Chapter 19
John hesitated for a moment. “You got a warrant?”
“If that’s the way you want to play it, we’ll get one,” I said. “Shouldn’t be too hard.”
The fact that he wouldn’t take his gloves off told me there was a high probability he had scuff marks on his knuckles from punching Liam in the face.
“I want to talk to a lawyer.”
“You’re not under arrest,” I said. “But the evidence is starting to stack up.”
John said nothing as panic filled his eyes.
He wasn’t under arrest. We didn’t have to stop questioning him. He was under no obligation to answer. But everybody thinks they can talk their way out of trouble.
“Let’s go through this again,” I said. “You confronted Liam earlier in the day. You left, then shut off your phone before you came back. That looks like premeditation any way you slice it.”
“The battery died.”
“I think you punched him a few times, then grabbed his racket and beat him to death with it.” I tried to sound sympathetic. “I totally understand. Hell, I probably would have done the same thing. A guy like that sticking it to my wife and my daughter. That’s gotta sting.”
Rage boiled on his face. “That guy was a scumbag, and he deserved what he got.”
“I bet you enjoyed killing him.”
John glared at me. “I didn’t kill anybody.”
He stood from the bench and marched away.
“We’ll talk again soon,” I taunted.
John headed back to the locker room.
I pulled a pair of nitrile gloves from my pocket, snapped them on, and picked up the water bottle he left behind. It was fair game.
We returned to the station and logged the bottle as evidence.
I called Brenda and told her about the sample.
“I was able to pull trace DNA from Liam’s teeth,” she said. “Somebody punched him in the face before they started with the racket.”
“Let me know when you get the results from that bottle back.”
“Will do.”
We left and headed back to the Avventura and grabbed lunch at Diver Down.
In the afternoon, we hit band practice. The guys rocked out another session.
We ended up on Oyster Avenue for a few drinks.
Red November was packed with delicious beauties in tight cocktail dresses and spiky shoes.
The submarine-themed bar was running a drink special on the Torpedo Twist. It was one of their signature cocktails—aged rum, pineapple juice, a splash of lime, a dash of bitters, and a helluva hangover if you had too many.
We were having a good time, and the crew had rounded up a nice entourage of interested groupies.
My phone buzzed around 11:00 PM with a call from Zoe. In a panicked breath, she exclaimed, “He killed her!”
“What!?” I shouted over the noise in the club.
“He killed her!” Zoe shouted again.
I told her to hang on and stepped outside onto the sidewalk where I could hear. Lights from signage bathed the boulevard. Revelers listed up and down the sidewalks, staggering from bar to bar.
“Who killed whom?” I asked, knowing what she was going to say.
“That guy killed his wife.”
“Richard Pearson?”
“Yes. He strangled her.”
“You saw this?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you now?”
“I’m at the house next door.”
“Alright, I’ll be there in a minute. Do not confront Mr. Pearson. Do not go over there.”
“Please get here soon. I’m freaking out.”
“I noticed.”
I ended the call, slipped my phone into my pocket, and dashed back inside to tell JD. I weaved through the crowd and found him by the bar, holding court, regaling several young beauties with tall tales.
I gave him the scoop.
“You think she actually witnessed a murder?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m going to run over there, talk to her, and see what’s what.”
Jack didn’t look thrilled about leaving the lovely ladies, but duty called.
We excused ourselves, left the bar, and hustled back to the Wild Fury van. We hurried to Stingray Bay, and I parked the van in front of the vacant McMansion.
Zoe’s crystal blue compact SUV was parked out front.
The house was dark.
There were a few lights on in the Pearson residence next door.
JD and I walked up the driveway of the listing to the back patio. It was empty.
“Zoe?” I called out.
She emerged from the shadows behind the garage, looking frazzled. Her hands trembled. “Thank God you’re here.”
“What are you doing here?”
“What does that matter?”
“Where did this take place?”
“In the bedroom upstairs.”
I looked from the back patio to the terrace of the Pearsons. You couldn’t really see inside from this angle.
Zoe‘s camera bag, and the drone, were on the ground near the pool.
“I’ve got footage. I can show you.” She grabbed her drone from the ground, pulled out the flash card, then snatched a laptop from her backpack.
She set it on top of a patio table by the pool, flipped open the lid, and inserted the card into the slot.
Zoe pulled the footage into Final Cut Pro. It was editing software on the Mac.
After she imported the footage, we huddled around the screen as she replayed it. Confusion and anger tensed her face. There was nothing but blocky digital noise in red, green, and blue. “I don’t understand.”
She ejected the card and tried re-importing the footage, but it had the same result. The footage was corrupted.
Zoe looked at us with panicked eyes. “I swear, I know what I saw. He strangled her. I had it all right here.”
A frustrated sigh escaped my mouth.
“You’ve got to believe me.”