Her smirk gave full birth. “We know who paid for Lacy’s healthcare.”
“And?”
“My suspicions have been confirmed—Peter Hargrove. And we also have the name of the doctor who prescribed Lacy’s allergy medication, but I’m not even sure he’s worth talking to at this point. Maybe if things change.”
THEY UPDATED THE SERGEANT OF their visit to Hargrove’s wife. He was the one who had called with the result of the warrant. He also told them that Higgins and the other officers made no headway with their door-to-door canvassing. After that, they had Hennessey dragged into interrogation room one.
Madison slipped into the chair across from him. Terry walked behind Hennessey.
Hennessey looked over a shoulder, and Terry waved. As Hennessey turned back to face Madison, his eyes were still returning to a normal state from an eye roll.
Madison pulled a photo of the gun retrieved from Bates’s apartment and flicked it across the table to Hennessey. Hennessey didn’t reach for it, but his eyes settled on it.
“Recognize that?” Madison asked.
His eyes never left the photo. He said nothing.
“This was found in your neighbor’s apartment.”
Hennessey looked up, now, relief emanating from him. “He killed—”
“You’re going to let him hang for this?” Madison asked.
“I don’t kn—”
“I believe you do. What if I told you your fingerprints were pulled,” Madison lied, hoping it would make him open up.
Hennessey’s focus drifted over the room, settling on nothing in particular.
“You’re thinking of a comeback to that? Your finger—”
“Okay, so I touched the gun. It doesn’t mean I killed her. You check her hands?”
Madison settled back in the chair. “GSR was found on her hands.”
“She shot herself. So why are you looking at me?”
“That’s the thing about GSR, it gets everywhere.”
Hennessey straightened in his chair.
“Do you have anything to say about that? We think it was staged to look like a suicide. You beat on her. You got her addicted to drugs. You hooked other girls on drugs. You pimp Lacy out too?”
A pulse tapped in his cheek.
“You didn’t think we knew about that, did you.” Madison rose to her feet. “We had one of your girls come in to visit with you. She’s in holding now and about to face charges for assaulting an officer.” Madison added the latter part, although, she would probably end up letting it go—the girl did miss in her attempt to spit on her.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” The index finger of his left hand made circles on the table.
“You’re choosing to play stupid.” Madison walked over to him. Terry stepped to the side. “That’s really how you want to play this? We have cops who testify to being called out to your residence on numerous occasions.”
“We had disagreements. There were no charges ever—”
“Doesn’t mean the beatings didn’t happen. It means Lacy was afraid of you. She didn’t want to see how angry you would get if you were put in jail and let go.”
“No.” He stopped tracing circles on the table.
“The gun was yours. Bates hid it for you. Did you kill Lacy together? You pressure her into pulling the trigger on herself or did you do it?”
“We couldn’t—”
“She didn’t bury herself.”
His eyes flashed up to meet hers and drew back to the table. “She…we found her.”
“We? We who?”
“Bates and me. She had popped one into her head before we came home.”
Madison took a few more steps. “So, she shot herself and you found her dead. You decide to bury her instead of calling the police.” Madison put herself at his face level. “You sold her belongings and buried your girlfriend in a garden.” Her eyes scanned his. He looked like he wanted to break the eye contact but couldn’t seem to.
“It’s not like—”
“It is what it looks like…based on evidence. What we want to know is why. Why did you bury her? You see, we think you made her pull the trigger. You knew about the other man. There was a struggle.”
The pulse in his cheek steadied. “Other man?”
Madison straightened up and rested her hands on her hips. She glanced at Terry and jacked a thumb toward Hennessey. “We’re back to playing stupid again.”
“K, fine, I knew about him.”
“How did that make you feel? Did you want to teach her a lesson? Did you?”
His head shook back and forth in small jerky movements.
“You didn’t come home to find her that way.”
“I can’t go to jail.”
Madison laughed. “You already are, on charges of drug possession. If we get your other girlfriend to testify, we’ll be adding heading up a prostitution ring as well.”
