Chapter 21
“Can we just use the office there?” the cop asked.
Evan had seen that the cop’s nameplate said Kincaid. The Kincaid guy had another cop with him who was named Wester.
“Yeah, that’ll be fine,” Myles Patrick, the store manager, said.
The pair of cops walked Evan toward the office while Myles and another musclebound cop went to see what the security cameras had caught—which Evan knew would be nothing.
“Why don’t you just grab a seat there?” the cop named Kincaid said. “We’re going to have you fill out a statement sheet for us.”
“Can I take the chair behind the desk?” Evan asked. He wanted to have a view of the cops coming and going from the back of the store, and the other chairs would leave him with his back to the action.
The Kincaid guy gave Evan a questioning look. “Yeah, wherever you want to sit,” the cop said.
Evan rolled the office chair away from the desk and had a seat. He stared out of the office at two cops walking in as Kincaid set a piece of paper in front of him.
“Just write down what you told us about finding the body and then print and sign your name at the bottom.”
Evan didn’t respond. He was focused on a couple of cops talking by the back door, wondering what exactly they were saying.
“Sir,” one of the cops said.
Evan hadn’t been paying enough attention to know which guy it was. “Um, sorry. What am I supposed to write?”
“Just the same as what you told us about finding the body,” Wester said.
“From when you walked out back, called 911, and everything until we arrived on scene,” Officer Kincaid added.
Evan nodded. “Did you want this printed?”
“Printed?” Officer Kincaid asked. “What do you mean ‘printed’?”
“Or in cursive?” Evan asked.
Evan noticed the questioning look on both cops’ faces.
“Whatever you want. As long as we can read it,” the one named Wester said.
“I’ll do it in print,” Evan said. He picked up a pen that was on the desk, gave it a look, then put eyes on the cops. “Is blue ink okay?”
“It’s fine, man,” Officer Kincaid said. “Just write down what you told us.”
Evan nodded and started to put pen to paper.
“Kincaid!” Evan heard someone call out. He looked up from the three words he’d written down to see the cop who looked like he was in charge calling the Kincaid guy from the office.
Another guy in a suit stood with the cop who was in charge.
Evan recognized the guy immediately—it was the detective he’d seen at the storage facility.
The question would be whether the cop recognized him.
The cop named Kincaid left the office and joined the other two guys by the back door.
A smirk started to creep up on Evan’s face.
He quickly tried to hide it from the remaining cop in the room by covering his mouth with his hand and scratching his nose.
Evan could feel his heart beating faster.
This is what it’s all been for. Evan hadn’t planned to ever kill again, but when the feeling faded—the excitement, fear, intrigue, or whatever he’d felt after killing the first guy—he had to do something to get it back.
And the killing itself had been exceptionally easy.
Evan figured that if he left the body close enough to him that he could monitor the investigation, the feelings would last longer.
Calling in the body would also place him directly into the investigation.
The letter he left for the cops would, without a doubt, make sure that he remained front-page news.
The Kincaid guy split off from the detective and the other cop then walked toward the sales floor. The detective and the other cop walked to Evan in the office and entered the room a moment later.
“Wester, this is Lieutenant Nash Harrington with Homicide,” the one cop said.
The pair shook hands and said a few words as Evan watched.
“This is who found the deceased,” Wester said. “Evan…”
“Coker,” Evan said. “Evan Coker.” He held out his hand toward the lieutenant.
Evan’s request for a handshake seemed to have struck the lieutenant as odd by the look on his face and the time it took him to reciprocate, but he did, nonetheless.
As Evan shook the lieutenant’s hand, he looked him in the face to see whether the guy showed any signs of recognizing Evan, but Evan couldn’t tell.
The red-haired cop and the one named Wester left the room, leaving Evan with Lieutenant Harrington.
“You probably weren’t expecting this when you took the job here, eh?” the lieutenant asked.
“Huh?” Evan said.
“It says ‘trainee’ beneath your name.” Lieutenant Harrington pointed at his name badge.
Evan glanced down at the badge then looked back up at the lieutenant. “Oh yeah. No, I wasn’t expecting this.”
