“That’s a big mistake.”
I stepped in. “How do you know that?”
“He had a bunch of reasons for wanting her dead. Not only was she cheating on him with me, but she was about to leave him,” Max said.
“Did she tell you that?” I asked.
Max nodded. “A bunch of times.”
“To be with you?”
“And because she was tired of supporting him. She poured a lot of money into trying to keep that sinkhole of a print shop of his in business. Then, after his place went under, Ted started giving Clarissa advice about how to run her restaurant. That guy has a lot of nerve. Especially considering that he has been spending the bulk of his days recently pounding back beers from his couch in the middle of the afternoon.”
“It’s a shame that you’re so shy about expressing your opinions. Tell me how you really feel,” I deadpanned.
“Clarissa deserved better than Ted,” Max said.
“You mean, she deserved you?” David replied.
“I’m telling you,” Max said. “You should be focusing on Ted.”
“We’re not done with you yet,” David replied.
“I don’t know why you’re wasting your time with me. Ted is practically drenched in motive.”
“Stop trying to tell me how to do my job.”
“But Ted—”
“Is not the issue at the moment,” David said. “We’re talking to you right now.”
“But I don’t have anything to say,” Max replied.
“We’ll see about that. I have a number of questions for you and I expect answers. Got it?”
Max groaned. “What do you want to know?”
“To start, you can tell me where you were last night between eleven and midnight.”
Max narrowed his eyes. “I wasn’t killing Clarissa, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“Mr. Cooper, please just answer the question.”
“I was at Tillman’s.”
“The dive bar?”
Max nodded.
“That should be easy to verify—if it’s true. Who were you there with?” David asked.
“I went alone,” Max said.
“Are you telling me you have no one who can corroborate your story?”
“No. There were a bunch of people in the bar.”
“Can you give me the names of any of them?” David asked.
Max shrugged. “Look, man. I was at the bar. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“A name would be nice. Unless you weren’t really at the bar.”
“Why don’t you talk to Gary? He was bartending last night,” Max said.
“We will,” David replied.
“Good. I guess we’re done, then.”
David narrowed his eyes. “Not quite.”
“Why? What else could you possibly want from me?”
“I say when we’re done.”
A look of outrage came to Max’s face. “This is ridiculous. I was at the bar last night. And even if I wasn’t, I had no reason to kill Clarissa.”
“That’s your story.”
“It’s the truth.”
“I make a habit of not taking the word of murder suspects.”
“I’m not a suspect.”
“I disagree.”
“I shouldn’t be a suspect, then. After all, she was going to leave her husband for me. We were going to spend the rest of our lives together. I had every reason to want her to stay alive and no reason to want her dead,” Max said.
“That is your take on the situation. The problem is, Clarissa isn’t around to verify any of that. What if you’re lying to us? What if she wasn’t going to leave her husband at all? What if she decided to break things off with you instead?” David asked.
“Nice try, but I’m not going to let you twist the truth around like that. We were going to be together, plain and simple. Now I’ve answered all your questions—”
I held my pointer finger up. “I have one more. Is there any particular reason that you wouldn’t let us inside your house?”
“Yeah. I like my privacy,” Max replied.
“So not because you’re hiding something?” I asked.
“I’m not hiding anything.”
“In that case, can we go inside for a minute?”
“Didn’t you hear me before? I like my privacy. And, last time I checked, in this country, we still have a right to our privacy,” Max said.
“So if I got search warrant, I wouldn’t find anything incriminating in your house, then?” David asked.
“No,” Max replied. “Are we done now?”
David stared deep into Max’s eyes, then replied, “Yeah, we’re done—for now. But make yourself available in case we have any more questions for you.”
***
David and I left Max’s house and headed over to Tillman’s dive bar. I wish I could tell you we got some definitive answers, but they remained in short supply. It came as no surprise to me that the dive bar didn’t have any security cameras on site. Tillman’s didn’t even have a single barstool that wasn’t wobbly, so something as pricey as a security camera was clearly not in the business’s budget.
David and I also struck out when we talked to Gary Richmond, the bartender who had been working the evening before. David showed Gary a photo of Max. Gary couldn’t confirm that Max had been there the night before, but he did tell us that it had been rather busy, and that on frantic nights like that, he rarely remembered the faces of the customers he served.
Unfortunately, all David and I left the bar with was a number of lingering questions that we had no way of answering quite yet.
Chapter Twenty
Good news was in short supply, but there was at least one bright spot. At least David and I didn’t have to drive very far to speak with the next suspect on our list. Tillman’s dive bar was only a five-minute drive away from Felix Martin’s apartment in East Treasure Cove.
Despite having lived in Treasure Cove all of my life, I rarely ever ventured into the east side of town. As a matter of fact, the last time I was there, it was to question a suspect in another murder case. What a peculiar twist of fate that was.
