Archer #2
“You have a right to hit pause on all this and bring a lawyer in,” Drake adds calmly. Almost robotically. “In fact, it might be best for us all if you did exactly that.”
“Innocent people do not need lawyers. They tell the truth, and then they get their faces on the news when the mayor himself apologizes.” Geoffrey’s fiery eyes span the room and burn me where I stand.
“You think I didn’t look you up, Detective Malone?
Does living up the hill in that fancy house make you think you’re better than us? ”
“Sure is gonna be awkward living next door to the mayor when he’s out there on the six o’clock news talking shit about you,” Scott taunts. “I won’t need a scholarship after this. You’ll fund my entire college education. Probably my future son’s college education, too.”
“Can we save the personal jabs, please?” I dig my hands into my pockets and bring both out again. One, to check my phone and the results Minka hasn’t sent yet, and the other, to hold the bouncy ball I kinda wanna stuff down Scott Prim’s future son’s smug throat.
Slipping my phone back into my pocket, I breathe a tired sigh and toss the ball from hand to hand. “This is my job, and I’d really like to do it without fielding personal attacks, too.”
“You shoulda thought of that before you dragged my daughter into the police station and violated her legal rights! She didn’t hurt anybody, least of all an overpaid high schooler who wasn’t worth the money we gave her every week.”
“We were the reason she and her mom could even pay their rent,” Scott gloats. “Did you know that?”
No you weren’t, you snot-nosed sack of shit.
“It’s tragic she died,” Geoffrey adds. “Young, pretty girls like that deserve better. But this had nothing to do with Tara. Did you even look at her boyfriend?”
“Josey’s boyfriend?”
“Yeah. Statistics prove this was probably her boyfriend.”
“Word around school was that she was a frigid bitch.” Scott smirks. “Statistics also say that girls from single-parent homes almost always repeat cycles and hook up with trailer trash dudes. Why isn’t he in here being questioned? It’s like you’re not even trying.”
“Well.. He has been questioned,” Drake inserts carefully. “We spoke to him before we spoke to you.”
“And?” Geoffrey demands. “Why isn’t he in cuffs?”
“Because people are not guilty until we can prove it.” I back up and rest against the mirror.
Crossing my ankles, I settle in, since this shit is gonna take a while.
We’ve got two hours to kill. “We need physical proof someone was at the scene of the crime. A murder weapon. A witness. DNA samples, if we’re lucky. ”
“Or a confession,” Drake adds. “We have none of those things from her boyfriend.”
“You can’t possibly have any of those things from Tara either!” Scott snarls. “She’s too fuckin’ weak to kill someone. She’s too stupid. She wasn’t anywhere near Josey when she died.”
“But we have a confession.” Softening his expression, Drake drops his eyes and studies the silent, weeping girl slumped in her chair. “A confession is a big deal in our world.”
“A confession under duress is not a confession at all,” Rhonda murmurs. She takes Tara’s hand and looks hesitantly from me to Drake. “A confession from a scared, confused, grieving girl won’t stand up in court.”
“She told us about the knife,” I insert. “And how she walked from the mall to the movie theater while you were running errands.”
“No! She didn’t—” Pale-faced, she stares at her daughter. “That’s not true.”
“She told us how she texted Josey and asked her to meet up. And since Josey was a sweet girl, she agreed.”
“Impossible,” Geoffrey growls.
“We’ve made an application for phone records,” Drake adds. “We’re just waiting for a judge to sign off, then we’ll prove those texts exist.”
“Tara took Josey’s phone after she killed her. She thought that would be enough to cover up those last communications.”
“That’s so dumb!” Scott barks. “Everyone knows that’s not how it works. If you want disappearing messages, you’d use Snap or something. My sister’s a social fucking retard, but even she knows this.”
Horrified, Rhonda looks to her son. “What?”
“We know Josey’s killer wore coveralls,” Drake continues. “Because slicing a person’s throat makes a huge mess.”
“And we know she took those coveralls from your garage.”
“You’re insane!” Geoffrey booms. “You can’t possibly prove any of this.”
“You had an asbestos problem late last year, right? It was just a small section of the exterior wall.”
“So?”
“You called around for a couple of quotes to have the professionals deal with it, but they wanted four hundred bucks just to collect a trash bag. You’d already done all the work; there was no way you were paying four hundred bucks for any damn thing.”
His face burns red with anger. He repeats, “So?”
“So you swung by the hardware store and bought a pair of coveralls. Gloves. Tape. Safety glasses. All that sorta stuff. It was thirty bucks and twenty minutes of your time.”
