CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Ella let Croon fester in the back of the cruiser for a moment.
Once heart rates had slowed down, she’d throw the initial questions at Croon before taking him back to the precinct for an official interrogation.
Once perpetrators got to the box, that’s when the ‘I’m not talking without a lawyer’ comment reared its head, and Ella could live without that.
Ripley put a hand on her shoulder, ‘Good job not discharging. I was worried about that.’
‘Couldn’t risk a bullet around here. Nice clothesline, by the way.’
Ripley rolled her shoulder then massaged her bicep. ‘I’m going to feel that in the morning.’
‘Worth it though.’
Ripley jerked her chin towards the rear window, where Croon was still trying to bore holes through the glass with the force of his glare. ‘What now? We just going to let him stew back there or are we going to put the screws to him?’
Procedure dictated they haul Croon back to the station for booking and a formal interrogation.
But her gut was telling her they might not have that kind of time.
If Croon was their guy – and circumstantial evidence suggested he very well could be – then he might clam up the second he had a chance to get his story straight.
‘I don’t anticipate we’ll get much from him, but we should fire some questions at him before the suits get involved. Plus, I’ve never had an innocent person threaten me with a spike before.’
‘True. Did you hear what he said when you slapped the cuffs on him? You got me fair and square.’
Thoughts hurdled through Ella’s brain, and her gut told her that Darryl Croon was guilty of something, and that something wasn’t already logged in his extensive rap sheet.
'He's got a long criminal history, he works for an appraiser right by Amber Holloway's house, and we're half a mile from the theater where Eddie Foxall worked. There's a lot of coincidences going on here.'
Up near the entrance, a swarm of PPE-clad workers milled about, trying to look busy clearly ogling the spectacle of justice in front of them. The foreman broke through the crowd and stomped towards Ella and Mia.
‘Detectives, mind telling me what the hell that was?’ he yelled.
‘An arrest,’ Ella said.
‘I figured, but why? Why are you hauling one of my guys off to a police station?’
‘We don’t know yet, but we’ll know soon enough.’
‘Meaning? You can start by telling me exactly what Darryl is accused of here. I need to know.’
‘We don’t deal in accusations, but your little employee has a long criminal history and a connection to a homicide someone committed last night. Not to mention he ran as soon as we showed up.’
The foreman’s face turned two shades whiter. ‘Homicide? Darryl? Are you serious?’
‘Serious as a heart attack. Want to tell us what you know about Darryl? What’s the guy like?’
The foreman looked back at the mass of bodies loitering near the entrance, then back at the detectives. He removed his hard hat, leaned in a little closer. ‘Look, Darryl’s not perfect, but who is?’
Ella resisted the urge to sigh. ‘Sir, not being perfect isn’t an excuse for homicide.’
‘I never said it was, but Darryl wouldn’t do anything like that. The guy’s rough around the edges, but he’s one of the hardest workers I’ve got. He’s got real heart.’
‘Oh, that’s alright then. Let the bodies pile up as long as he can hammer nails into bits of wood.’
The foreman waved his hands dismissively. ‘No, I didn’t mean that. But look, I’m well aware of Darryl’s past. I took a chance on him. I felt sorry for him so I gave the guy an opportunity no one else would.’
Ella waited for more but none came. ‘And?’
‘And he promised me that the past was in the past. The guy works two jobs, for crying out loud. What kind of criminal works two jobs?’
‘Not a very good one,’ Ripley said.
Ella wasn’t buying what this guy was selling. ‘Sir, you’re very keen to protect a possible murderer. That brings suspicions of its own.’
'Alright, alright. Take Darryl away, just know that you're barking up the wrong tree. Darryl's been working twelve-hour shifts the past two weeks, so I've had eyes on him that whole time.'
Ella took a step closer to the cruiser, then her feet froze to the ground. ‘What’s that? Darryl’s been here?’
The foreman nodded. ‘Yup. Ten ‘til ten, every day.’
Ripley turned to Ella with an unreadable expression. Ella’s heart became an anchor in the pit of her stomach. ‘Was Darryl here last night? About 8PM?’
‘Yes he was, and I can prove it.’
Ella peered at the suspect in the back of the car, then dropped her head back and faced the sky. She wanted to scream loud enough to part the clouds.
***
‘Okay, Croon, I want you to tell me everything,’ Ella said.
Croon spun and dangled his legs out of the car. Ripley was quick to step forward and block off any escape attempt. While the foreman – whose name Ella had learned was Billy Miller – had gone to find Darryl Croon’s clock cards for the past two nights.
Croon laughed, but it sounded more like a rusty hinge in dire need of WD-40. ‘What do you wanna know?’
As satisfying as it would be to go full Spanish Inquisition on this guy, they were on the clock here. She had to make every question hit the mark.
‘First, let’s go with the obvious. Do you always run when the cops show up, or just today?’
