Chapter Twenty-One
Emmy watched Coach Bell go back into her house as the last cruiser pulled down the street.
Telephones would soon start ringing across North Falls.
They would all probably be elated that Bill Garrison had finally been arrested.
Emmy wished she could feel the same way.
She hadn’t gotten a confession. She hadn’t extricated any new leads.
It was hard to say she was back at the beginning, but other than confirming that a lot of her suspicions were right, there was nothing else to do but continue the hunt for Shane Russell.
Jude was leaning against Emmy’s cruiser. Her lips pursed in that way she did when she had something to say.
Emmy didn’t need to hear it. She dropped her duty vest in the front seat. “Bill admitted to everything but the shooting.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I don’t know.” The admission took something out of Emmy. Her brain had been working the puzzle with Bill in the back of Julian’s ride, but nothing had started clicking together. “He didn’t know about the money in the attic or he would’ve taken it.”
“The plastic bin isn’t small, and it’s heavy.
When the police are outside the door, you have to make quick decisions.
” Jude shrugged. “There’s a lot of things that could still break your way.
You’re waiting on DNA, blood and fingerprint analysis.
The family devices will be unlocked. And Mandy’s memory should come back eventually. ”
Emmy buckled her belt, adjusted her holster. “Are you really trying to talk me out of this?”
Jude shrugged, but she clearly thought Bill wasn’t the right fit, either.
“Russell’s got a long record. He has a documented history of violence. He’s been in and out of prison. Allison screwed him over. She didn’t tell him Mitch gave up the CD and the money. She didn’t tell Bill, either. What do you think?”
Jude’s hesitation had returned. She crossed her arms. She wasn’t just pulling away physically. She was pulling away emotionally, too. It was like basking in the warmth of the sun one moment, then falling into shade the next.
“Walk the scene with me.” Emmy tried to keep the desperation out of her voice. She couldn’t hear Jude say she was leaving again. “Let’s call Sherry and see if anything’s come back from the lab.”
Emmy went into the house before Jude had a chance to create an excuse.
It’s not like she could leave on her own anyway.
They’d driven here in Emmy’s cruiser. Taybee’s Mercedes was back at the nursing home.
She started turning on the lights. Walked down the hallway toward the kitchen.
She dialed Sherry’s number, put her on speakerphone.
“Emmy,” Sherry said. “I was about to call you.”
“I’m at Allison’s house with my sister.”
“Great. We analyzed the doorbell camera footage. There’s the sound of glass breaking on the fourth gunshot. It’s changed our thinking a bit on what happened upstairs.”
Emmy looked for Jude. She was hanging back in the foyer. Almost the embodiment of one foot out the door.
“Hold on,” Emmy said. “We’re gonna go upstairs.”
Emmy walked to the foyer. Gestured for Jude to go ahead of her.
The hesitation didn’t seem to go away so much as get stifled.
They both went up the stairs. The hallway had a coppery smell of blood.
Emmy hung back so Jude would go into Allison’s bedroom ahead of her.
She felt like a damn stalker, but whatever was going on inside her body was telling her that she needed her sister.
Sherry asked, “You in the room?”
“Yeah.” Emmy looked around.
Only a fine sheen of white powder remained of the busted ceiling.
The Sheetrock had been taken back to the lab so they could reassemble it.
The section of bloody handprints that had clawed at the window had been sawed off and taken away.
A piece of plywood covered the broken glass on the left window.
The pool of Mandy’s blood that Emmy had stepped in had been cut away from the carpet and taken to the lab.
Sherry explained, “We think the fourth bullet furrowed through Mandy’s skull, broke the window, then went into the backyard. We’ll need to get the metal detectors out there tomorrow.”
Emmy blinked, and she saw it play out. The gun firing. Mandy dropping to the floor. The window shattering. Meanwhile, out in the street, Emmy, Jude and Cole were about to pull up to the front of the house.
Sherry said, “We found the fourth bullet casing in the debris we brought back. That puts the shooter in the bedroom. He would’ve been standing close. We know that Mandy reached for the gun as it was being fired. I found a significant amount of gunshot residue on her sleeves.”
Emmy forgot about Jude. She put all of her attention on Sherry. “Mandy’s surgeon told me he saw tattooing around the head wound.”
“Poor baby. She must’ve been terrified,” Sherry said.
