Chapter 41
41
“Jon Matherson, you are under arrest for the murder of William Gaston.”
“You must be crazy! My attorneys will make you wish you’d never considered me as a suspect, much less arrest me!”
Aaron stood to the side, tension palpable in the air, as Hunter read Jon Matherson his rights and a deputy handcuffed the man. Jon had been upstairs packing a suitcase when the detectives rang the doorbell, announced themselves as deputies, and surrounded the home. He’d only answered the door when they threatened to kick it in.
Jon’s indignant outbursts filled the room. “This is absurd!” His face contorted with anger as he railed against the injustice.
“Where is your wife?” Aaron asked, his gaze fixed on Jon. Each protestation from Jon only served to fuel Aaron’s resolve to force the truth out of him.
“She’s not here. She’s out shopping.”
“Where is she shopping?”
Jon sputtered, scoffing. “I have no idea where my wife shops in this backwater place. Our stay here has been nothing but miserable, and as soon as my lawyer has me out of your clutches, my wife and I are leaving. And I can assure you, we will never come back.”
Hunter's calm demeanor contrasted sharply with Jon’s escalating agitation and Aaron’s fury. The deputies escorted Jon outside. Once he was placed in the cruiser, Hunter and Brad followed as they headed to the station.
Aaron was antsy, wanting to watch the interview, but he knew it would take a while for Jon to be processed once they were at the station. He and Sam spent several minutes with Colby, Sheila, and the deputies searching the house.
“Document everything,” Sheila reminded the deputies. “We want no loopholes to let these people get away.”
Colby walked over. “I’ve put a BOLO on Eileen’s vehicle. You two should head back. I know you want in on the interview. I promise Sheila and I will be here with the deputies. We won’t leave anything to chance.”
Thanking them, he and Sam climbed back into their SUV. Once they were at the station, Hunter and Brad had just taken Jon into the interrogation room, and Aaron, Sam, and Colt watched the proceedings.
At first, Jon protested, saying he would wait on his lawyer before answering any questions.
Hunter nodded and said, “That’s your right. You’ll be held in a cell until your lawyer arrives.”
Jon loudly shouted, claiming his lawyer couldn’t get there on such short notice.
Hunter continued to nod. “That’s fine, Mr. Matherson. You’ll be held in a cell until he comes.”
A look of panic crossed Jon’s face. “I’ll have you sued for false arrest.”
“That would be difficult to do, considering your landlord has the front, back, and downstairs security cameras on your rental.”
The room crackled with the intensity of Jon’s facade crumbling under the weight of the evidence. His mouth dropped open, and his eyes bugged. He tried to speak, but words didn’t come out.
“If you would like to continue this interview, we can do so,” Hunter said, “Or you can go back into a cell and wait until your attorney gets here. It’s your choice, Mr. Matherson.”
Jon violently shook his head. “It wasn’t me. It wasn’t my idea! None of it was! It was all her!”
“Are we to assume that, based on your statement, you want to continue the interview without your attorney present?”
Conflict etched across Jon’s face, but he nodded as he placed his elbows on the table and dropped his head into his hands. “If you saw the video, you know this wasn’t on me.”
“What we saw was a man show up at your house, met by your wife, and then, when you came in, a fight ensued. In the process of that fight between you and your wife, a gun was discharged, killing William Gaston. Then you had someone come down to assist you in disposing of the body. That someone also attempted to kill Belinda Crowder.”
Jon’s head jerked up, swinging back and forth. “No! I mean, yes. But it wasn’t like that. I didn’t want any of that!”
“Then why don’t you tell us what happened?”
His face scrunched, and Aaron watched as emotions collided.
“My wife has a habit of… collecting… affairs.”
“Collecting affairs?” Brad asked.
“She’s obsessed. Obsessed with always trying to look younger. Obsessed with her own sex appeal. I’ve never understood it, and no matter how much I tried, she always uses other men to make herself feel better. Her liaisons are never very long.” He scoffed, his eyes staring at the detectives as he glared, and his voice hardened. “I admit, she’s very picky about the men she chooses. She would never consider going for the pool guy, for example. Oh no—my wife’s affairs usually involve men of status, some only one-time flings.” He winced, his face contorting. “The crazy thing is that she doesn’t do it to make me jealous. She never does anything untoward in my presence. She simply engages in short affairs to feed her ego and then comes back to me.”
Behind the glass, Aaron shook his head and then glanced at Sam, finding his partner to respond with the same expression.
“That is so fucked up,” Sam said.
