Chapter 47
Under the condition of full immunity, Julie agreed to be a prosecution witness. At this point, it was her best option. I don't think she much cared for Sean anyway, and throwing him under the bus was an obvious choice for her.
"Sean had a massive crush on Riley,” Julie said. “It got to be a problem. She had come to me on numerous occasions to discuss how uncomfortable she was around Sean. He constantly made unwanted advances, or so she claimed.”
"Did you ever see those unwanted advances?” I asked as we sat across from her in the interrogation room.
"Yes, I saw him being inappropriate, saying inappropriate things, and making her uncomfortable.”
"Were you aware of your husband's affair with Riley?”
Julie frowned. "Yes. Although I was unaware of it the night she died. It was only after the fact that Richard revealed the truth to me."
"Tell me what happened the night in question.”
Julie took a deep breath. "As I told you before, I came home from having drinks with a friend.
Richard was in a panic. Apparently, he had gone out for a jog.
Riley had come to the house to see him. Sean answered the door and told her Richard was upstairs in his bedroom.
He followed her up there. She refused his advances.
Sean forced himself on her, then strangled her.
" She paused. "Richard came home and tried to deal with the situation. Then I came home. Then you two showed up at the door. We all panicked.”
"So you came to the door and told us a story,” I said.
"I didn't know what else to do!"
She had immunity for the murder. She didn’t have immunity for the embezzlement. The SEC would do a full investigation.
This wasn’t Sean’s first rodeo. He knew the drill, and he knew to shut up. He asked for a lawyer the moment we stepped into the interrogation room.
His juvenile record wouldn’t be admissible, but I was pretty sure he wasn’t getting out of this one.
We left the station and headed back to the Avventura. I called Zoe. “You’ll be happy to know, Sean Pearson is behind bars.”
“I told you I wasn’t crazy.” Then she admitted, “I just had the wrong Pearson.”
“Tell me more about the incident in Pineapple Bay.”
Zoe hesitated. “The accident or the other murder I witnessed?”
“The murder.”
She took a deep breath. “I got hired to shoot pre-production location stills for a movie. I have an NDA, so I can’t name the director.
Anyway, he wanted me to photograph streets, stores, back alleys, etc.
Pre-visualization for where the movie was going to take place.
I think they used some of the stills to build sets.
I was taking pictures in a parking garage at night because you have to have a parking garage chase scene, right?
That’s when I saw Officer Howell murder a woman in his squad car.
I know it sounds crazy. But I saw him strangle her.
I took pictures. He saw me. As you can imagine, he wasn’t pleased.
I got the hell out of there. He chased me.
I managed to get back to my car and get out of the garage, but I got boxed in and pulled over by his buddies a few blocks later.
They searched the car, took my camera, and miraculously found an eight-ball of coke in my car.
I was arrested and thrown in jail. Nobody would listen to my story.
I sounded like a crazy person. After I got out, I reported it to IA, but nothing happened.
Except the harassment and intimidation got worse. A few weeks later, I had the accident.”
“I’m sorry you went through that.”
“Yeah, me too,” she said in a deflated voice. “Onward and upward, right? At least Sean Pearson is behind bars.”
“I’m going to look into this,” I said.
“What difference does it make now?”
“Because Howell has a history of misconduct. Nothing ever happens to him. This wasn’t an isolated incident. He’s going to keep getting away with it if something doesn’t change.”
“What are you going to do?”