“Put them on the top of your head and interlace your fingers,” Terry added.
“We’re not armed. And he killed Zoe.” Mario pointed at Ken.
“Hands on your head!” Madison shouted.
Mario followed the directive.
She went behind him, holstered her gun, and cuffed Mario while Terry did the same with Ken.
“Now, tell us what the hell’s going on.” Madison demanded.
“He killed Zoe,” Mario repeated.
“And why would he do that?” Terry asked.
“Because she wouldn’t give him the time of day!”
“Fuck you, Mario. She had sex with me the night she…” Ken’s words trailed off, his eyes going from Mario to Madison.
She tried to recall Ken’s home address, but it wasn’t coming to her. Did he live near that alley, or were he and Zoe in the area for another reason?
“You had sex with her the night she died?” Madison asked Ken.
Ken stared at Mario when he answered, jaw clenched. “Yes,” he ground out.
There was only evidence of one man having slept with Zoe in the days before she died. Ken must have used a condom. “Did you use protection?”
His brow furrowed, obviously unsure why it mattered, but he answered, anyway. “Yes.”
“Did you kill Zoe?” Madison asked directly.
Ken bit his lip for a moment. “I-I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
“You didn’t mean for what to happen? You hit her in the head and then killed an innocent homeless man,” Madison said.
“He wasn’t innocent! He saw!”
“You stripped him and put his clothes on Zoe,” Madison continued. “Doesn’t seem like an accident to me. What did you do with her clothes?”
There was a subtle diversion of his eyes, and she followed the direction of his gaze.
“It’s in a drawer?” Madison motioned for Terry to check out the desk. She kept her attention locked on Ken while glancing to Terry.
He moved behind the desk, gloved up, and pulled out the top drawer, then the bottom. He came out with a plastic grocery bag. He opened it and looked inside. “It appears to be women’s clothing—” he pulled out a shirt “—and about Zoe’s size.”
“You stupid shit, you brought that in here!” Mario yelled.
Madison grabbed Ken at the wrists where his arms were linked together and tugged Mario in the direction of the door. “That’s it. We’re going downtown. You have a lot to exp—”
“Wait,” Terry interrupted. “There’s something else in here.” He dug around in the drawer and came out with another bag. He pulled out a towel with something wrapped up inside it.
“What is it?” she asked.
Terry shot her a quick look, scolding her for her impatience. He unraveled the fabric and came out with something. A ladle? It was strange looking and oval shaped. In one hand, he held it up, and in the other, he held up the towel and the bag. The white cotton was stained red.
“Bag it and bring it with us,” she said, tightening her grip on Ken and Mario.
“But I didn’t do anything,” Mario pleaded.
Terry worked to get the items back in the bags and then took over with Mario.
“Oh, I think you did,” Madison said. There was still the matter of Faye and the fact that Zoe had been carrying his baby. She had always felt Mario was hiding something, and she still did. If he had known Ken killed Zoe, why hadn’t he come clean? “It wasn’t all Ken, was it?”
Mario’s eyes snapped to hers.
She continued. “The two of you killed three—”
Ken’s feet ground into the floor. She couldn’t move him. “Three? I confessed to killing Zoe.”
“And I never killed anyone.” Mario’s body was shaking, and his face was red.
“And the homeless person. He had a name by the way. Leonard. And you killed a sixty-eight-year-old woman.”
“No. No. I didn’t kill them. I didn’t.” Ken was shaking his head violently now.
“You just said that the homeless man saw everything and wasn’t innocent.”
“I didn’t kill him.” Ken turned his head, and his gaze went to Mario.
The kook’s words came to mind. Evil shadows. Plural. Two people had been in that alley.
“I’m not going down for what you did,” Mario said.
“But you were there,” Ken screamed. “You didn’t…didn’t stop me. You helped me dress her!”
-
Chapter 62
“WHY DID YOU KILL ZOE?” Madison was seated across from Ken in an interrogation room.
“I didn’t mean for it to happen, but she…she…” Ken’s head slumped forward.
Madison let the silence ride out for a while.
“We were in the Paradise Motel.”
Paradise Motel was one of the crappy establishments near the alley that rented out by the hour. And here, he had told them the first time they spoke that Zoe ‘opened her legs’ for everyone else but him.
“All right, and then what happened?” Madison prompted as she leaned on the table.
“Everything turned to shit.” Anger contorted his expression. Tears streamed down his face and his one hand formed into a fist. “She told me—” he wiped a hand across his face “—that Mario was the father of her baby. All I saw was red.”
Sadly, Zoe would’ve had no way of knowing who the father of her baby had been. Ken, obviously prone to jealousy, hadn’t thought that part through.
Madison clasped her hands and spoke calmly. “Then what happened?”
“She knew I was angry and ran out of the room. I chased her.” He paused, his eyes glazing over. “She went into that alley. And I-I just picked up that—ladle?” He looked at her.
“Yes.” It turned out to be a Japanese serving ladle.
