Chapter 7
SEVEN
Seth had to admit, the guy looked like he was right where he belonged.
In the light of the interrogation room, Dillon Beamish’s face had a deathlike pallor. Agitated, he sat across from Seth and rattled in his handcuffs. A necessary precaution, considering Dillon had attempted to assault every officer who’d tried to move him.
It’d been over ten hours since he was brought in now, though, and after what must’ve been a restless night in a holding cell, he’d burned himself out. Even still, his rage simmered, oil in a hot pan with each glare sent Seth’s way.
With his briefcase spread open in front of him, Seth tapped his pen on the notebook nestled inside it, next to the face-down photographs he hoped to show Dillon during the interrogation.
“Do you understand why we brought you in, Dillon?”
Dillon, once again, was quiet. He hadn’t said a word from the moment Seth walked in. The violent, wrathful Dillon Beamish had become silent, scornful.
In control, until he loses it.
“We wanted to talk, but then you assaulted the officers who came to your house. And you haven’t been playing nice inside, either. We can hold you for those charges alone.”
Dillon shot him a fiery glare, his nostrils flared. The scrappy facial hair along his jawline twitched, like it was taking everything in him to keep his mouth shut. But he hadn’t asked for a lawyer yet either. That was the good news.
Now, Seth just had to get him talking.
“I’m trying to figure that out,” he went on.
“When I went to your house yesterday, you weren’t thrilled to see me, but I ended up recording a good conversation between us.
You cooperated, answered my questions… so why’d you assault Officer Morgan when he and Officer Jacobson went to talk to you later? Did something change?”
“Yeah, something changed,” Dillon spat. “Two chuckleheads woke me up in the middle of the night and tried to get me in their car, saying something about a dead chick I know nothing about.”
“That’s right, there was a homicide last night. Your girlfriend, Claire, found the body. We had her at the station and thought you might want to come down and talk about what happened, then take her home.”
Dillon sniffed and shifted around in his seat. “They didn’t make that clear to me.”
Officer Morgan’s bodycam footage said otherwise.
Dillon was much calmer now, though, and Seth needed to build rapport. He could handle the risk.
“That’s rough. Sorry that happened to you, man.” He dug a handcuff key from his pocket and jangled it. “Are you gonna hit me if I uncuff you?”
Grumbling, Dillon shook his head. Seth cautiously moved behind him and uncuffed him, releasing his arms. He shook them out and began massaging his own wrists as Seth retook his spot in the chair across from him.
“You sure you don’t need anything? Water, a sandwich?”
“No. I just want out of here.”
“Okay, no problem, man. I just need you to answer a few questions, then we can sort this whole thing out. Can you do that for me?”
Once more, Dillon sniffed and shuffled in his seat. He crossed his arms. “Yeah, sure, whatever.”
“Great.” Seth took out a printed-off record of Kelsey Campbell’s message history, then placed it on the table. Dillon’s username was at the top. “Is this your username, Dillon?”
He leaned in “Yeah, what is this?”
“Screenshots taken from Kelsey Campbell’s cell phone.”
“Kelsey.” Dillon’s brows stitched so tightly together, they became one. While in custody, he hadn’t been informed of Kelsey’s death, and Seth tried to measure any deceit on his face—anything to suggest he already knew. “What’s she got to do with this? Why are you looking through her phone?”
“Do you know her?”
“I mean, yeah. We went to high school together.”
“Are you friends? Acquaintances?”
Dillon stared at him. “If you’ve got her phone, then you already know. What’s this all about?” He shuffled around again. “You didn’t tell Claire or her family, did you?”
“Dillon, Kelsey Campbell was murdered last night. You were the last person to speak with her.”
Shock crossed Dillon’s face, followed by disbelief. He had the audacity to smirk. “Bullshit.” But it quickly fell off. “Wait. Really?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Whoa. Whoa, okay, I was at home sleeping. I was like, Snapchatting her before I went to bed. I never met up with her. Can’t you like, see the messages?”
“We’ll be able to get them. I’m giving you a chance to tell the truth upfront, which’ll look a lot better for you later.”
Dillon sank in the seat, reminding Seth of an angry little boy. “I told you the truth. Never met up with her and never planned to. We were talking dirty or whatever.”
“Can you be more specific?”
He said nothing. So, it was going to be like that.
Seth took the paper back, then tossed three other images on the table one-by-one. “Eliza Johnson, Kelsey Campell, and Claire Dyer.”
Dillon trembled, his breathing growing more intense as he took in the images.
“Can you tell me, in your own words, what these three women have in common?”
“Common? I dunno. They’re all girls? They—they’ve got the same, like, hair. I guess they look alike.”
“You can see the problem I’m having here. We’ve got three girls. They all look alike. One of them is your girlfriend, and the other two were murdered. Both victims have been linked to you. How are things with Claire going right now, anyway?”
“I dunno. She’s been my girlfriend forever, so we’re obviously working out.”
“Six years, right? And you live together too. Tell me about that.”
Dillon’s throat visibly tightened. Seth could see it now, clear as day—talking about Claire got under his skin.
“I told you, we’re fine. Not much else to say. The Kelsey stuff wasn’t serious. It was like… having fun.”
“For sure, I get that. Good-looking guy like you, why should you stick to one girl, right?”
“I mean, I dunno, me and Claire aren’t really like that anymore. We live together, but we don’t… I don’t really see her that way anymore.”