Agreeing, Aaron nodded, and their attention turned back to the beleaguered man sitting at the table on the other side of the glass.
“So what happened on the day in question?” Hunter proceeded.
“I wanted a vacation. Away from everyone and everything. During our stay, we had met no one that my wife would’ve even considered enticing. I had gone out for the day, planning to drive to Virginia Beach to go to a boutique pet store that carried the food we wanted for Hercules and Aphrodite. I found the shop with no problem and finished earlier than I thought. Since there was nothing else there I wanted to do, I came straight home. Imagine my surprise when I walked into the house, didn’t see Eileen, and then looked out the back door. There she was, standing on the beach in her skimpy bathing suit with a man I’d never seen before.”
“What were they doing?”
“Just talking, but I could see Eileen was moving closer.” He looked at Hunter. “Believe me, Detective, I had no doubt she was making a move. She laughed and tossed her hair over her shoulder. She leaned in, touching his arm. I knew it was only a matter of time before the two would return to the house, not expecting me, planning on heading to the bedroom. And I snapped. For the first time, I really snapped.” His brow furrowed as though his words surprised him.
“When you say you snapped, what did you do?” Brad asked.
“I walked upstairs, where we kept a small pistol for personal protection. Then I walked back down the stairs, out the door, and toward the beach. She was so into her seduction that she never heard me coming. I had no intentions of shooting anyone.” As soon as those words left his mouth, he visibly startled, his eyes flying open wide. “I just wanted to scare them! Scare her.”
“And then?”
“Eileen turned and saw me, and she reached out, grabbing my hand that held the gun. The other man threw his hands up and started to back away. Eileen screamed that he’d come to the wrong house, and she was just showing him the beach. As she grabbed my hands, we wrestled for just a few seconds with the gun… and then… God, it went off. I was horrified that maybe I’d shot Eileen, but she simply stood there, with her eyes wide but no blood appearing. Her head jerked over to the man as he fell onto the sand.”
Jon’s gaze dropped to his hands now clasped so tightly as they lay upon the table that his knuckles were white. He slowly shook his head, almost in disbelief. “I just meant to scare them. Scare her. I never meant… I never meant for that to happen.”
“Maybe not, but you didn’t exactly call 911, did you?” Brad prodded.
Jon stared at the detectives, his face scrunching as tears filled his eyes. Then he shook his head slowly. “No. I… I had no idea what to do. Then like so many times in our marriage, I listened to my wife. And things became… tangled.”
“Explain tangled, Mr. Matherson,” Hunter said.
Looking back down at his hands, he sighed. “Eileen comes from a… family with particular abilities to make problems… disappear. She immediately thought of them while I was still standing in shock, just staring down at the man on the beach. He sucked in a deep breath and then let it out. “A man I didn’t even know.”
“Did your wife explain who William Gaston was?”
His brow furrowed as lines deepened into ridges, appearing to etch permanently on his face. “Not right then. She later said that he came to the house looking for Harry Malroney. She invited him in to wait.” He scoffed out a rude curse. “To wait? I suppose being out here in the middle of nowhere, my wife’s need for attention was rearing its head again. She said she was just showing him the view of the beach.”
He looked up in the mirror, staring at his reflection, but Aaron always wondered if the person being interviewed realized they were being watched.
Jon continued, “Looking back, I don’t think the man was even entertaining a seduction by Eileen. His body language was more rejection, but he had no way of knowing that would just make her more desperate.”
“So what did you do?”
Jon winced, his hands twisting together. “There were kayaks and small row boats at the rental house. We dragged the body to the dune and hid him underneath an overturned boat. Eileen grabbed a rake from the house and raked the blood from the beach.” His brow furrowed again. “Funny, but there wasn’t much.”
“Did you even check to see if he was dead?” Brad asked, his voice barely containing his anger.
Jon blinked as though the thought had never occurred to him.
Hunter shook his head in disgust. “Tell us about your wife’s family and how they became involved.”
A look of distaste filled his face. “I married beneath me. But I foolishly fell for the same need that she shows others. I thought I was her Prince Charming when, in reality, I was just one in a long line.”
Jon’s statement hung in the air, and Aaron leaned closer to the glass, wondering what was coming next.
“Her family comes from Baltimore. I didn’t meet her extended family until the wedding, and it was like serving expensive champagne to a group of people who’d only ever drank bargain wine. We never had much to do with them, but she kept in touch with a few of her cousins.” He heaved another sigh, then seemed to warm to the subject and continued.