‘That was just for you. It’s actually been a while since the cops showed up on my doorstep.’
Ella took in Croon’s profile. In the mugshot, he'd looked like a man who'd stopped caring about appearances around the same time he'd stopped caring about the law. In person, he was a little more put-together.
‘Well, innocent men don’t run at the first sign of the police, so what gives?’
Croon shrugged. ‘Old habits die hard.’
She glanced at Croon’s gold watch and his silver ring that looked like it belonged on someone in their seventies. They weren’t the kind of things you’d see on a construction worker.
‘So, you see the police, you immediately try and stab them with a spike. That’s how your brain works, is it?’
‘No, it’s because I know what this is about. My pal Eddie, dead in his living room. I used to train him, you know? I was a personal trainer once upon a time, and of course you dumb cops are gonna jump on the first criminal you can find, aren’t you?’
An electric current ran through Ella’s veins. She went numb for a second. Darryl Croon not only knew Eddie Foxall, but somehow knew that he’d wound up dead. As far as Ella knew, his death hadn’t hit the news yet.
Ripley must have sensed her train of thought, because she said, ‘Awful quick to jump to murder, Darryl. How’d you know about Eddie?’
‘I watch the news, and I don’t mean CNN. Local news. People with their fingers on the pulse. I heard about Eddie this morning. I figured it was only a matter of time before someone questioned me about him.’
Ella filed that away. It was plausible. Neighbourhood group chats spread bad news faster than any official channel, and a construction worker with a criminal record living near a murder scene would have every reason to feel nervous when two women in street clothes walked onto his site looking like they weren’t there to buy lumber.
Plausible wasn’t the same as true, but she’d come back to it.
But still, a few things didn’t add up. ‘So instead of talking to us, you run away? Why? That’s not a good look for someone who’s supposedly cleaned their act up.’
Laughter exploded from Croon like a landmine had gone off. ‘Cleaned up? Lady, look at me. Do I look like someone who’s cleaned up?’
‘No. You look like someone who uses this job as a cover.’ She leaned down and flicked his gold watch. ‘I think you’re still out there burgling houses, but these jobs help keep up appearances. Your foreman certainly fell for it.’
Croon inspected his watch, or more accurately, someone’s watch. ‘Yup. Like I said, you got me fair and square. I knew it was only a matter of time before I got busted again.’
‘So why do it?’ Ella asked.
‘You ever had the wolf at the door, lady? Not knowing when the cash is going to dry up? That’s why I do it.’
Ella’s guts clenched. The things that could drive a person to just keep their head above water for one more day, one more week.
Not that it excused anything. Plenty of folks had it rough, chose to scrape by instead of swiping their neighbor’s jewelry.
But it added a layer of complexity to the portrait of Darryl Croon taking shape in her head.
He wasn’t just some psycho getting his rocks off by lifting valuables. He was a product of his environment.
She shook off the unproductive train of thought and refocused on the task at hand. ‘Right. And your file tells us you’re pretty handy with a lockpick. Want to tell us about that?’
‘Picking locks? What about it?’
Ripley said, ‘We’ll ask the questions.’
Croon scoffed. ‘Locks are old hat. Not my style anymore. That part really is behind me.’
‘So, what’s your game now?’
‘Cars. Not the flimsy things that pass as cars these days, either. I’m talking muscle cars, classics.’
Ella shook her head. ‘You mean ones that don’t have electronic keys?’
‘You’re good, lady. Anything before ‘06, usually. Much more cash in cars than old laptops and crap like that.’ Croon tapped his watch. ‘Sometimes you get lucky and strike gold too.’
‘How does that work, then? Stealing cars?’
Croon grinned, like he’d been waiting for someone to ask this question for years. ‘Getting into the car is easy, so is hotwiring. The hard part is breaking the steering column so you can actually drive the thing. It’s usually a two-man job.’
Just then, a breathless Billy Miller rushed back with a fistful of rectangular cards. He thrust them into Ella’s arms.
‘Here you go, detectives. All present and correct.’
Ella broke her attention away from Croon and scrutinized the sudden arrivals in her hands. The first card was dated last night, and right there at the top was time-stamped:
CROON, D. – 21:56 IN
CROON, D. – 09:02 OUT
And exactly the same times on the other card, dated two nights ago.
Ella stared at the numbers. She could feel Ripley beside her, reading over her shoulder, arriving at the same place Ella was already standing.
Darryl Croon had clocked in at the construction site at 9:56 PM on both nights, which meant that on the night Amber was strangled at ten and Rose was killed around midnight, Croon was working. And on the night Eddie Foxall was beaten to death in his sunroom, Croon was doing the same thing.
But she couldn’t afford to fall apart now. Not in front of Croon, who was watching her with an avidity bordering on obscene, like he was just waiting for her to admit she’d been wrong.
Because last night’s clock card was evidence that Croon was not their killer.