CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Ella lowered the temperature in the interrogation room to the coldest setting to ensure that the man on the other side of the table was uncomfortable enough to spill every last detail.
Discomfort was a great motivator, Ella knew, and it reminded the suspect that they were no longer in control of their environment.
This as-yet-nameless suspect had so far said nothing; they’d made the whole journey back in complete silence, which was always for the best considering police could only submit taped testimonies into evidence.
Abrupt confessions in the heat of the moment were sometimes inadmissible.
She sat down, switched on the voice recorder, and gave the date and time. Ripley sat beside her.
‘Name?’ Ella asked.
The suspect, still chained, leaned forward with both elbows on the table. ‘Todd Williams.’
‘Well, Mr. Williams, would you mind explaining what you were doing at the St Augustine Church therapy group?’
‘Yes,’ Todd spat. ‘I’m a journalist. I work for the Sentinel. I swear it.’
Ripley sniffed and said, ‘The Sentinel ain’t no newspaper I ever heard of.’
‘We’re small but real, I assure you. I can show you everything. My credentials are in my wallet, and my n…’
Ella raised one eyebrow. ‘Your what? Go on.’
Todd sat back and glanced around the room, as though searching for an exit that didn’t exist. ‘My notes,’ he said. ‘They’re on my phone.’
Ella maintained a firm stare. She mentally sifted through his layers while searching for the subtle tells that spoke louder than any word ever could. ‘Your notes on what?’
Todd shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He tried to scratch the back of his neck but his chains wouldn’t let him. ‘Look, I thought I’d hit the jackpot, alright?’
‘You’re gonna need to start making sense, Mr. Williams,’ Ripley said.
‘Okay, so I joined the support group two weeks ago. I’m writing a hit piece on group therapy, Alcoholics Anonymous-type things, you know? Places that lure you in and then give you the Jesus spiel.’
Not out of the realm of possibility, Ella thought, but she wasn’t going to ignore the obvious red flags yet. ‘Right, and?’
‘I had to lie my way in. I told the others I had a fear of crowds, so it gave me a reason to keep my distance. I hadn’t even begun writing and – boom – one of the members is on the news, dead. It was almost too perfect.’
Ella side-eyed her partner, his expression mirroring Ella’s thoughts. She wished she’d have punched this guy when she had the chance. ‘Perfect, huh?’ she said.
‘Sorry, not perfect, but you know what I mean. A day later, another one of our members shows up dead? It was a gift from the journalism gods.’
Ripley unlocked his arms and moved closer. ‘You think this is funny?’
Todd’s hands twitched as he leaned back from his interrogators. ‘No, I don’t mean it like that. As a journalist, I thought this was a story that needed telling. Two members of a phobia group winding up dead? I couldn’t sit on this one. I had to investigate.’
Ella processed the details, weighing up the probable against the potential lies.
Looking his wiry figure up and down, she couldn’t be sure if this man was a desperate vulture or a good actor.
Her instincts told her the former, but she needed to be sure.
‘So, you took it upon yourself to investigate these deaths? Without informing the police?’
‘I know, I know it sounds bad. But as a journalist, you look for stories, for truths that others might miss. The deaths of Julia and Thomas, they didn't sit right with me. The group, the therapy... there was something more there. I knew it.’
‘Believe us, we know,’ said Ripley. ‘But it seems too much of a coincidence that a new person joins this group and then two members get killed.’
Ella stayed quiet. You couldn’t learn anything by talking, she always told herself. Todd’s story, while plausible in the world of journalism, was laced with convenient coincidences that she couldn't overlook.
‘On my mother’s grave,’ Todd said. He patted himself down. ‘Look at me. Do I look like a killer?’
‘You look like something,’ Ripley said.
‘I know it looks bad, but I’m just a writer.’
Ella put herself in the killer’s shoes. She tried a different approach. ‘Pretty weird, isn’t it? Those puncture wounds in Julia’s ribs.’
‘I don’t know anything about their deaths. I just know that they were killed.’
The frustration gnawed at Ella’s core. As far as she knew, the details of the victims’ deaths hadn’t been released to the public.
Only the killer would know the finer details, and such a killer wouldn’t be able to resist correcting police on the details of his murders.
She tapped her fingers on the table while she searched for her next angle.
‘The past two nights,’ she said. ‘Where were you?’
‘I have a solid alibi,’ he said.
‘Go on.’
‘Two nights ago, I was working late at the Sentinel office.
We're running on a skeleton crew, so I often work late hours. My editor, Marianne, was there with me. She left around midnight, but I stayed until nearly three in the morning. Security logs at the building can confirm that, and so can Marianne.’
Ripley scribbled something on her notepad. ‘And last night?’
Todd clenched his teeth. ‘I was at home. Alone.’
‘No one to verify that?’
‘No.’
‘So you don’t have a solid alibi.’
‘Look, I know how it sounds. But I'm telling you, I had nothing to do with those deaths. I was just chasing a story.’
‘A story that conveniently placed you at the center of a double homicide. And why’d you run from my partner here?’
‘You think I’m stupid? Like I said, I know how it looks, and I know how quick the cops are to pin murders on innocent people.’
‘Good excuse.’
Ella raised her hand slightly, signaling Ripley to ease off.
If Todd had an alibi for one of the nights of the murder, that was a starting point.
If he had no alibi for the second night, she’d have to confirm his innocence another way.
Until now, she’d been on the fence about Todd’s guilt, but now, studying his feeble profile and his crippling nerves, she doubted the man in front of her could have pulled off two violent, premeditated homicides.
Todd was a scavenger picking at the bones of a story that he could sensationalize.
He might have been a shark, but he wasn’t a predator.
‘Here's the deal, Todd,’ Ella began. ‘You claim to be a journalist chasing a big story.
I'll overlook the fact that you ran from me – which, let's be honest, wasn't your brightest moment.
But in return, I want to see your notes.
Every single thing you've gathered about the group, the victims, everything.
If you're as innocent as you claim, those notes will help us find who's really responsible.’
‘My notes? They’re for my story, not for the police.’
‘It’s that or five years in jail for obstruction of justice. Not to mention assaulting a police officer. Take your pick.’
The journalist’s posture slumped. He glanced between his interrogators like a deer in the headlights. ‘You don’t understand. Those notes could be my break. If you take them…’
‘And if your notes helped catch a killer?’
Ella could see the wheels in motion now. ‘But what if-’
‘Todd, use your goddamn brain,’ Ripley snapped.
‘Fine. I’ll hand them over. But I want them back when you’re done.’
‘Nothing to hide, nothing to fear,’ Ella said. ‘We’ll be keeping you here until we’ve checked everything out.’
She was out of the room, back into the warm air of the precinct corridor. Ripley followed, closing the interrogation room door behind her.
‘Thoughts?’ Ripley asked.
‘Not our guy,’ Ella said.
‘Agreed. That guy couldn’t do a push-up, let alone manhandle two people.’
‘Let’s get his phone back from evidence. We need to scour that thing.’
Todd Williams might not have been their unsub, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be useful.