Archer #3
“You’ve treated your sister like crap your whole life.
So maybe she saw this as a chance to really do something good.
Something that would earn your approval.
” I look the fucker in the eyes and drive my words home.
“Maybe you killed Josey Ryan because she didn’t want you, and you figured you could deny, deny, deny your way out of this.
But Josey was street smart, so she kept a recording of the whole thing, just in case. ”
“Absolutely not!” Rhonda growls. For her daughter, she weeps. For her son, she bites. “He couldn’t have hurt her. He was at home with his dad.”
“Exactly. Yes!” Geoffrey booms. “He was with me. I know that for a damn fact.”
“The recording doesn’t lie. Josey knew guys like you rarely take no for an answer.”
“Okay, so I touched her leg that one time in my bedroom. But I didn’t…” He gulps. “She didn’t—” He puffs his cheeks wide. “I didn’t kill anybody. I swear.”
I throw the ball. Left hand. Right hand. “Either Tara killed Josey to protect you. Or you killed Josey and Tara is lying… to protect you.”
“I don’t know what she did! I can’t control my sister’s actions.” So fucking easily, the spineless fucker tosses his sister to the side. “I was at home with my dad when Josey died.”
“The murder weapon came out of your garage.”
“It was just a knife!” Rhonda growls. “Standard knife. Every home has those.”
“This one was very specific. It came with a bit of engine grease and dust on the blade. A few asbestos fibers, too.” Left hand. Right hand. I shake my head. “You really need to clean up after yourself, Geoff. Asbestos is no joke.”
“My husband and son were at home at the time Josey died.” Rhonda releases Tara’s hand and faces me head-on like the mama bear she is.
“They are each other’s alibis, and even if you don’t like it, that alibi is valid and exists.
My daughter was at the mall with her friends.
Get a warrant for the store’s cameras, and you’ll see she’s where she said she was. ”
“She said she was with Josey. She literally confessed.”
“She lied, obviously!”
“I told you this was dumb,” Drake snorts. “Can’t sweep a minor into an interview room, have her confess to some shit when she didn’t have all the answers, and expect it to stick.”
Furious, I swing around and snarl, “I didn’t go searching for her, asshole. She came to us. She admitted to the crime, and she’s old enough to be tried in an adult court.”
“You have blurry images of a person driving Josey’s car. You see a hand and the top of a hat. Any decent lawyer will fuck you up the day this goes to trial.”
“I have hair inside a hat.”
“She could’ve borrowed her brother’s hat anytime!”
Scott scoffs. “I wouldn’t have let her if she asked.”
“I have a phone, and soon, I’ll have text messages attached to a warrant.”
“Teenagers know about disappearing messages, stupid. If she wanted to be sneaky, she’d know how to do it without texts being on record.”
“Her father hit on Josey, too!”
Rhonda releases a horrified gasp and spins on her husband. “You, what?”
Oop. Guess she didn’t know about that one.
“She was a child, Geoffrey!”
“She was an adult,” he barks back. “And it doesn’t matter anyway. I know I didn’t hurt that girl.” He brings smug eyes back to me. “You’re throwing spaghetti at the wall, Detective Malone. But keep going. It’s all on record, and it’ll help me in court when I sue your ass.”
“I’m not going down with this lawsuit,” Drake sneers. “I don’t do witch hunts. You’re on your own.”
“It’s not a fucking witch hunt.” I throw the bouncy ball until it slaps his chest and drops into his hand. “It’s doing our actual jobs. Maybe you could try it sometime.”
He pegs it straight back until I feel the slap in the center of my palm.
“Okay then, dipshit. You have circumstantial, at best: a hat, a pair of coveralls, and a grainy picture. How do you propose she got her ass back to town after she dumped Josey and the car?”
“Well… uh…” Stumped, I frown. “She’s run track her whole life. She has the stamina for it.”
“That’s five miles. You’re saying she did all that, didn’t get a single drop of blood on her, dug a hole and buried the evidence, jogged back to town—in August, by the way, so she would’ve been sweaty as hell—and made it back in time for her mom to collect her from the mall and drive her home?”
“Her mom didn’t drive her home! Are you even paying attention?”
“My friends drove me home,” Tara murmurs shakily.
I toss my bouncy ball straight across the table and watch with bubbling pride as the girl catches it with her right hand.
She lobs it back, so I throw it one last time.
Rhonda catches it. With her left hand.
“The knife came with a left-handed grip, Detective Banks. The ironing board is weird because it has a left-handed release.”
Horrified, Rhonda drops the ball and stares at it bouncing listlessly across the room.
“The medical examiner’s office said the killer cut Josey’s throat from behind, left-hand dominant, and sliced right to left.”
Wide-eyed, Scott studies his mom in shock.
“And just so we’re all on the same page, Tara didn’t confess to murder, Mrs. Prim. She confessed to lying during our initial meeting. She told us you drove her to the mall, and when she was done shopping, you apparently drove her home again. But today, she confessed only half of that was true.”
Fat tears well up in Rhonda’s eyes.
“You called her, didn’t you? While she was at the mall. You said she had to get a ride home with her friends, because you were busy running your errands and needed a little extra time.”
“No, I—”
“You asked her to lie for you, and because she wanted just one damn time for someone in her family to tell her she’s worthy, she’s important, she thought there was no harm in this small lie.
But after Detective Banks and I left your house, I guess she started second-guessing the favor she’d done for you.
She checked your text messages, Rhonda, and then she took a photo of your call log…
ya know, the one clearly showing the call you made to Josey at six-thirty-seven p.m. on the night she died.
Also, something you might not be aware of, since folks twenty and up aren’t always hip with the tech, but when Scott called you that night and asked you to bring chips home from the grocery store, cell towers pinged and slapped a tidy little dot in a map for us.
We know where you were, when you were there, and how long you stayed. A judge will like that.”
“No,” she whimpers. “It’s not—”
“You heard Josey and Scott talking in his bedroom that time. I reckon you considered her a threat after that. To Scott’s reputation. To his scholarship. To the life of fame and fortune you knew was coming his way.”
“So you silenced her.” Bending low, Drake sweeps up my ball and tosses it from hand to hand.
“It really is a shame, ya know? Because we know you’re an abused housewife who deserved better than the man you married and the ungrateful son you birthed.
Even Josey could see it, and she cared enough to talk to her mom about it. She wished for freedom for you both.”
Trembling, the woman merely slumps forward and weeps.
“You could’ve been braver,” I press on. “You could’ve gotten yourself and your daughter out of that abusive home. Instead, you stayed, and then you killed a girl to protect your abusers. To protect a reputation Josey never would’ve fucked with anyway, because she abhorred conflict.”
My phone dings with an incoming text, proving my wife has perfect timing. Always.
Taking it out and quickly scanning the results on my screen, I nod, because I fuckin’ knew it, but then I shake my head, because I really wished I was wrong.