I guess if you have it, flaunt it.
“I’m taking Donny home,” Joshua told Cameron.
“Josh—”
“Not now,” he interrupted her with a sharp tone that startled her.
One of the troopers said, “We need to get their statements.”
Cameron said, “I’m the lead in this case. They’ll give their statements later.”
“But—”
“Later!” As Joshua and Donny passed her, she called out, “You did good, Donny. You’re a chip off the old block.”
Donny slipped his arm around his father’s back. “Thanks, Cam. That means a lot. He taught me everything I know.”
Searching for a sign from Joshua that he didn’t blame her for what had almost happened, Cameron watched them turn the corner of the garage. He gave her nothing. Not even so much as a glance over his shoulder in her direction.
You really blew it this time, babe. Best thing to ever come your way, and you blew it by putting his son in the direct path of a murder investigation. What were you thinking? Joshua tried to tell you. He kept saying it was too easy. When it seems too easy, that’s when you need to really be on your toes—like pulling over a car for a broken turn signal. You think you’re just giving someone a warning about getting his car fixed, and the next thing you know your new bride is a widow. You let your guard down, Cam, and almost got your silver fox’s son killed.
Squinting to fight the tears coming to her eyes, Cameron sucked in a deep sigh and turned around to look over at Freddie’s body. He had bled out all over the floor. His hair, brains, and blood were splattered across the front of a freezer to resemble a psychiatrist’s inkblot test.
Freezer? In the garage?
Cameron whirled around to Brianne. “What’s that freezer doing here?”
“What? Is there a law against having a freezer in your garage now?”
“Answer the question.” She rushed over at Brianne. When she realized how close she was to taking out her anger on her, the detective stopped short.
Her charge was enough to scare the attitude out of Brianne. “It’s broken. We keep some of the gardening supplies for the floral garden that are particularly attractive to rodents and raccoons in here. The freezer is airtight. It keeps everything fresh while keeping the pests out.” Her attitude returning, she put her hands on her slender hips. “Any other questions?”
“You’ll get the rest of my questions down at the station.”
Chapter Fourteen
At the state police barracks, Lieutenant Miles Dugan was waiting for Cameron in her office after she had Brianne escorted to the interrogation room. With her chief leaning against the corner of her desk with his arms folded across his chest, and Irving sitting up straight with his emerald eyes squinting at her; Cameron had no doubt but that she was going to get it with both barrels.
Irving was in a snit because she had left him behind to go off with Joshua.
Lieutenant Dugan was furious about her simple uncover assignment ending with a dead body. “What happened out there, Gates?”
“You wouldn’t be asking me that if you didn’t hear already.” Cameron stepped around him to offer Irving a pet, which the cat rejected with a jerk of his head before jumping back into her chair to leave her no place to sit.
Dugan unfolded his arms and placed his hands on his hips. In doing so, he pulled back his suit jacket to reveal his lieutenant’s shield and gun. “You were supposed to be in charge.”
“I was in charge.”
“Not according to the officers,” her chief said. “When it turned bad, you were heard to say to the civilian you brought along for a ride that it was his call. He put four bullets into the suspect—”
“Who was holding a razor to his son’s throat.”
“Exactly,” Dugan said. “You let a victim’s family member take over. Thornton was the last person to hand off the lead to. Hell! He shouldn’t have even been there.”
“Joshua Thornton is not exactly a civilian,” Cameron said. “He’s the prosecuting attorney—”
“A legal weenie.”
“No, he’s not,” Cameron said. “Thornton has a long history of criminal investigation with the military and federal government. He’s fully trained in law enforcement. He’s got more experience than half of the troopers we have out in the field.”
His glare cut her off. “Joshua Thornton may be a big shot over in West Virginia, but not here in my jurisdiction.” He pointed to the floor. “Here, my detectives are in charge—always. They don’t hand over the lead to civilians, no matter who they are. When Joshua Thornton crosses that state line, he’s just like everybody else. He shoots someone, you bring him in. You don’t send him home with a ‘see you later, honey.’”
“I don’t call him ‘honey.’” Cameron hung her head. “I take full responsibility for what happened. I never should have brought Joshua’s son into this investigation in the first place.”
“If you’re looking for an argument, you won’t get it from me.” His hard face softened. “How’s the boy?”
Not knowing the answer to his question, she held her breath before shaking her head and shrugging her shoulders. “I don’t know. Physically, he’s fine.” She added more to assure herself, “Donny’s tough like his dad.”
“And you and his dad? How are you two?”
“I have no idea.”
Lieutenant Dugan patted her on the shoulder. “Make sure Thornton, both of them, get in here first thing in the morning to give their statements. Meanwhile, I have to go put a call into our prosecutor’s office to give him the lowdown.”
The smile he shot her before going to his office did little to assure her that things were going to be fine on all fronts. She had not only lost control, but had handed it off to someone else in front of the uniformed officers.
How stupid can you be, Gates?
If it had been anyone but Donny whose life was on the line, she would have held onto the lead with a vice-like grip. She couldn’t hold onto it with it being Donny. If she had made the call and it ended badly, then Joshua would never have been able to forgive her. It was a risk she couldn’t take—didn’t want to take.
Even if Lieutenant Dugan and her colleagues understood her reasoning, it was a bad call.
Now they think I’m a weak, indecisive woman who needs to let her man run the show. It’s going to take forever to win back their respect. They may never fumigate my cruiser after this.
She still saw Joshua’s back turned to her when he led Donny home. What Joshua must be thinking about me now.
Cringing at what she imagined was going through Joshua’s mind, Cameron turned to Irving. Their eyes met. “Go ahead, Irving,” she said. “Let me have it.”
With a jerk of his head, Irving turned his back to her and curled up on her chair.