A map wasn’t required to know where East Treasure Cove began. Sure, Oak Street was the geographical line of demarcation, but all anyone had to do was look at how quickly the neighborhood changed to know they were suddenly on the wrong side of the tracks.
Residences with manicured lawns gave way to houses with crabgrass out front. Warehouses outnumbered houses ten to one. What little housing there was were mostly low-rent apartment buildings.
If location was everything in real estate, the east side of town was the least desirable place to be. It wasn’t just a coincidence that the east side was also the furthest from the ocean. The neighborhood was so cluttered with industry and warehouses that I almost forgot that the Pacific Ocean was only fifteen miles away.
Felix Martin’s apartment complex looked like nothing more than a large block of concrete. It was completely charmless.
David gave the front door to Felix’s apartment a few knocks. I was thankful that Felix didn’t delay in answering. David quickly revealed to Felix that Clarissa had been murdered and that we were there to ask him a few questions, but the bearded, long-haired, muscular, thirty-one-year-old still sported a confused look on his face.
“I don’t understand why you want to talk to me,” Felix said.
“Like I just told you, Clarissa is dead,” David replied.
“Yeah, I heard you. I just don’t know why you think that has anything to do with me,” Felix said.
David folded his arms. “How stupid do you think we are? We know that Clarissa fired you last night.”
“That doesn’t mean I wanted her dead.”
“That’s a pretty good reason to kill someone.”
Felix scoffed. “That’s crazy.”
“Killers usually are,” David said.
“No. I mean, it’s crazy to think I would
kill her over that. Murdering her certainly wouldn’t get me my job back.”
“There are other reasons to kill someone—like revenge.”
Felix shook his head. “No. I didn’t want revenge.”
I spoke up. “That’s not what you said last night. I heard you tell Clarissa that you were going to make her pay for firing you.”
Felix’s muscles tensed. “That’s just something I said in the heat of the moment. You can’t take that seriously.”
“We take it dead seriously,” I said.
Felix took a deep breath. “All right. I lost my temper briefly, but I didn’t stay mad for long.”
“I wish I could believe you,” David said.
“No one’s stopping you,” Felix replied.
“You have to admit. That’s a pretty quick cooldown period.”
“It’s also the truth.”
David looked at Felix with arched eyebrows. “That’s the story you’re sticking with?”
“It’s not just a story. It’s what happened.”
“I have my doubts. Mostly because I know that if I was ever fired, it would take me a lot longer than a few hours to get over my anger.”
“Yeah? Well, we’re different.”
“Maybe we are. Then again, maybe we aren’t. Luckily, there’s one easy way to find out.”
Felix’s forehead wrinkled. “What are you talking about?”
“Where were you last night between eleven and midnight?” David asked.
“That one is easy. I was here.”
“Were you with anyone?”
“Yeah. My friend was here.”
David pulled his pen and pad of paper out of his pocket. “What’s the name and phone number of this friend?”
Felix threw his arms out. “Wait. You don’t believe me?”
“If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about. Now, name and phone number please.”
Felix exhaled. “Fine. His name is Oscar.”
“And what’s his phone number?”
“555-6821.”
David wrote the phone number down then pulled out his phone. He began to dial.
Felix’s eyes widened. “Are you calling him right now?”
“Is there a problem?” David asked.
“No.”
Felix’s lips said one thing, but his jittery body language said another.
David kept dialing the phone number.
Felix’s anxiety got the better of him. “All right. So Oscar might have left by eleven.”
David narrowed his eyes. “He might have left or he did leave?”
Felix stared at the ground. “He did leave by eleven.”
“Which means you don’t have anyone to verify your alibi for the time of the murder.”
Desperation came to Felix’s voice. “Look. I didn’t kill Clarissa.”
“I have a much harder time believing you now that you just lied to me.”
“I know how this looks.”
“Do you really?” I asked. “Because right now, it couldn’t look any worse for you.”
“Looks can be deceiving,” Felix said.
“Just because you want us to believe that doesn’t make it truth,” I replied.
“I get it. I’m the obvious choice because I was fired last night. But I’m not the only one at that restaurant who had it out for Clarissa.”
“Let me guess. You’re going to try to point the finger of blame at someone else,” I said.
“That’s hardly original,” David added.
“You would be the fifth suspect who has done it today,” I said.
“That doesn’t change the fact that Julie Lambert is vindictive beyond belief,” Felix replied.
“And how do you know that?” David asked.
“You overhear some crazy things on your smoke break sometimes.”
“Oh yeah? What sort of crazy things did you hear Julie say?”
“She was out in the parking lot with her boyfriend one night, all hot and bothered about Kaitlin’s promotion to assistant manager.”
“She didn’t think Kaitlin deserved the promotion?” David asked.
“No one did,” Felix replied. “But Julie was especially worked up because she thought her boyfriend was a shoe-in for the promotion.”
