Chapter 18
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Outside in his vehicle, Doreen looked at Mack and said, “We need to go to Devon’s house.”
He nodded. “I’m waiting to hear back on the ownership of the property, but I do have the address.” He looked at the animals and asked, “Are they up for another trip?”
“If it’s a different place, absolutely,” she replied, with a chuckle. “They’re always up for any kind of excitement coming their way, but the minute the excitement is over? They’re yawning and looking for something different.”
He grinned. “Just like kids, they’re only good for ten minutes, and then they want to be entertained in a different way.”
“That makes a lot of sense,” she noted, with a smile. She looked over at the animals, and they were sitting there, waiting for the adults in the car to decide what to do. She added, “Let’s just go. They’ll be fine.”
And, with that, Mack quickly headed in the direction of the address he’d been given.
Doreen snorted. “Why would she be paying for a room at Rosemoor if she has the house?” she muttered.
“Because the house probably isn’t hers. Now, whether she was using it to strong-arm Devon into compliance, I don’t know, or maybe it is something else altogether.”
“Maybe,” she muttered. “I would sure hate to think she was involved in her grandson’s murder.”
“I would too,” he agreed, “so let’s not go there yet.”
“No, and the fact that she’s now been drugged,” she pointed out, “just adds to the confusion.”
“It could also be an attempt to throw us off.”
She looked at him in surprise and then nodded slowly. “I guess we don’t really know anything yet, do we?”
“Wow,” he muttered, a bright grin on his face. “I didn’t expect to hear that from you.”
She groaned. “You’re not going to hear it very often, so get your jollies now because I intend to change that very quickly.”
He burst out laughing and nodded. “That sounds more like it.”
She smiled, and, as they headed around the block, nearing Devon’s house, she noticed an old truck sitting off to one side, a guy leaning against the bed, texting somebody. She pointed. “Doesn’t that look suspicious to you?”
Mack glanced over at the guy and shrugged. “Not necessarily. I’ve been in that position myself many times.”
“Sure,” she conceded, “but he’s leaning up against a vehicle parked right outside of the house we’re about to go see.”
“And you think that’s suspicious?” he asked her.
She shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe.”
He didn’t say anything. However, when they pulled up and parked, the guy looked up, startled, then glanced around and frowned. He quickly finished on his phone and hopped into the truck and drove off.
She added, “Now that looks very suspicious to me.”
Instead of parking, Mark immediately pulled back out onto the road and behind the truck that had taken off so quickly. And, sure enough, as soon as the driver realized they were following him, he went into crazy defensive moves, as if trying to shake him off.
“Okay, now I’m suspicious too,” Mack declared, as he quickly parried every change the guy made, trying to get Mack off his tail.
Doreen asked, “He really thinks that he’s getting out of this, doesn’t he?”
“He’s hoping to,” Mack muttered, “but I’ll do my darndest to make sure he doesn’t.”
It took about twenty minutes before the guy pulled into the large parking lot of a mall, parked, and ran toward one of the entrances to the mall.
Mack was already on the phone, and it didn’t take long before security came out of nowhere and stopped the runner, just as he was about to enter the mall and then disappear into the crowd.
The man immediately threw a fit, punching and kicking to avoid being captured. But Mack moved like a flash, handling the flailing man like a pro, and had him in handcuffs in no time.
“What the …” the man roared. “What is this? This is police brutality.”
“Really?” Mack asked, laughing. “How do you figure that?”
“You followed me,” he roared. “You had no right to do that.”
“Oh, that’s interesting. So, as long as you think I have a right to arrest you, you’re okay with it? But when you decide I’m violating these mysterious rights, then I’m the one in the wrong?”
The guy looked momentarily confused at that. With the animals in tow and much more interested now, she made her way over to where Mack restrained the suspect.
He was still yammering away with a constant barrage of police brutality accusations.
She stared at him and declared, “Honestly, Detective Moreau is being pretty gentle.”
“Don’t even bother talking to him,” Mack snapped. “Garbage like this, it’s just what they do. They’re guilty and just try to throw us off and waste your time as they spout off all these accusations. I’ve seen it a million times.”
She nodded at Mack and then studied the prisoner. “Oh, interesting. He’s about the same age as the young man who was killed.” The man froze, stared at her in shock, and she nodded. “Did you have anything to do with that?”
“What do you mean?” he cried out in horror. “Absolutely no way!”
Doreen added, “We’re looking for a murder suspect, and you do kind of fit the bill.”