“And I hit her on the head with it. I didn’t really mean for her to die.” Ken covered his face with his hands and sobbed.
There were pieces that still weren’t fitting together. She let him cry it out for about a minute.
“You said Mario helped you dress Zoe in the vagrant’s clothing? Why was Mario in the alley in the first place and why was he protecting your secret?” Madison asked.
Ken chewed on the inside of his cheek. “I did him a favor when we were younger. Some girl accused him of rape. I testified that he couldn’t have done it as he was with me.”
Madison’s earlobes heated from anger. “You lied under oath?”
No response.
She took that as a confession. She wondered if Mario had any idea that returning the favor would mean covering up a murder.
“It seems you’re pretty good at lying,” Madison said, baiting Ken.
“What do you mean?”
“You told us at the club, when we first met you, that you never slept with Zoe.”
“I panicked.”
“Is that what you did when you saw that homeless man and knew he witnessed you kill Zoe?” Madison raised her voice with each word. “He saw—maybe he even tried to intervene—and you killed him. You panicked then, too?”
“No, no, that’s not what happened.”
“Then by all means, enlighten us.”
Terry jingled his change and had Ken turning around to look at him.
Madison smacked the table with her palm. “Tell. Us. What. Happened.”
“Fine. Mario said we had no choice.”
“Mario?”
“Yeah. He’s the one who killed him.”
MARIO SEEMED COMFORTABLE IN AN interrogation room like it was a second home for him.
“Ken said that you killed the homeless man.”
“That shit.” Mario rolled his eyes.
“So you’re not denying the accusation? Tell us what happened.”
&n
bsp; “And why should I do that?” His eyes were cold and distant.
“Your prison sentence might be lighter. If we get everything from Ken—”
“Bullshit! But fine. Zoe was already dead. Ken called me and I went to him. We were talking about what to do with Zoe’s body when I saw him watching me from beneath a blue tarp. The ladle was on the ground next to me”—he shrugged—“I did what I had to do.”
“Which was?” She needed him to be precise so his confession couldn’t be twisted by a skilled defense attorney.
“I picked it up and I hit him in the head.”
That didn’t necessarily fit, as Mario was taller than Ken. “Are you sure of that?”
“You don’t believe me?” Mario glanced back at Terry.
“Don’t tell me, tell her,” Terry said.
“I thought from the standpoint of covering my ass, so I crouched lower so that I was closer to Ken’s height. I don’t understand why the big deal. Nobody’s gonna miss a bum.”
Adrenaline fused through Madison’s core and had her hands shaking, her arms chilled. “That bum was a living human being.”
“Well, he’s not now.” Nonchalant, as if taking a life had no consequence.
She jumped up from her chair, its legs scraping against the linoleum. She was ready to have into him when she caught Terry’s eye to keep her cool. She steadied her breath and sat back down, knowing there were more questions to ask.
“Why did you dress Zoe in his clothing?” she asked.
“Isn’t that obvious? We didn’t want her identified.”
“But then you position her on a street corner.”
“She should have felt at home there.”
The guy’s attitude was beyond appalling. He discarded life the same way he did garbage. She swallowed roughly. “Was Zoe a prostitute? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Nope. She just slept around and then the stupid bitch wound up pregnant. Go figure.”
Terry pounced next to Mario.
Mario splayed his palms. “What?”
Terry had a rapid pulse in his cheek.
That’s it. They had enough.
“Let’s go, Detective Grant.” She already had the door open, Terry had gone through, and an officer was entering the room when she heard Mario say, “Hey, what about me?” She couldn’t bring herself to tell him that Zoe had been carrying his baby.
MADISON HEADED STRAIGHT TO THE LAB. Cynthia was at her desk reading through the contents of a folder.
“Speak to me,” Madison said.
Cynthia looked up. “Neither Ken nor Mario were a match to the cigarettes found next to Faye or in her backyard.”
“And?”
“And, Ken’s car was processed and forensics place Zoe in his vehicle. I also sent Mark and Samantha over to the men’s residences to see if they could gather anything that might help, but it’s not looking like they were involved with Faye’s death. Maybe Zoe had killed her aunt?”
Madison ruminated on that possibility again, but it didn’t seem quite as plausible as it had before. She recalled images of seeing Zoe for the first time, the sincere grief in her eyes…
“Maddy, are you all right?”
“Yeah, of course. Anything else?”
“Actually, yes. I received Ben’s phone records and had a chance to go through them. Now, he did call Elias that night outside the club, but he called Faye Duncan the day before she died.”
“Faye? Are you sure?”
Cynthia licked her lips and nodded.
None of this was fitting together.
“Why would Ben call Faye?” Madison asked. Then she remembered how Ben had mentioned covering for Zoe’s lifestyle, including hiding it from her family as long as she paid him off with sex. Then all became clear.
“You’ll have to ask him that,” Cynthia said.
“Ben had lied about a lot of things, and people only lie when they have something to hide.” She dialed dispatch and requested Ben be brought in immediately for questioning.
Terry and Cynthia were watching her as she lowered her phone.