“Her boyfriend?”
“Yeah. Wade Becker. Wait. You didn’t know they were together?”
“How hot and bothered was Julie?” David asked.
“She looked like she was going to blow her top,” Felix said.
I stepped in. “What about Wade? How did he react?”
“He was all bent out of shape about it, too.”
David and I both took a moment to let the news sink in.
“See. There’s plenty of suspicion to go around,” Felix said.
“That’s all very interesting, but it doesn’t change the fact that there is plenty of suspicion surrounding you,” David replied.
“Oh come on. Why are you wasting your time with me after what I just told you?” Felix asked.
“To start, you have no verifiable alibi for the time of the murder. Then there’s the fact that you already lied to us once,” David said.
Felix threw his arms out. “I don’t know what else you want me to say. I didn’t kill Clarissa. Period.”
“To me, it’s not that simple,” David replied.
“You can make it as complicated as you want, but I don’t have anything else to say to you.”
“I say when we’re done,” David replied.
“Go ahead. Keep talking. But I’m not answering any more of your questions.”
Chapter Twenty-One
David peppered Felix with a few more questions, but he didn’t get any additional answers. As flimsy as Felix’s alibi was, he didn’t waver from it.
Finally, when David realized that the interview had hit a roadblock, he and I moved on to question Julie Lambert again.
Thankfully, our next stop took us away from the east side of town. David drove us back to the quaint and cozy neighborhoods that were in numerous supply in central Treasure Cove. Julie Lambert’s rental town house was nestled at the end of tree-lined cul-de-sac.
There were a couple of citrus trees in the front yard, which made me hungry for fresh produce. Perhaps when this case was behind David and me, we could take a trip to the farmers’ market.
As I approached Julie’s red front door, I knew I had to shelve my food cravings. Not only was there serious business to attend to, but with Julie opening the door after only one set of knocks, crunch time was quickly upon me.
No murder suspect was ever happy to see a police detective at their front door, but Julie glanced at David with a unique mixture of dismay and genuine shock. Although, given the substantial secret she had kept from us when we spoke with her earlier, seeing David and I on her doorstep shouldn’t have come as a big surprise.
The wide-eyed look on her face made me think that I needed to pay very close attention to her body language during this conversation.
“Ms. Lambert, we need to talk to you,” David said.
Julie’s eyebrows knitted. “I can’t imagine why.”
“We need to ask you some questions.”
“But I already answered your questions.”
“It turns out we have some new ones.”
Julie’s body language was surprisingly loose. Either she had no idea what was coming or she had an amazing poker face. That only made the interview harder to conduct.
Julie’s forehead wrinkled. “What kind of questions?”
David squinted at her. “You really don’t know?”
She shook her head. “I have no clue.”
“Ms. Lambert, we know about your relationship with Wade Becker.”
Julie scoffed. “What relationship?”
David stared her down. “You know it’s a crime to lie to a police detective, don’t you?”
Her face filled with anger. “Who told you about Wade and me?”
“That doesn’t matter,” David said.
“It does to me. It was Felix, wasn’t it?”
“I am only concerned with the truth. In this case, that includes why you would withhold that information from us.”
“You were asking me about finding Clarissa’s body. The fact that I’m dating Wade wasn’t relevant.”
“I couldn’t disagree more.”
“You asked me why I withheld that information. There’s your answer.”
“You are dating a man who Clarissa passed up for a promotion. Other than you, I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t think that’s relevant. And frankly, I don’t think you believe your own statement.”
Julie folded her arms. “Are you calling me a liar?”
“I didn’t say that. But I will say that you haven’t been a hundred percent truthful with me. I am not going to stand for that going forward. Got it?”
“I think you’re making a much bigger deal about this than you should be,” Julie said.
“You can never make too big of a deal about the truth. In a murder investigation, nothing matters more.”
Julie groaned. “I still don’t know why you’re coming so hard after me. I didn’t do anything.”
“The more I talk to you, the less I believe that. Now, I’m going to give you one more chance to be honest with me. Is there anything else you have been withholding from us?”
She shook her head.
David narrowed his eyes at her. “We’ll see about that.”
“Just because Wade and I are dating doesn’t change anything.”
“That’s your take,” David said.
“And a very biased one,” I added.
Julie threw her arms out. “What do you want from me? I didn’t kill Clarissa.”
“Maybe you didn’t. Perhaps Wade is the killer. That’s what we’re here to find out,” David said.
“If there’s something you want to ask Wade, do it,” Julie replied.
“We will.”
“Good.”
“But we’re not done with you yet,” David said.
“What more could you possibly want from me?” Julie asked.
I stepped in. “We have it on good authority that you were pretty livid about Clarissa passing Wade up for that promotion. So much so that you urged your boyfriend to take action.”
Apple Pie With A Side Of Murder Page 8