The lieutenant took a seat across from Evan and pulled a small notepad and pen from inside of his jacket. “Can I get your full name, address, and phone number?” the lieutenant asked.
Evan gave him the information.
“Got it,” the lieutenant said. “Can you take me through this quick?”
“Um, sure. Did you still want me to write down what happened?” Evan asked.
“Yeah, but after we’re done talking,” the lieutenant said.
“Okay.” Evan set the pen down and adjusted where it sat in relation to the paper. “Are you in charge?”
“I’m the one that will be leading up this investigation until we catch whoever did this,” he said.
“Okay. I just have told this three times to three different people already.”
Lieutenant Harrington nodded and put a leg up over his other knee, making himself a base for his notepad. “Yeah, that’s kind of how this goes. And you’ll probably have to tell your account again after you’re done with me. So how did you find the man in the back?”
“Well, I went out to have a smoke, and it was my last cigarette in the pack, so I went to toss the empty pack into the dumpster. When I walked over there, I saw feet. I figured it was a homeless person or something, so I went around the corner to tell the guy to beat it, and that’s when I saw, well, you know—a guy with a garbage bag taped over him.
I didn’t know if he was dead, so I ripped the bag over his face in case he was suffocating or something.
The guy didn’t move, so I stuck my hand in to check for a pulse, but as soon as I touched the guy, I yanked my hand back.
He was cold and just felt, I don’t know, I guess dead. ”
“So you touched the body?” the lieutenant asked.
“I checked to see if the guy was alive, yes,” Evan said. “And then I called the police. And then I came inside here and told Myles, the manager. Well, I told Dave, a warehouse worker first, because I passed him on my way to tell Myles. But then I told Myles.”
The cop was writing something in his notepad that Evan couldn’t see.
“So just to recap, you went out back to have a smoke. And upon going to toss out the empty pack of cigarettes, you saw the man who you thought was possibly homeless seated beside the dumpster.”
“Correct,” Evan interjected.
The cop lifted his eyes from the notepad, planted them on Evan, then looked back down.
“Right,” the lieutenant said. “So you saw the state the man was in and then ripped the bag open in the event that the man was suffocating. After doing that, you reached into the bag in an attempt to get a pulse but removed your hand when you made contact with the body and determined the man to be deceased.”
“I guess that sounds right,” Evan said. “Yeah.”
“Got it.” The lieutenant tapped the pen against the paper of his notepad. “Did you touch the envelope at all?”
“I don’t think so, but I’m not one hundred percent sure. I didn’t pick it up or pull it off the body or anything. I mean, maybe I brushed my hand against it while I was trying to help the guy.”
The cop waved away the response. “No problem. Real quick, Mr. Coker, what kind of cigarettes do you smoke?”
Evan was confused by the question but answered, “Kensington Menthol one hundreds.” Evan fished his hand into his pocket, pulled the pack out, and showed it to the cop. “Need to bum one or something?”
“Nah, I’m good,” the lieutenant said and stood. “Someone will be back in with you to get that statement when you’re finished.”
“Okay,” Evan said.
The lieutenant thanked Evan and left the office.
Evan watched him walk outside, probably to check the dumpster for an empty pack of smokes, which he would see immediately.
Evan had started smoking only a week or so earlier when creating his plan.
But he’d made sure others at the furniture store had seen him going out back to smoke so it would seem like a normal occurrence.
He’d also made sure he came to work that morning with an empty pack to toss into the dumpster and a fresh pack to smoke while he went out back to watch the cops work.
The rip in the garbage bag, as well as the story to go along with it, was crafted to account for any of his DNA or prints that might be found on the guy or the bag from transporting him.
Evan had worn gloves while binding the man with a fresh roll of tape, so he doubted anything would be found there.
And the fresh roll of tape was used then disposed of—there would be no matching of tape roll ends to a roll left lying around his house or car.
The camera attached to the back of the building had also been neutralized at Evan’s hand about a week before—he’d scaled the building at night, crossed the roof, leaned off the edge, and simply ripped out the wires.
Evan had all his bases covered. There would be nothing to tie him to anything.
Evan started back in on his written statement.
He smiled as he wrote. He’d thought of everything.