He immediately shook his head and told her that she was crazy.
“Oh, I’m not crazy,” she replied. “Lots of people might want to think I’m crazy because it makes their lives a whole lot easier if I’m not around, but I’m really not crazy at all. And I really don’t appreciate your calling me that.”
He blinked several times and groaned. “Lady, I don’t know who you are or what you’re after, but I didn’t have nothing to do with nothing.”
“Oh, that’s interesting too,” she murmured. “I mean, we are looking for a murderer, and I suspect that we really do need to take you in and to have a good talk with you.”
He started to shake. “I had nothing to do with any murder.”
“Still, it seems odd that you were casing the victim’s house,” she noted.
He stared at her in shock, his gaze going from one to the other. Mack just held him firmly, as the security guard looked at him in surprise.
“Really?” the guard asked. “I know there’s a whole gang in town that targets houses when people aren’t around. You know, like gone for extended holidays, things like that.”
She nodded. “Yeah, and then you have guys like this one, apparently targeting houses of dead people. The poor young man was just murdered a couple days ago, but here this guy is, already on his house.”
The security guy stared at him in disgust.
Doreen continued. “Of course, the only way for you to know that it was his house and that he was murdered and wouldn’t be back, was if you had something to do with it.”
And right before her eyes, he melted. “No, I didn’t.”
“I don’t believe you,” she declared. “We watched how you reacted to being arrested.” She shrugged at Mack.
“Just take him in and book him.” Mack rolled his eyes at her.
She snorted. “Why even talk to him? He’s just wasting our time.
Just throw the book at him and be done with it. He’s kind of already confessed.”
“No, I haven’t,” the prisoner argued. Then he stared at them, but nobody was giving an inch. His shoulders slumped.
Doreen snorted. “You really don’t think the rest of that B&E crew will come to defend you, do you?” she asked curiously. “I mean, that’s not the way it works. You get caught. You go down.”
He stared at her, and a hint of tears shone in his eyes as reality dawned on him.
“We don’t like what you’re doing, but charging a murderer is what we’re after.”
“No, no, no,” he cried out, “I had nothing to do with it.”
“Right, you already mentioned that, but why would I believe you?”
He just stared at her, looked hard at the animals, then groaned. “Ah, … you’re that crazy lady, aren’t you?”
Her eyebrows shot up, and she glared at him.
He immediately backed up a half step and added, “Look. I didn’t mean it as an insult.”
“Yes, you did,” she declared. “You don’t go around calling people crazy if you don’t intend to insult them.”
He winced. “Well, I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Yes, you did,” she repeated. “And don’t think we didn’t notice.”
Mack groaned and said, “It’s fine. We’re generally not so worried about the insults,” he added, turning to glare at her.
She shrugged. “Says you, but we both know that Mugs here doesn’t like it when people degrade me. He has a soft heart when you call me crazy,” she explained, adding a snort as she looked at their suspect. “But only one of us is going to jail, and I can assure you, it’s not me.”
He shook his head. “I can’t go to jail,” he wailed desperately.
“Yeah? I’m not really too bothered about that. I mean, you’re the one who was involved in this poor guy’s murder.”
“I was not involved in his murder,” he roared. And that brought even more people around.
“What? This guy killed somebody?” one of the bystanders asked in shock.
“No, no, I didn’t,” he cried out.
Doreen looked at him and shrugged. “You keep talking, but you’re not really saying anything.”
He groaned. “Fine, okay, so I was part of the breaking-and-entering team. I was supposed to be keeping a watch out.”
“Yeah, you’ve probably not got that job anymore, right?” she asked, prompting snickers from the crowd.
He glared at her. “I don’t know what your problem is, lady.”
She snapped, “I’ve got a few, but right now I’m looking for a murderer, and honestly, you’re looking good for it.”
“I’m not good for it,” he yelled. “I didn’t know anything about it.”
“Yeah, so how did you know to go to his house?”
He blinked, saying nothing.
“Right, I couldn’t quite hear that. Can you try again?”
“I was told to go there,” he said immediately. “I didn’t know anything about what had happened to anybody.”
“And we’re supposed to believe that?” she asked, staring at him. “That’s a pretty lame excuse.”
“I don’t know if it’s lame or not,” the guy replied, “but it’s not an excuse. It’s the truth.”
She shrugged. “It doesn’t really sound all that viable to me.” She turned to the rest of the crowd gathered around. “What about you guys? What do you think?”
Immediately everybody shook their heads.