Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I was standing next to Ethan in an observation room.
Jake and Devon, the two crime scene investigators who had worked with us on Ashley and Samantha’s dump sites, were to my left.
Captain Anderson was standing on Ethan’s right.
She was slightly removed from our huddle as we watched Detective Radcliff sit with his back to the viewing window, slightly off center, across from Tyler Mercer.
Three weeks ago on a Sunday while Rainy had gone to pick up Lucas, I’d called Radcliff with the anonymous tip I’d received about Mercer being connected to the bars and the exes.
It had taken Radcliff and his partner Sanderson a few days to get the warrants and another week after that before they had the financials in hand.
Most of the time the wheels of justice don’t grind, they crawl.
Josh had been hauled in for questioning.
He didn’t recognize Mercer and swore he’d never met or even seen him.
No bartender or waitress could place them together.
Radcliff couldn’t interview Tate Hendrix because he was dead, but the detective did go to Dutch Courage and show the bar staff pictures of Hendrix and Mercer.
They were recognized individually but had not been seen together.
On a long shot, Radcliff made the decision to bring Mercer in for questioning.
He knew he didn’t have enough evidence to make an arrest, and no prosecutor would touch this case with the slim circumstantial evidence he had on Mercer.
Even if the evidence had to do with a police officer being shot. They’d need more.
For the record, I would’ve hauled him in and tried to break him in interrogation.
“Thanks for coming in and helping me clear this mess up,” Radcliff started.
Mercer’s eyes went to Sanderson standing in the corner, leaning against the wall. He was mostly in shadow, making him look more imposing than he already was.
The two men made a good team. Elias Radcliff was five-foot-eleven. Average build, handsome but bland, with a head full of salt-and-pepper hair that made him look five years older than he was.
Jim Sanderson was six-two, bald, built, and looked like he’d rip you in half and eat your heart out for breakfast.
They didn’t play good cop, bad cop.
It was more like friendly, happy-go-lucky cop and enforcer.
Until Radcliff tripped you up. Then he turned into a snake and coiled around you until he squeezed the life out of you.
“Yeah, no problem. You said there was a problem with my credit card. Identity theft or something?” Mercer asked.
“See, that’s the problem. I don’t know if it’s theft. Have you ever been to the Bluebird?”
“Yeah, sure, I’ve been there.”
“Can you recall the last time you were there?”
“I don’t know, a while, more than a month I’d say.”
Radcliff nodded and opened the file on the table.
I knew it would have a bunch of handwritten notes scribbled on pieces of loose-leaf paper.
Though on one of those pieces of paper, he’d have the victims’ name written.
That was where Sanderson would come in. He’d alert Radcliff to any change in body language while he was rummaging through his papers, not paying attention to Mercer.
“About a month ago?” Radcliff asked as he shifted through the papers.
“Yeah. About that.”
“Okay. Good. What about…” More shuffling. “Dutch Courage? Have you ever heard of that place?”
“The bar on Elma and General?”
Radcliff looked back down at his fake notes. Tyler looked at them as well.
“Did you see it?” I asked.
“He’s got a tell,” Ethan muttered. “Radcliff’s gonna chew his ass up.”
“Yeah, that’s the place,” Radcliff confirmed. “Have you ever been there?”
“I mean, yeah, I’ve been there, but I couldn’t tell you how long ago.”
Sanderson whistled. Tyler’s gaze shot back to the corner and he sat up straighter.
That quickly, he’d forgotten there was another man in the room.
Idiot.
But then again, the people who were smart enough to get away with a crime were the ones smart enough not to commit it in the first place.
Radcliff went on like he hadn’t heard the whistle.
“So would you say like three months, six, or last week?”
“I can’t really remember.”
“Can you just guess for me?” Radcliff pushed.
“If I had to guess, I’d say maybe six.”
“Something’s got him spooked,” Captain Anderson muttered. “He’s scared and it’s not because he’s afraid he’s been caught.”
Radcliff leaned back in his chair and shook his head.
“Then I’ve got bad news for you, Mr. Mercer. Someone’s stolen your credit card. Or wait, do you have a wife or girlfriend that has permission to use it?”
“No. No one.”
“He’s lying,” Ethan noted.
“Well, darn, sir, you need to report your card as stolen.”
“Okay. Yeah. I’ll do that. Thanks for letting me know.”
“That’s my job,” Radcliff said with a slight hint of a southern drawl. “One more thing so I can wrap this up and put it to bed. Is there any reason you’d be in the Oak Crest neighborhood? Friends or family who live on Peacock—”
“I did it,” Mercer blurted out. “I killed those girls. It was me. I did it.”
“Bullshit,” I muttered.
“Girls?” Radcliff asked. “What girls?”
Mercer shifted in his chair. “The girls. I killed them. And the cop, too. I killed the cop.”
“Obviously, the idiot doesn’t watch the news if he thinks he killed you.” Jake chuckled.
Radcliff reared back. “You killed a cop? When was this? Where? Male? Female?”
