Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
It was ten o’clock when Amanda was walking down the halls of Central toward Malone’s office with Trent at her side.
She was looking forward to talking to him about as much as she hated the thought of questioning her half-brother.
Both were cranky, with their nights taking a turn they hadn’t expected.
But it was just getting started. Spencer had demanded a lawyer, and while they waited for him to show up, they dug into his record, phone, and laptop.
The discoveries they made in the last hour and a half didn’t make things look any better for him.
Sergeant Malone was seated behind his desk and waved them in. “His attorney here?”
“He arrived about fifteen minutes ago. He’s with Spencer in Interview Room One,” she told him.
“Good. I’m already late for my pillow. Nine o’clock is my typical bedtime on a school night. Lay out where we’re at.”
He was to the point, just as she expected from Malone at this hour. His cheeks were sagging, and he’d rather be curled up in bed than behind his desk. But who wouldn’t? She’d trade being there instead of here in a heartbeat. “Trent and I have found some things…” She laid out their discoveries.
When she finished, Malone sat back and ran his hands over his short, trimmed beard. “I don’t need to say it, right?”
He’d leveled his gaze on her when he asked the question, so she responded. “You don’t. This doesn’t look good for Spencer.”
“And no alibi?”
“None that can be verified.”
“Not good.”
“Nope.” She sighed.
“You don’t need me to say this either, Amanda, but I’m going to anyway. I don’t want you doing the questioning.”
His statement landed like a punch in the stomach. “What?”
“This isn’t up for negotiation. Trent will handle it. You can be in the room if you keep quiet. Can you promise me that?”
It felt like she was watching this take place from outside of herself. She’d proven herself thus far. She wasn’t sure why he didn’t trust her to go all the way with this. Even if it came down to a formal charge.
“Amanda?” Malone prompted.
“How could I just sit there?” There was no way she could promise to remain mute.
“That answers my question then. Trent will go in alone, and you’ll watch from the observation room. I’ll stick around with you.”
As if he doesn’t trust me…
Malone pushed out from his desk and pulled an ice pack from behind him before he stood, and the three of them went down the hall. Trent popped in for a look through the one-way mirror.
Spencer was seated with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face.
The body language suggested defensiveness.
Why couldn’t he see that his being here was just procedure?
If he was innocent, it would be a standard Q the evidence led them here.
All she was guilty of was doing the job she’d vowed to do.
“Another strange thing about all this is this text wasn’t in the thread on your phone, Spencer. Can you tell us why?” Trent asked.
Spencer rubbed his forehead. “I don’t have an answer for you other than I delete messages sometimes.”
“Why this one?”
“You want to know? The truth is it made me angry as hell. I didn’t want to see it or look at it. We’ve been together for a year, and she acted like she could just throw that away. Throw me away.”
The attorney flinched at the fire of Spencer’s speech but remained silent.
“But you can see how that might look? Like you were trying to make your relationship with Christine something it wasn’t, so you wouldn’t appear as a suspect in her murder?”
“If that’s the case, I failed, didn’t I? And I didn’t even know she was murdered. I just couldn’t reach her.” Spencer added the latter part at a lower volume.
“We’re just following the evidence,” Trent said, matching Spencer’s tone. “If you have nothing to hide, it will clear you in the end.”
“It will,” Spencer volleyed back, “because I didn’t do this.”
Trent pulled another page out of the folder, which he again set in front of Spencer. Amanda couldn’t see it but knew what it would be. “This is your nine-mil Beretta, right?”
Spencer blanched. “It looks like it. I can’t say if it is mine.”
“It is,” Trent told him.
Amanda put a hand on her stomach and cursed herself for the slip the second Malone touched her shoulder.
“I’m fine,” she assured him, and he retracted his arm.
Finding out that Spencer had a gun registered to him had sent cold sweats over her entire body.
She blew out a breath and saw Malone look at her through her peripheral vision.
She hadn’t been able to meet Malone’s direct gaze since he blocked her from the interrogation.
“Christine Lane was shot with nine-mil rounds. Did they come from your gun?”
Spencer shook his head. “Unbelievable.”
“Detective, it’s on you to prove guilt, not for my client to do your job for you,” the lawyer said. “After all, most American citizens exercise their right to bear arms.”
“Don’t worry, we will be running ballistics from this gun and comparing the markings to the bullet fragments retrieved from Christine Lane’s body.”
She had received an email from Rideout earlier with the full autopsy report. Most of it was a reiteration of what Liam had already told them. The addition was that Rideout had retrieved some viable bullet fragments and forwarded them to the lab.
Tears fell down Spencer’s cheeks, and he swiped them away.
Amanda tried not to let herself be swayed by the display. If he were any other suspect, she wouldn’t conclude such an action was one of grief. She’d entertain the likelihood it was remorse.
“We also found your membership card for a local gun range in your wallet.” Trent produced the card from the folder.
“It means nothing!”
The lawyer touched Spencer’s arm, but he pulled out of reach. “You’re seeing what you want to see. I didn’t kill Christine.”
“How long have you been a member?” Trent rolled ahead as if Spencer’s outburst hadn’t fazed him.
“Five years.”
“And do you practice often?”
“Whenever I can. I find it relaxing.” Spencer was talking in a monotone like a robot.
“Then you could pull off a shot to the chest and the head from twenty feet?”
Amanda crossed her arms and hugged herself. She was the one who found the membership card.
The lawyer smiled again. “Detective, we have been patient, but just because my client may like to fire guns in his personal time that doesn’t mean he shot his girlfriend. I’ve failed to hear any evidence that places him at the murder scene.”
The attorney had struck the weak underbelly of their case against Spencer. All they had was circumstantial evidence and a potential motive. The crime scene had offered little forensically.
“As you know, Mr. Thornton, we have more than enough to hold your client while we continue our investigation.”
“Why? So you can try to build a case against him? From what I’ve heard, you don’t have enough for a foundation.”
“Hardly true, but we’re within our right to hold him for twenty-four hours without laying a charge.”
That would allow them time to compare the markings from Spencer’s gun to the fragments recovered from Christine’s body.
It was nauseating that Spencer would need to spend a single night in holding, but there wasn’t anything she could do about that.
And if he was guilty, he’d need to get used to life behind bars.
Behind bars, her mind reiterated. When she’d brought him in she hadn’t expected things would go this far.
“Would your client comply to providing a sample of his fingerprints and DNA?”
“That’s a hard no, Detective,” Thornton said.
“Your client’s refusal doesn’t make things look good for him. It would be easier if he cooperated with us—”
“Like hell,” Spencer spat. “I know how the system works. There’s no way I’m handing any of that over.”
Amanda flinched. That’s likely how he viewed her now. As part of the system. From the sound of it, one he saw as corrupt.
“Suit yourself then,” Trent told him.
“Don’t you get it? You find an iota of my DNA on Christine, then you’ll pin her murder on me. But we were together. It’s possible you’ll find one of my hairs… or something. Everything will be twisted. I’ll be one of those innocents serving life in prison.”
“Have it your way, then. We’ll need to get a court order,” Trent said.
“Good luck with that,” the lawyer said.
Trent gathered everything from the table. In the doorway, he said to Spencer, “An officer will be in to take you to a holding cell for the night.”
Spencer glared at the one-way mirror again. Although he couldn’t see her, she still couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes. She was numb as she headed for the door.
“Amanda?” Malone called out to her.
She waved her arm over her head and ignored Trent in the hallway. She needed to get out of here, go home, and let tonight sink in.