“She called her cousin James, saying that he was a man who could make a problem go away. It took hours for him to get to us. We just sat and waited. And argued… more than we ever have before. When James arrived, Eileen told him the bare minimum of what happened. He said we needed to take the body out into the bay, weigh it down, and drop it into the water. He said by the time anybody discovered it, there would be little left of any evidence pointing to us.” Jon licked his lips, then took a sip from the water bottle provided.
The air rushed from Aaron’s lungs, hearing the confessions tumble from Jonathan’s mouth. “He’s giving it all up, isn’t he? And no one has mentioned a plea deal for him… he’s just giving it all up.”
“Maybe, if it’s like he said and his wife was calling the shots, he just wants to purge it all,” Colt said.
Nodding, he turned his focus back to the interview room.
“I must’ve gone into automatic mode,” Jon said. “James told us what to do, and I just followed. He searched the man’s pockets. By this time, it was dark, and we didn’t know the area, so we decided to go out at the first light of dawn. James had some rope and had taken a couple of large weights from the indoor gym of the rental. I didn’t want to go, but he said Eileen wouldn’t be strong enough. So he and I went out in the small boat and rowed south. We came to an area with huge breakers in the water that looked like a row of ships, and we went behind them to stay out of sight. The light was just coming over the trees on the dunes when we got the rope tied to the man’s ankle. We weren’t paying attention to where the boat was when we dumped the man overboard. Then suddenly, James looked up and started cursing. I started to look behind me, and he told me to be still. He said there was a woman on the beach taking pictures. We headed away from the breakers and made it back to the house. He jumped in his car and drove away. I had no idea what he was doing. I was just glad he was gone. But then, after a while, he returned, and I realized he was staying for a bit. After he told us that he had seen the woman get back into a car with a man. He followed as she dropped him off and then to an apartment that seemed to be above some shops. He and Eileen began planning how to get rid of the witness.”
“And what did you do during this?” Hunter asked.
“I went upstairs, took a shower, and crawled into bed. I knew that James was going to plan whatever he wanted to do, and I just wanted to forget it all. I figured he would slink back to Baltimore and leave us alone.”
“So you just wanted to forget that this man had a family waiting for him to come home? He had a wife and kids, and coworkers. His parents would want to know what was happening with their son. And you just went to bed while your wife and her cousin planned to do something to a young woman who wanted nothing more than to walk on the beach and take pictures. So you’re saying you didn’t care about any of that?” Brad growled.
Jon’s brow dipped as though trying to understand the question. Shaking his head slightly, he said, “I didn’t let myself think of that. I just wanted to get clean and sleep.” Then he looked up at them and shook his head. “What are the odds that the corpse would float back to us a day later? Not exactly on our doorstep, but close enough that we couldn’t ignore it.” Assuming an indignant expression, he said, “It’s like this god-forsaken place has it in for me! Seriously? What are the odds?”
“Well, if you knew that the tides flow northeast and that the body wasn’t taken far enough out, then you would have known that what you did was literally put Mr. Gaston’s body in the exact location to have it come right back to you,” Brad declared.
“And then what? You’re now party to everything James did. Attempted murder. Breaking and entering. Theft?—”
“I disavow anything they’re doing after that,” Jon rushed, his eyes wide.
While Aaron’s blood boiled, Hunter demanded more about Eileen. “You said they? You mean your wife also has something more she’s planning?”
“I’ve told you what I know. I just want to get back to Hercules and Aphrodite before it’s their feeding time.”
“Man, you’re not getting it,” Brad growled. “We need to bring your wife in, and you need to understand, Mr. Matherson, that you have no leg to stand on right now. You’ll be charged with these crimes, but our county prosecutor won’t even consider working with you if you're obstructing our investigation.”
“But who’ll take care of our dogs?” Jon’s voice rose with each word.
Hunter appeared to be losing the last of his composure, and Brad was not far behind. “They’ll be taken care of, so now I advise you to give us what we need.”
Jon turned that information around in his mind before he nodded. “Eileen kept trying to contact James today, but he didn’t return her call. She had already been working alone, saying James was stupid trying to do something with so many people around. She didn’t explain it to me until earlier today. I guess she’d planned on meeting up with the photographer, pretending she would hire her. My wife is vicious, Detective. She’ll do whatever she has to do. I think she’s going to poison her.”
Behind the mirror, Aaron grabbed the wooden frame, gasping. He jerked his head around and said, “Belinda said she was meeting with a woman—a potential client—today. They were meeting at the bakery!”