“Like a month ago or a little longer, in the woods behind Bryant Common Park. I shot him.”
“Now that I believe,” Anderson sighed. “He’s protecting someone.”
“Why in the world would you kill a cop?” Radcliff asked in a disbelieving tone.
Tyler leaned forward, put both of his hands on the table, and very calmly said, “Because he almost caught me. I shouldn’t’ve been there, but I wanted to see who was gonna find her.
The jogger with the dog found her. The man pulled her out of the pond.
I should’ve left then but I wanted to watch.
That’s the best part. The guy at the sand mill threw up after he found his treat. ”
“Fact,” Devon mumbled.
“He puked and puked and puked. But see, I had to wait to get rid of her, so she was already falling apart.”
“Fact,” Devon mumbled again.
“Are you telling me you’re confessing to the murders of Ashley Monroe and Samantha Williams and the attempted murder of a Hollow Point Police Officer?”
“He’s not dead?”
“No, you clipped him in the shoulder.”
“Well fuck, I thought I killed him,” Mercer grumbled like he was disappointed.
“Motherfucker,” Ethan growled.
And that was why Ethan could be nowhere near this case. He couldn’t be any more objective than I could.
“Sorry, pal, he got stitched up and released. Let’s go back to the women. How’d you kill them?”
“I strangled them.”
“How’d you get Samantha Williams to the sawmill?”
“Sand mill,” Mercer corrected. “There’s a dirt access road off Rogers Pasture. It winds through the woods. Almost where it ends there’s another dirt road that leads right to the back pond.”
“Fact,” Devon confirmed. “That’s exactly where we found fresh tire tracks.”
“You strangled these women to death?” Radcliff huffed.
“Yes. Both of them.”
“Why?”
Mercer shrugged his shoulders and leaned back.
“I wanted to.”
“So, you, what? Drove around and just picked two random women to kill?”
“Yep.”
“You’d never had contact with either of these women before?”
“Nope.”
Radcliff pushed his chair back from the table and looked over his shoulder at the one-way mirror. The detective couldn’t see that Tyler’s gaze had followed. Radcliff shook his head. Mercer’s eyes went wide and he suddenly looked terrified.
Radcliff slowly turned back around but didn’t push his chair back in.
“You have a problem, Mr. Mercer. I don’t believe you killed those women.”
“I did! I’m confessing. I killed them and shot the cop.”
“Oh, I know you shot the cop. I’ve got you in the neighborhood.
I’ve got video of you ditching your hoodie and I’ve got you on traffic cameras from Oak Crest straight to your house.
” Radcliff started drumming his fingers on the table.
“But I don’t have the gun. Do you have it, Tyler?
Maybe if you give me the gun, I’ll believe you killed those girls. ”
“Damn, he’s good,” Ethan noted.
“Sure. I have the gun. I’ll go home right now and get it for you.”
“Go home? I can’t just let a murderer walk out of the station and roam around town.
” Radcliff pointed to the corner. “That’s what he’s for.
All I need you to do is sign a permission slip allowing my partner to enter your home and he’ll go get the gun.
Then we’ll talk more about you killing those women. ”
Mercer violently shook his head. “No. No way. I don’t want anyone going into my house. I’ll get it.”
“Why don’t you want my partner in your house? You got another dead girl stashed there? Maybe an alive one tied up? Now, see, that would make me believe you killed Bridget and Fonda. If you had another dead woman in your closet.”
“I killed them.”
“The moron isn’t even smart enough to remember their names,” I sighed.
“Maybe now’s the time for you to call an attorney,” Radcliff suggested.
“I don’t want an attorney,” Mercer shouted. “I fucking killed them. Strangled them and dumped them.”
I checked my watch and nodded toward the door. It was nearing five-forty-five, and I was officially off duty forty-five minutes ago
And Radcliff could be at this another five hours—as interesting as it was watching him work, I wanted to get home to my family.
“We’re out of here, Cap. See you tomorrow.”
“Yeah, have a good night,” she distractedly bid.
Ethan waited until we were at our desks before he blew out a breath. “That was fucked-up.”
“Yep. Only good thing out of that is he admitted to shooting me. I’m sure Sanderson already sent the email from his corner to get the warrant. The gun will be there. But the question is, what else will they find.”
“Won’t be a body. He dumped the bodies, but whoever he’s protecting did the killing.”
“Agreed. Gotta get home and help unpack boxes.”
“The Great Slow Jason Turner, going home to unpack the girlfriend and her kid. I think you broke a land speed record for the fastest courtship in history.” Ethan chuckled.
“Says the man whose wife was his live-in babysitter before she was his wife.”
“Fair. See ya tomorrow, Jase.”
“See ya, E.”
If only I would’ve known my whole world was going to implode, I never would’ve stood in that interrogation after my shift ended.
I never would’ve stood around listening to a lunatic admit to murders he didn’t commit.
I would’ve gone straight home.
And if I had, I never would’ve lost the woman I’d waited sixteen years for.