Chapter Twenty #4
“The GBI will be processing the evidence while you’re sitting in jail, dumbass.”
Jude backed into the hall, the shotgun resting on her shoulder.
Emmy shoved Bill toward the door.
“This is a cordoned-off crime scene. That’s illegal trespass and obstruction of justice. Plus, you assaulted a police officer, and this stupid bitch is gonna press charges.”
“You.” Bill was talking to Jude. “I can explain this.”
Jude shrugged, but she was looking at Emmy. “I’m happy to listen.”
“She’s crazy.” Bill locked his knees. “She’s framing me for murder. She thinks I hurt my wife.”
Jude asked, “Why would she think that?”
“I told you she’s nuts. Look at her!”
“Let’s go.” Emmy kicked the back of his leg.
Bill’s knees buckled. “You fucking bitch.”
“There he is.” Emmy pushed him down the hallway. “Big strong man who beats on women.”
“I’m gonna sue you.”
Emmy saw the stairs ahead of them. She wanted to push him to the bottom, let him know what it felt like to be vulnerable with no way of fighting back. “Mandy’s going to identify you, Bill. She saw your face.”
“She didn’t see shit. I was at my motel. I told you.”
“You were at the pawnshop selling Allison’s camera forty-five minutes after you murdered her.”
Bill’s head swiveled around so fast that his foot caught on one of the treads. Emmy wrenched him back up. She saw the strobe of police lights in the street. She pushed Bill out the front door. Julian came running, Glock drawn.
“Take him,” Emmy ordered, shoving Bill toward the deputy. “Put him in the back of your cruiser.”
“Yes, boss.”
Coach Bell was in her front yard. The neighbors had come out to see the spectacle.
Emmy turned around. Jude was on the front porch. She held a pillowcase in her hands. “This is what he was holding.”
Emmy looked inside the pillowcase. She saw Allison’s necklaces, some rings, a pair of diamond cufflinks she’d told Emmy had belonged to her grandfather.
“Emmy.”
“Don’t say it.”
She leaned down, pressing her hands to the tops of her legs.
She tried to hold on to the surge of excitement that had gotten her through the last five minutes.
The comedown happened anyway. Bill was right.
She didn’t have proof. Nothing had changed except he’d shown up at the crime scene to steal from the victim, and that would keep him in jail for two days before he bonded out.
Right now, they didn’t have anything that tied him to the shooting.
The forensics would take weeks to come back.
The DNA and blood analysis even longer. The only way to lock up Bill Garrison for the shooting right now was to get a confession.
Emmy unstrapped the Velcro on her vest as she walked toward Julian’s cruiser. She could see Bill in the back. He was staring at the bars between the front and back seats. Talking to himself. Shaking his head. He was rattled, but she didn’t know how long that would last.
“Julian, take this.” Emmy handed him her vest. Then she unbuckled her belt and gave him that, too. All Emmy kept was the key to her handcuffs. She opened the back door to his cruiser.
“What are you doing?” Julian asked. “You know what he did to Allison.”
“Let him try to do it with me.”
She got into the back seat and closed the door.
The lock clicked behind her. The door could only be opened from the outside.
She waved for Julian to step away. Then she sat back in the seat and stared at the dashboard.
Julian’s laptop was open, light shining back in her face.
She saw all the buttons and toggles. The flashing red light on the rear-view mirror.
Bill sniffed. “You gonna beat a handcuffed man?”
Emmy showed him the key. Motioned for him to turn around.
Bill groaned his relief when she released the cuffs. “You can’t question me without a lawyer.”
“If you’re invoking your right to an attorney, then I’m happy to get out of the car.”
“No.” He rubbed his wrists. “Emmy, we’re reasonable people. We can settle this on our own. I didn’t shoot anybody. I promise you.”
“Are you waiving your rights?”
He held up his hands in surrender. “Yes, Officer, I’m waiving my rights.”
Emmy wrapped her fingers around the handcuffs. “You were caught trespassing in a crime scene. You were stealing Allison’s jewelry. You tried to assault me.”
“Assault?” Bill asked. “Come on. I barely tapped you.”
“I’ve got a retired FBI agent who will testify otherwise.”
“Sometimes—” He stopped himself, then started again. “Sometimes, I can’t control my temper.”
“Can you control your temper around your mother?”
“What?”
“When you’re mad at your brothers, can you control your temper around them?”
“What a stupid question.”