Even my cat’s mad at me.
Brianne slammed her hand down flat on the table top in the interview room when Cameron came in with a case file tucked under her arm. “What the hell is going on? I’m the victim, and I’m being treated like I’d killed someone.”
“Maybe you did.” Cameron slipped into the chair across from her. The table was so small that her knees touched Brianne’s on the other side.
The detective’s intrusion into her space made Brianne back away from the table. “What are you talking about? You were there. Freddie flipped out because I fired him.”
“To replace him as your boy toy with a sixteen-year-old boy.” She leaned in. “Freddie was only twenty years old, and you chewed him up and spit him out like used up chewing gum.”
“You make Freddie sound like a kid,” Brianne said. “There are men two years younger than him overseas killing people. Freddie knew exactly what he was doing.”
“You toyed with his emotions before he was old enough to know how to handle it,” the detective said. “When you play with the emotions of someone who is too immature or stable to handle it, then people get hurt. You might as well have shot him yourself.”
The corners of Brianne’s lips curled. “Judge me all you want, but Freddie was of legal age.” She stood up.
“Sit down!”
The command in Cameron’s voice made Brianne drop back down into the chair. With a steely look in her light brown eyes, the detective opened the folder and took out a picture of the Ferrari’s VIN number. She slid it across the table to her. “Recognize this?”
“It’s a VIN number on a car engine.” With a shrug of her shoulders, she slid the picture back across the table.
“That’s the photograph Donny took of the VIN number from the Ferrari that is right now in your garage—the Ferrari you claim to be yours.” Cameron slipped a police report from the folder and slid it, along with the picture, over to land in front of Brianne. “This is the VIN number belonging to the Ferrari that Humphrey Phoenix had given Cherry Pickens, also known as Cheryl Smith, as a gift. It is the Ferrari that she drove out of Vegas back in May 1985. That Ferrari disappeared the same time she did.” She tapped both numbers with her index fingers. “They’re a match. The Ferrari that is in your garage was Cheryl Smith’s car. She was murdered, and you now have her car.” Leaving the facts in front of her, Cameron sat back in her seat. “You told me that you hadn’t seen Cheryl since before she took off in 1978. If that’s true, how is it that you have her car? Explain that to me.”
The two women sat in silence.
Brianne stared at the picture and the VIN number in front of her.
Cameron engaged in silence contests the way other people engaged in staring contests. Whoever broke the silence lost the game. The amoral type of suspects could play the game almost as good as she could.
Almost.
“I guess Donny didn’t really want to come work for me.”
“Seriously?” Cameron smiled. “He’s sixteen years old. He’s got a girlfriend, and she’s got an eleven-thirty curfew.”
“I can stay out all night, and I could have taught him so much—”
“Get your mind out of the gutter.” Cameron slammed her hand on top of the pictures. “Cheryl Smith came to see you. She had your phone number in her pocket. That Ferrari is proof that you saw her. She was a key suspect in killing your best friend. That gave you motive for killing her. Now, unless you can give me something to prove you didn’t kill her, I believe I have enough to take this to the prosecutor, to take to the grand jury, and bring you up on charges of murder.”
“Murder?” Brianne now appeared insulted.
“Murder.”
“Now wait a minute, I didn’t kill Cheryl. She did come to the winery to see me, but I never saw her. I wasn’t there.”
“Then how did you get her car? How did she get your business card?”
“Kyle gave the card to her.”
“Kyle? Angie’s fiancée?” Cameron was doubtful.
Brianne nodded her head. “He told me that she had stopped by and wanted to know if I would be interested in buying her Ferrari, cheap—something like fifty-thousand dollars. Wow! A Ferrari that was fully loaded for only fifty-thousand dollars? Kyle knew me well enough to know I’d snap that up, so he told her he would pass on the information, which he did. He said he asked her for her phone number, but she wouldn’t give him one. This was before cell phones. So he gave her my business card and told her to call me the next morning.”
“And so she called you . . .”
“No, she didn’t.” Brianne sat up in her seat and tapped the table top with her finger. “I never even spoke to Cheryl. I’m telling the truth. I never saw her, and I never spoke to her.”
“How did you end up with the car?” Cameron asked.
Making her point, Brianne gestured wildly with both of her hands. “It was there in the driveway when I got to the office the next morning. The keys were even in the ignition. I looked it over. Took it for a spin. It was in pristine condition. Clean as a whistle. I waited for her to call.” She nodded her head quickly. “Yeah, I wanted the car. I would have paid the fifty thousand—cash—but she never did call. After a few days, I put the car in the garage. Ned used some of his contacts at the track to get me a VIN number and a title so that I could register it with the DMV.”
She leaned across the table at Cameron. “I swear! I never did see Cheryl when she was here. You have to believe me.”
Cameron gazed at Brianne, who gazed back at her. The arrogant attitude that had been there when they started the interrogation was now gone. The detective had scared it out of her. “What about Ned?”
“Huh?” Brianne blinked her blue eyes.
“Ned? Cheryl had his phone number on the back of your business card. Did he see her?”
“He said he didn’t. I remember asking him at the time. Of course, he could have been lying. I wouldn’t put it past him hooking up with her for old-time’s sake.” She shrugged. “You need to ask him about that.”
“Cheryl did hook up with someone shortly before she died,” Cameron said.
“Could have been Ned.”
“That’s what I thought, but his DNA isn’t a match.” The detective cocked her head at her. “Can you think of anyone else she could have hooked up with?”
“Nope.”
The detective could feel Brianne’s big brown eyes begging for her to give some indication that she believed her.
Cameron replayed what she had gathered about Cheryl’s return to town. So far, no one claimed to ever see her. It was as if she had blown in like the wind—only to have her presence felt—but not to be seen by anyone.