“We don’t have DNA back yet, but we caught a break with the blood types.
Allison’s O-positive. Mandy’s type B. The medical examiner says Allison’s clothes were moved after the chest wound, so we know Mandy checked on her.
We’ve got Mandy’s footprints in Allison’s blood downstairs in the kitchen.
She saw her mama, Emmy. I hope she got to say goodbye. ”
Emmy looked at the missing section of windowsill. “What about the bloody handprints on the windowsill?”
“That’s Allison’s blood. Mandy must’ve tried to get out through the window. It was painted shut. Then she turned around and that was it. Russell caught up with her.”
Jude was staring at the windowsill, too.
Emmy asked Sherry, “Do you know what the shooter did after Mandy was shot?”
“It’s all speculation from there. He must’ve run to the front of the house when he heard your cruiser pull up. Saw he was surrounded. That’s when Mandy disappeared into the attic. We found Allison’s blood on the access panel.”
“Not Mandy’s blood, too?”
“No, but we’ll find it in DNA. I’m sure it’s there.”
Emmy walked into the closet. The access panel was gone. She only saw the dark of the attic. “What about the fifth bullet? Did you trace that back?”
“We still haven’t found the fifth casing, but we know the bullet was fired at a severe downward trajectory and lodged itself in Mandy’s bedroom wall.”
Emmy went to the doorway, looked into Mandy’s bedroom. “How severe an angle?”
“He probably fired blind around the door, held the gun up over his head, pointed the muzzle down. Your sister’s lucky he didn’t kill her.”
“What’s your theory on the missing fifth bullet casing?”
“We’re assuming it ejected into his clothing. Hoodie, shirt collar, cuff of his pants. Those casings can end up in weird places. We’ll search the woods when we’re back tomorrow.”
“The bullets,” Emmy said. “They’re all the same?”
“Yeah, the medical examiner dug out the slug in Allison’s chest. It matches the others. Speer Gold Dot 124 grain.”
“Okay.” Emmy turned around to look at Jude. “Thank you.” She slipped the phone into her pocket. She wanted to speak, but she found herself unable to articulate her thoughts.
Jude asked, “What’s bothering you?”
“Everything.”
The bloody handprints on the windowsill. The broken glass. The glove dropped on the roof. Emmy’s gut had told her that the scene had been staged because the scene had been staged.
Jude said, “Talk it out.”
Emmy looked up at the gaping hole in the ceiling. Then she looked across the hall. “Cult of the case.”
“Tell me.”
“You start with a theory, and you mold the investigation around it. Everybody amplifies that theory instead of questioning the inconsistencies. Other suspects get dismissed. The theory becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
“It’s just us, Emmy. Say what you’re really thinking.”
Emmy shook her head, because there was no way what she was thinking could be true.
Mandy had told Talia Wilkinson that she didn’t know what she would do if Allison took Bill back. Skylar Guthrie had said that with Bill gone, Mandy could finally sleep through the night. Both girls had painted Mandy as desperate, traumatized, feeling helpless and scared.
Emmy said, “There has to be another explanation.”
“Tell me what it is.”
Emmy reached into her pocket. Pulled out her last nitrile glove.
She seldom wore them in pairs. Like most cops, she always kept at least one on her body.
In her vest. In her pants. Allison had kept hers in her purse.
Emmy’s were blue because she liked the color.
Allison’s had always been black because they were cheaper.
Jude said, “Emmy?”
She dropped the glove.
Emmy went into the closet, climbed the shoe cubby like a ladder, pulled herself into the attic.
The hole where Mandy fell through the ceiling felt larger from the darkness above.
Light from Allison’s bedroom bounced up into the rafters.
Still, Emmy used the flashlight on her phone so that she wouldn’t fall between the joists the same way Mandy had.
She couldn’t stand up straight because of the low pitch of the roof.
She hunched over, straddling the joists, carefully navigating her way toward the hole that Mandy’s body had made.
Fiberglass floated into Emmy’s nose and mouth.
She coughed, bracing herself against the rafters so she didn’t lose her balance.
She looked down at the bedroom below. Jude was looking up, her expression grim. She was standing near the bed under which Allison’s Glock had skidded. Close to the spot where Mandy’s left shoe had skittered across the floor when the girl had come crashing through the ceiling.