Emmy stared at the flashing red light.
“Allison gets hysterical. There’s no controlling her. I told you we got into it at the motel. I gave her some time to cool down, then I drove over here. We made up. Had sex. Then I asked her if I could take her camera to pawn it, and she told me I could, so I left.”
He hadn’t yet realized that his lies didn’t work on someone who wasn’t afraid of him. “Tell me about Michael Allan Cooper.”
Bill was clearly thrown. “So what? Allison got us fake driver’s licenses. It was a joke.”
“I don’t get the punchline.”
“You had to be there.”
“I don’t have to be here.” Emmy knocked on the window for Julian.
“Wait,” Bill said. “Listen, we were going away together. Making a fresh start.”
Emmy waved Julian away again. She wasn’t sure if Bill had been included in Allison’s plans, but the more he kept talking, the more likely it was he’d make a mistake. “Keep going.”
“I borrowed some money from some people I shouldn’t have gotten messed up with.
The payout from Allison’s lawsuit against Clayville bought me some time, but then they started threatening Mandy.
I told Allison that we would leave town.
Start over somewhere else. I was trying to protect my family.
I love Mandy. I loved my wife. I would never put them in harm’s way. ”
Emmy didn’t know which lie to start with first. “Bill, I know about Shane Russell.”
He looked away.
“I know he’s Mandy’s father. I know Allison set Russell up to go to prison because that was the only way she could keep him out of Mandy’s life.
I know Russell served as a juror on the Evelyn Gilchrist trial back in 2002.
I know about Allison tipping off the FBI.
I know Reggie and the drug squad are dirty. And I know you’re a piece of shit.”
He wiped his mouth with his hand. “It was Allison’s idea.”
“I bet it was.”
“No, listen. What I said is true. I was desperate. I got ahead of myself, bit off more than I could chew. My family wouldn’t help me anymore.
These men—they’re bad men. They were going to hurt me.
And then Allison told me that Russell was going to get out of prison, and she was worried that he would try to contact Mandy.
I know you don’t want to believe this, but we were a family.
We loved each other. All of us. And for whatever the reasons were, we both had to get away, and we wanted to do it as a family. ”
That rhymed more with the truth. “Bill, you need to keep talking, because so far, you haven’t told me a damn thing I don’t already know.”
Bill gave her a wary look. He wasn’t sure whether to believe her, either. “Allison went to the FBI. She thought she could get witness protection for all of us. New identities. New lives.”
“She said my father was on a Giglio list.”
“No, she said Gerald and Reggie were on the list.” Bill wiped his mouth again. “Look, Jonah got busted buying fentanyl off a street dealer.”
Emmy couldn’t let herself think about how stupid Jonah was right now. “Keep going.”
“Gerald asked Reggie to make the arrest go away. Reggie got rid of the drugs before they could be sent to the lab. Allison asked him what happened and Reggie told her everything. She didn’t want to turn Gerald in to the feds, but she was desperate for a fresh start.
Your dad was about to retire. Everybody knew you were going to take over.
Gerald could’ve testified against Reggie, and that would’ve been that. ”
Emmy stared at the red light on the mirror. She was so damn grateful that Special Agent Reid Foley had already told her the truth about Reggie’s lies. “Did Allison really believe my father was a dirty cop, Bill? Or was that what Reggie told her?”
Bill’s eyes shifted toward Emmy. “Eventually, she figured out he was lying, but it didn’t matter anyway. Your father was dead by the time the FBI got off their asses and looked into it. They said no deal.”
“What did Allison do?”
“She worked her ass off to find the assholes more names, and the FBI still told her no deal. She was pissed off at first, then she was scared. Russell was already out of prison by then. Allison knew he’d eventually start sniffing around Mandy.
Meanwhile, my debt kept adding up. I just couldn’t catch a break. I kept losing.”
Emmy could hear the anger in his voice, as if he was a victim of his gambling habit and not a perpetrator of the suffering inside his family.
She asked, “What did Allison do with the files she put together on Reggie and the drug squad?”
“She gave them to me to take to work. She was afraid Reggie would find them in the house.” Bill looked down at his hands. “I thought she was being paranoid. I don’t remember where I left them.”
Emmy didn’t believe him. “That was her plan A. What was her plan B?”
Bill shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She gave him a stern look. He couldn’t even keep track of his own stories. “Why did Allison visit Shane Russell four times in prison?”