Claire’s words from last night slipped back into his mind. “Most days, I think he hates me.”
“It’s hard to stay attracted when someone gets on your nerves, right?
” Seth leaned his elbows on the table and lowered his voice, like this moment was just between them.
“Relationships are hard. I mean, I get it, man. I used to date this girl for years, like you and Claire. All throughout high school. Once you get past that honeymoon phase, things get rough. You know what I mean—the nitpicking, the nagging. My girl knew how to cut deep.”
Dillon didn’t take the bait, but Seth noticed the twitch in his nostril, the way his eyes drifted down and to the left, like he was reliving his own version of the bullshit Seth was giving him.
And it wasn’t all bullshit—he did date a girl for years once, and she did cut deep—but murdering her or someone who looked like her never crossed his mind because he wasn’t a psychopath. But he knew how to think like one.
“I get it, Dillon. Really, I do. Sometimes, you wish you could just… make them shut up, stop telling you how to live your life. You work hard to pay for your home—who’s she to complain about a few messes from a party?
But that Ron Dyer is a big guy. I wouldn’t wanna get caught laying a hand on his daughter—”
“Shut up, you sick fuck,” Dillon snapped. “I never hit Claire.”
“Never said you did.” He tapped the photo of Kelsey. “Kelsey, though. Like you said, she looks like Claire. You got the looks without all the drama. Did you go to Kelsey when Claire annoyed you? I’d get it. It’s not a crime to have a type.”
“I did not kill Kelsey. I never even touched her.” He crammed his palms into his eye sockets. When he lowered them, he had the facade of a man about to break. “The only thing I ever did with Kelsey was fool around and send pics. We never did anything in person—it was all online.”
Seth leaned back in his chair, grateful he could drop the act—and that he was getting somewhere. “You sure about that? Someone in your trailer park saw you with another woman.”
“Fine, we banged like, three times, but that was it, I swear.”
“Got it. What drew you to Kelsey? As you said yourself, she looks like Claire. Did you like that about her?”
“No, she’s different in like, other ways. Kelsey has better like… features.” Dillon’s cheeks dotted with red, like he was embarrassed. “Look. I like girls with tits. Does that make me a murderer? What, I deserve jail for liking what every sane guy likes?”
Seth found himself at a loss for words. If this was Dillon’s way of misdirecting the conversation, he got points for creativity. He felt vaguely stupid as he jotted those words verbatim in his notebook.
“Okay, so you liked Kelsey because of her… features. Got it. What about Eliza Johnson? Let’s not waste time with the memory loss bit, I know it’s bullshit.”
“Yeah, okay, I knew her when we were kids.”
“It didn’t end there though, did it?” Seth took out the photo of Eliza’s tattoo and dropped it on the table. Dillon’s breath hitched. “These are your initials, Dillon. Did you keep seeing Eliza?”
“No, man, I hadn’t talked to her in years. We dated in high school, but no one knew about it, okay? We kept it a secret.”
“Why?”
“Why’s it matter? We just did, okay?”
“It matters to me. Why was it a secret?”
“I—I guess I didn’t think she was good enough for me. She came from a trash background, no money, sick mom. I broke up with her to be with Claire. We still talked for a few years after that, but then she started getting hard into drugs and turned into a junkie whore, and I was done with her.”
Junkie whore. Very nice. What did Claire Dyer see in this guy?
Despite his words, Dillon’s hard exterior cracked. His brown eyes were wide and pleading. “Man, you’ve gotta believe me—I didn’t do this.”
Seth paused, taken aback. Not only by Dillon’s sudden brevity, but for the sensation that washed over him—the sensation that he might be telling the truth. It had all unspooled like yarn from his lips, answers that explained every theory, answers that made sense.
No, everything pointed to Dillon. It had to be him.
Except the murder weapon wasn’t found at Dillon’s house.
The refills for the boxcutters he had might not be a match—still waiting on the lab for that one.
The timeline was admittedly tight; Dillon would’ve had to leave the trailer right after Claire, kidnap Kelsey, kill her, carve words into her, and dump her on the street, all within an hour.
It was possible. But the thorniest issue of all: the vehicle used to transport the bodies still hadn’t been found.
“I want to believe you, Dillon, but I’m having a hard time.
” Seth removed a photo of the dime bag and slid it toward Dillon, then watched his face.
Something flickered across his harsh features—fear, maybe—but it was quick to fade, and Seth nearly missed it.
But it’d been confirmed by forensics this morning; Kelsey, like Eliza, had one of these in her pocket when she died. “Tell me where this came from.”
“I’ve never seen that.”
“It was in your car. It got in there somehow. Your girlfriend didn’t describe you as a drug user, but we know black tar heroin has been making its way around Fairview in dime bags exactly like this one.
Both Eliza and Kelsey had one in the pocket of their jeans when they died.
” He tapped the photo again. “Who was the heroin for, Dillon?”
“I don’t know, man. Someone must’ve left it there, one of my boys maybe, I dunno.”
“What ‘boys’? Are you friends with known users, and are you willing to identify them?”
“No! I mean, to the first part—my boys don’t do that, but maybe they like, had something on them.”
Seth leaned back in his chair and crossed his hands behind his head. “I have to say, you’re not convincing me.”
Just then, the door to the interrogation room opened, and Chief Wells poked her head in, apathy on her face. “Winslow. A word?”