyes, calm, obvious stabs at endearing himself to me, chummy even.
“So am I right when I’m hearing you say you have no idea how Tina Martoni’s Senior Alert necklace ended up at your house, yet an anonymous tip led us straight to it?” he coaxed, pretending interest in my every word by sitting his chin on his hand and smiling.
Yeah. That was how they’d discovered the necklace was at my house. An anonymous tip…
I nodded and kept my answers simple, just like Luis told me to do as he prepped me for my interview and right after he made Bad Cop remove my zip-tie restraints. “You’re correct.”
“Well, how can that be, Stevie? Don’t you know what’s in your own house? It was pretty empty—not much in the way of anything to speak of. Your contractor said he found the necklace on the counter. How could you miss it if you weren’t the one who put it there in the first place?” he asked in a friendly tone.
But Luis held up a hand, setting his glasses at the end of his long nose and peering over them at Good Cop. “I believe this has been asked and answered, Detective. Your redundancy has become quite tedious. Now, you clearly have no solid evidence against my client. There’s no physical evidence except my client’s muddy footprints in the store, which we’ve very clearly explained. You have nothing more than a necklace with—I’m going to guess, once the lab results return—no DNA from Miss Cartwright.”
Now, Bad Cop? He was wired for sound. Like he’d had too many Red Bulls in a row.
Bad Cop was rather a mashup of Andy Sipowicz from NYPD Blue, all hard and rabid yelling, mixed with Ice-T on Law & Order: SVU, intense and quietly thinking of multiple ways to crush my skull with his bare hands while he chewed gum with endless pops and crackles.
Bad Cop’s name was Detective Sean Moore. He dressed like he was trying to prove he was one of the people, just a normal citizen in low-slung jeans and a black T-shirt accentuating his crazy mass of muscles, and he’d been alternately yelling at me for over an hour while Detective Montgomery watched, swooping in when soothing me appeared necessary.
Detective Moore drove his fist against the metal table, making me jump from my musings. “You forced that poor little old lady to call off those Senior Alert people then you thanked her by killing her, didn’t you? Wrapped that scarf around her neck so hard and pulled so tight, she hit that hocus-pocus pedal of hers with her foot and electrocuted herself!” he hollered in my face.
I blinked at him and his blotchy red face and sweat-beaded brow in silent awe. Phew. Bet his blood pressure was sky-high. But I was glad I finally had an explanation for the hole in Madam Zoltar’s foot, which, according to Luis and the preliminary coroner’s reports, was almost definitely not the cause of death and nothing more than a bizarre coincidence.
Though, when Luis told me to remain expressionless no matter what the Dynamic Duo did or said, he didn’t mention how upsetting it would be to hear Madam Z’s death revealed in actual words. I had to fight to keep from cracking by digging my nails into my palms.
“Didn’t you just come into a large amount of cash, Stevie?” Detective Montgomery crooned.
“Having money is certainly not a crime. What’s your point, Detective?” Luis asked as he adjusted his cufflinks, his piercing gaze making even me shrink.
“Mayyybe our Stevie here wanted to buy Tina Martoni’s store? Maybe she wanted to buy it so bad, that when Tina Martoni wouldn’t give it up, she made her give it up? Tina Martoni was in a lot of debt. Having money has its privileges, doesn’t it, Stevie? Sometimes it can make you think you deserve to take something that isn’t yours…” Detective Moore drawled as though he were the cleverest of us all.
Yeah, I felt so privileged today. Being called a murderer by everyone, including your favorite taco vendor, has privilege written all over it.
Luis cocked his slick salt-and-pepper head with a sharp right. “And what do you suppose she wanted to use this store for once she got her hands on it, Detective Moore? If you check with the attorney who handled the will, as any skilled detective worth his weight in taxpayer money would, you’ll find she didn’t know about the inheritance or that she was a sole beneficiary until later in the day after Mrs. Martoni was killed. And how does this suddenly remove Mr. Von Adams from suspicion? Didn’t he want to purchase the store, too?”
Yeah. What he said.