CHAPTER SEVENTEEN #2
“I wasn’t being violent,” Anthony insisted.
“They said I was, but I wasn’t. I was just standing on stage and speaking.
They were violent when they dragged me off the stage.
I didn’t fight back. I just refused to leave when they told me I had to.
” His face hardened. “People always do that. It’s okay for them to beat us, arrest us, drag us away, and throw us out of buildings and into the backs of cars, but God forbid we fight back or ruin a silk suit or two. ”
“Did you fight back?”
“No!”
“So, you protested at a conference, they got you kicked out, and then what?” Faith asked.
“Then nothing. That was it.”
“Well, not nothing,” Jessica reminded him. “You posted that hit list on social media.”
“It wasn’t a hit list.”
“Three of the victims are dead. The top three names. In order. I’m not trying to be a bitch, but that kind of sounds like a hit list.”
“It wasn’t. It was just a post. I just wanted to… stir things up a little.”
He shrunk a little when he said that. His eyes suggested that she was realizing the immaturity of his behavior for possibly the first time in his life. Better late than never, Faith supposed.
Except it was too late now. “You succeeded,” Faith told him. “Someone took that post very seriously. Someone is working their way down a list of names that you posted online and dispensing their own judgment. I’m wondering if it might be you.”
“It’s not me,” Anthony insisted. “I never intended to actually hurt anyone. I figured the worst that would happen is people might show up and throw rocks through the window.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you,” Anthony said, lifting his hands and letting them drop. He had waffled right back to anger. He definitely had a quick temper.
“You can tell us where you were last night,” Jessica replied. “And yesterday morning and the night before that. Those seem like good places to start.”
Anthony paled again. “I was organizing protests.”
“Really? You don’t seem confident about that.”
“I was,” Anthony insisted.
“Where?”
“Here. In my home.”
“Was anyone else here?”
He lifted his chin. “Yeah, I had people here helping me.”
“And the attendees will vouch for you?”
Anthony’s eyes shifted to the left again. “They should.”
Faith nodded. “Anthony, I’ve made a very nice career out of catching people when they lie to me. I’ve made that career even nicer by making sure that people who lie to me suffer the greatest possible legal consequences for both those lies and their actions.”
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you,” Anthony replied. “I didn’t kill them.”
“Give us some names,” Faith insisted. “Who knows? Maybe they’ll corroborate your story.”
Anthony thought for a moment, then said, “You can call Weaver. He was here overnight. Not like that, but… he’s a good friend.”
Faith couldn’t care less about Anthony’s sexual history, but he was interested in what Weaver had to say about their whereabouts. He wasn’t a perfect witness for the purpose of an alibi, but maybe they could crack holes in his story and get more information that way. “What’s his number?”
Anthony gave it, and Jessica started dialing. Anthony flinched. “Wait, what? You’re calling him now?”
“Yep.” Jessica put the phone to her ear.
“No, I…” Anthony looked up, tapped his foot, then swore, a loud, rough, “Fuck!” that caused Turk to flinch. He snarled at him, upset at being made to react like that.
“Ah, hello Pizza Parlor,” Jessica said drily. “Sorry about that. Wrong number.”
She hung up and gave Anthony a cold look. “You want to try again?”
“I want a lawyer,” Anthony said softly. “I’m not answering any more questions.”
Faith and Jessica looked at each other. They hadn’t gotten the confession they wanted, but they had proven that Anthony was hiding something from them.
They didn’t have enough probable cause to make an arrest, though. Anthony definitely sat atop their suspect list, but they didn’t quite have enough to justify taking him in.
“Sounds good.” Faith pulled her notebook out. “Would you be willing to sign a statement to that effect?”
“What?”
“Would you be willing to sign a statement that you don’t want to answer any more questions until you have a lawyer?”
“What? No! Fuck you! I just need to say lawyer, and the conversation is over. I’m not signing shit.”
Faith looked around, but nothing with Anthony’s handwriting jumped to view. Damn it. They should ask for handwriting samples at the beginning from now on.
“Okay,” she said, putting her notebook back. We’ll be in touch. “I strongly suggest not trying to leave town. Needless to say, that would be very suspicious, and we would absolutely put your name, face, and alleged crimes out there for everyone to see.”
“I just want a lawyer,” Anthony said. “I didn’t kill anyone, and I want to prove that. But you guys have already made up your mind, so I don’t want to deal with you anymore. Law. Yer.”
“Okay,” Faith said, lifting her hands. “We’re done for now. If we decide to make an arrest, you’ll know about it. We can assign you an attorney at that time.”
“Fuck that, I’ll call my own.”
“That’s fine too.”
The three agents left the house. Faith frowned at the sun, which had dipped noticeably lower since their arrival.
“Think we can get a warrant?” Jessica asked.
“I’m not sure,” Faith said. “It would be easier if we had even the slightest bit of physical evidence to connect him to the crime, but Turk didn’t pick up on anything.”
“It’s got to be him, though, right?” Jessica said. “I could practically hear his knees knocking.”
Faith folded her arms across her chest and stood next to the car. Turk stood next to her, looking up at her face.
“You don’t think it’s him?” Jessica said, a slight disappointment in her tone.
“He looks good,” Faith replied. “And Turk was suspicious. And he lied about his alibi. And refusing to provide a handwriting sample could mean he knows about the notes, which I don’t believe have been released to the media yet.”
“But?”
Faith sighed. “But… he seemed very embarrassed when he said he wasn’t actually planning on killing them.”
Jessica frowned. “Okay?”
“If he actually planned on killing them and actually followed through, I would expect fear. I definitely wouldn’t expect him to be reluctant to admit that he was full of crap when he posted that.
I would expect him to be falling all over himself to convince me that he was full of crap, or that someone else had posted it.
Instead, he seemed more upset about the fact that we called him out on his hypocrisy about his eco-activism. ”
“Why does that mean he didn’t kill them?”
“It doesn’t necessarily mean that. It was just an odd reaction from a murderer but a reaction that makes a lot of sense if he didn’t kill them and is afraid that the world is going to find out he’s a fraud.
He doesn’t want to go to jail, but he also doesn’t want to be exposed for being fake.
That’s why he was trying to justify his expensive tastes and insist that he really did care about the environment. ”
“That doesn’t mean he’s not a murderer,” Jessica said.
“I know. Call Hansen and give them this info. We’ll try to get a warrant. I don’t know if it’ll work, but we’ll try it. In the meantime, you and I should look up this conference and figure out what happened there. I’m sure the truth differs a little from Anthony’s story.”
Jessica glared at the house behind them, but she didn’t protest Faith’s decision. She sighed and said, “All right. I’ll give him a call. But let’s not go back to Plano. Let’s grab dinner at the mall and do our research there so we’re close in case the warrant goes through.”
“Fine by me,” Faith said.
The three of them got into their vehicle and drove to the mall. As Faith watched the house recede behind her, she couldn’t shake the feeling that whether Anthony Pierce was a murderer or not, that interview would turn out to be the key piece of the puzzle they were trying to solve.
And if their killer was waiting only for the end of business hours to get his next victim alone, they had only a few hours left to solve it.