“How does any of this connect to what happened to that girl?” he blusters. “Are you fucking stupid?”
In my peripherals, Drake drops his gaze to his shoes and snickers.
Prick.
“It connects, because she knew cutting Josey’s throat would be messy as hell. To combat that, she grabbed supplies from your garage and organized a fake catch-up so she could take care of business, while you,” I meet Rhonda’s eyes, “were busy running errands.”
“No.” Fat tears plop onto her cheeks. “None of this is true.”
“Sniffer dogs found the bag she buried after she dumped Josey’s car,” I press. “It took them a while, since that bag was buried deep and a long way from the road.”
Rhonda’s hands shake.
“We sent it to the lab right away,” Drake adds. “The coveralls. The gloves. Even Josey’s phone was there.”
“It was pretty smashed up. Maybe she thought destroying the phone would destroy proof of the texts, but it doesn’t quite work that way.”
“There was a hat in that bag, too. Actually,” Drake takes out his phone and taps at the screen for a moment.
Scrolling. Searching. Finding what he needs, he turns the device and shows the family a social media photo of Scott Prim after a football game.
His hair is sweaty, his face is red, and that same hat sits plopped on his head. “This one right here.”
“Don’t even fuckin’ try to pin this on me! I lost that hat.”
“No,” I rumble. “You didn’t lose it. It was stolen.”
He shoots a furious glare at his sister.
“I doubt it was malicious,” I continue. “She needed something to wear while she drove Josey’s car through the city, and I noticed a whole rack of hats by the front door when we stopped by. I bet she just grabbed one on the fly and didn’t even really think about who owned it.”
“You have a girlfriend, don’t you, Scott?” Drake locks his phone and slips it back into his pocket. “These women shed hair so fuckin’ much, it’s insane.”
“Yeah, but—”
“My girlfriend?” He chuckles. “I love her to bits, kid, but I swear to God, I have to unclog the shower drain at least once a week.”
“We found hair inside the hat,” I tell them solemnly. “Long strands that can’t possibly be yours, so we knew right away they belonged to our killer.”
“That doesn’t mean she—” Rhonda frantically shakes her head. “That doesn’t mean Tara hurt Josey!”
“The hair’s with the lab right now. We’ll know who it belongs to soon enough.”
“But she’s his sister! She could’ve borrowed his hat anytime.”
Scott scoffs. “Not fuckin’ likely. She doesn’t borrow my things unless she wants a pop in her ugly fuckin’ face.”
Heartbroken, Tara only drops her swollen eyes to the table and cries.
Charming little fuck.
“So that means we have the murder weapon.” I toss the ball from my left hand to my right.
“And the coveralls and gloves. They had a powdery layer in some spots too, so I bet we’ll find asbestos on those.
” I toss the ball again. “Legally, you should’ve disposed of those with the sheets of asbestos, Mr. Prim.
Asbestos fibers are not safe to keep lying around the home. Not even in the garage.”
You cheap sack of shit.
“We also have Josey’s phone.” I toss the ball again. “We’re waiting on the warrant for records to follow.”
“You might have a murder weapon, but if Josey’s killer wore gloves, then you can’t prove who used it.
” Geoffrey ticks his point off with a raised finger.
“Those hats are available at Walmart, so it could just be a coincidence. And even if it turns out to be Scott’s hat and Tara’s hair in it, that’s okay too, because Josey was inside my home every single week.
She and my son were romantic at one point. ”
Stunned, Scott’s eyes flare wide.
The kid should try poker sometime.
“Girls borrow their boyfriend’s clothes and things all the time.”
“Scott and Josey were romantic?” Drake presses. “Boyfriend and girlfriend?”
“Casual,” Geoffrey insists. “Are you really so stupid to think they were studying in his room?”
“Wait, Dad. No—”
“We heard your son accosted Josey in his bedroom that one time.” I study Scott’s horrified expression. “You grabbed her leg, and she said she wasn’t interested.”
“No! That’s not—”
“So perhaps we should revisit that thing about romantic partners killing women. The statistics grow exponentially worse when a woman rejects a man, don’t they?”
No! I didn’t hurt that bitch. Whoever told you that is lying.”
“So, the secret recording she made of the entire interaction was fabricated?”
Surprised, Drake’s eyes swing across to me.
Yeah, cops sometimes lie to do the job. So fuckin’ what?
“Maybe Tara confessed to protect you?” I ponder. “Your hat was found with the murder weapon. The coveralls were large enough to fit your dad… and you and your dad are about the same size.”
“I didn’t hurt her!”