“What?” she asked.
“Maddy, there’s more,” Cynthia began. “The blood found in the alley wasn’t a match to either cigarette found, nor to Ken or Mario. It might have been there from another time. The clothing you retrieved from the club’s office definitely belonged to Zoe Bell, and blood pulled from the ladle was Zoe’s and Leonard’s. There’s no doubt Ken and Mario killed them,” Cynthia summarized.
“But we still don’t know who killed Faye Duncan,” Madison finished.
Two out of three cases wasn’t good enough. And technically, only one of those cases was hers.
-
Chapter 63
MADISON WAS DOING THIS INTERROGATION by herself. She slammed the door to the room behind her. Ben was seated at the table.
“Why did you call Faye Duncan two Tuesdays ago?” She slapped a color print of Faye dead in the wheelchair on the table in front of Ben. “Don’t even think about telling me another lie.”
He chewed his bottom lip. “Remember how I said that I told Zoe I’d tell on her if she didn’t sleep with me?”
“Yes.” But she wished she could forget.
“Well, she wasn’t being as cooperative as she had been at first.”
“So you snitched on her to her great-aunt? How did you even know how to reach Faye?” Madison asked.
“An online directory. It wasn’t hard. Zoe was always blabbing about the woman.”
“All right. So you called Faye. Then what happened?”
“She was a scary old bat. When I told her about Zoe, she was screaming as if her house were on fire. She freaked me out.”
“Then what? You killed her?”
“I didn’t kill her. I’ve given you my alibis.”
“Oh, that’s right. You were at home ‘sleeping.’”
“I had no reason to kill her or Zoe.”
“We know you didn’t kill Zoe.”
He straightened up. “Then you know I didn’t kill Faye. Why am I here?”
“Not so fast,” she said. “We don’t know who killed Faye.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, I’d have no reason to kill Faye.”
Madison wasn’t sure if it was the words or way he had said them, but the fact sank in. He really didn’t have a reason to kill the woman.
Son of a bitch!
She needed to think everything through again. Faye had been making her guest tea around the time of her death. The bruises on her arms indicated a struggle. But by some unfortunate stroke of fate, she hadn’t drawn any epithelium from her assailant.
Think, Madison, think.
Neighbors had told canvassing police officers that the only people they saw around Faye’s house were family members.
Family. The killer was right in front of her all along.
She ran from the interrogation room.
“Can I go now?” Ben called out.
“Watch him,” she directed an officer outside the door.
She was out of breath by the time she reached the lab. “Cynthia, what kind of tea had Faye Duncan been making?”
“Just a second.” Cynthia went over to her computer and brought up the evidence log. “Rose hip.”
“What does that smell like?”
Cynthia hitched a shoulder. “Um, kind of like olive oil with a bit of a nutty aroma?”
“It’s not really a common flavor, is it?”
“I wouldn’t say so.”
“Son of a bitch. She did it.”
“What? Who?”
“What do we know about Della Carpenter?” Madison asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m thinking that she killed her sister. Neighbors would think
nothing of seeing her wheeling Faye down the street. They may have seen her pushing Faye during the time she was recovering from her surgery.”
“Oh, God.” Cynthia went over to her computer and pulled up a background on Della. “She was married once, had one child—”
“All right, we know all that. Give me something useful.”
Cynthia tapped the frame of the monitor with one hand as she scrolled the mouse with the other.
“Stop!” Madison pointed to the screen. “There’s motive right there.” She was already to the door when Cynthia called out to her.
“Terry left. Annabelle’s in labor.”
She had run away from the interview room so quickly she hadn’t noticed her partner wasn’t in the observation room. Madison’s heart raced even faster.
DELLA OPENED THE DOOR. Her face was stoic, as if she’d been expecting Madison. “You know?”
Madison nodded. When she went to Della’s house to find Zoe, the girl had handed her a cup of tea—rose hip tea.
“Why did you kill your sister?”
“She was so self-righteous.” Della’s tone was cold. “I was at her house for a visit, and things got out of control.”
“What got out of control?” It was obvious the situation had, and adrenaline must have helped Della load Faye’s dead body into the wheelchair.
“All of it. Doesn’t matter now. She’s dead.” There was a hard killer lurking behind those eyes.
“How? What happened?”
“We were arguing about Zoe. Faye found out that Zoe stripped at some club, that she was pregnant, and that Zoe didn’t know who the father was. She told me how she received a call from some guy telling her all about it. But all her life my sister had it so easy.”
“So you were arguing, and…” Madison prompted.
“She gripped at her chest and yelled at me to call nine-one-one and that she was having a heart attack. I don’t know why, but I was frozen. I couldn’t move. I watched her drop to the floor. Then I got a wheelchair from the hospital and…you know the rest.” Della’s eyes misted but not one tear fell. “Faye was loved. She could do no wrong. You know that I got pregnant as a teen and ran away? Those people would have taken my baby from me or made me kill her! Now, if it had been Faye, they would have welcomed the baby with open arms.”
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