“I didn’t kill Lace.”
“You ever hear of the phrase ‘broken record.’” Madison sat back across from him again. She tapped a hand on the photo of the gun. “You do recognize this.”
Hennessey’s eyes looked through her. “Yeah.”
Madison clasped her hands and leaned back into the chair. “All right, now we’re getting somewhere.”
-
Chapter 27
THE NEXT FEW HOURS WERE spent questioning Hennessey. He stuck to his story that he showed up afterward to find Lacy dead. He said he panicked and called Bates to let him know what happened. He swore it was Bates’s idea to bury her. Neither of them wanted to go back to jail.
“It’s an entire case of he said, he said.” Madison stood in the observation room with Terry. “We really need some forensic evidence tying them to the murder. Right now, all we have is one guy confessing to burying her. He’ll be charged with indignity to a human body, but that’s not good enough for me. None of this is sitting well.”
“And why confess to something like burying her? Why not keep quiet? We still need to prove it beyond his confession.”
“The guy’s not that bright. We know that.”
“Wonder what his friend would think about being sold out,” Terry said.
Madison tapped her finger over her holster. “That’s the other part. Bates seems to really care about the girl.”
“Fear can be a strong motivator, though. Both have been in jail before.”
“Hey, guys.” Cynthia came up to them holding a beige folder. She extended it to Madison. “It’s not a lot, but it’s something. There’s a lot to process in this case.”
Madison opened the folder and scanned down its contents. “Fingerprints?” She looked up at Cynthia.
“Yes, there were prints found on the gun you took from Bates’s apartment. They came back a match to Hennessey and the vic.”
Madison glanced at Terry. “So, we’re still faced with the question of who fired the gun. It could have been placed in Lacy’s hands. Also, it seems Hennessey hid it in Bates’s apartment.”
“Or Bates used gloves to make sure not to leave his prints behind while Hennessey didn’t think of it,” Terry said.
Madison shook her head. “Why would an innocent person hide the gun? Especially since he’s been locked up before. Why risk it? Unless Bates likes his three squares a day.” She brainstormed aloud. “Guilt over burying her could have moved him to hide the gun. But it wasn’t in Bates’s apartment when we first searched it.”
“Where did it come from?” Terry asked.
Thirty seconds of silence passed with the three of them passing glances at each other.
“Bates had to be involved, even if as an accessory after the fact. He must’ve hidden the gun for Hennessey somewhere off the property, and once we finished the search brought it back to his apartment,” Madison said.
>
“But why his and not Hennessey’s?”
The answer to the riddle sparked in Madison’s mind. “The guys were really close. Neither wanted to go to prison or be charged with the murder—”
“You’re thinking Lacy committed suicide and they panicked?” Cynthia asked.
“Not entirely sure. We need more to base it on. The history of Hennessey beating on her doesn’t sit well with me either.”
Terry rubbed the back of his neck. “And he sold all her belongings, took over living in the condo.”
“The condo…that’s where they put the gun afterward. They knew we’d never go there, or at the very least get there in time.”
“The guy was a cockroach,” Cynthia said, warranting a look from Madison and Terry. “They’re both drug addicts. From what I hear, rumor is Hennessey was also a pimp. They’re money hungry. It wouldn’t matter. Say, if he did love her, this instinct would take over, just like cockroaches that eat their dead.”
Madison scrunched up her face.
“Well, it’s true. To Hennessey, this would have meant opportunity. He likely knew it wouldn’t last forever and that’s why he moved quickly to remove any trace of the vic—”
“Lacy,” Madison corrected her.
“Yes, Maddy, Lacy.”
“Okay, so we know that the two of them worked together, at least in some capacity. We can place Bates and Hennessey at the condo. We can place Hennessey’s prints on the gun, but not Bates’s. But it was found in his apartment. What am I missing?”
“We have yet to run ballistic testing on the gun to see if it’s a match to the casing and fragments pulled from the—Lacy. We could be getting a little ahead of ourselves.”
“When do—”
“Sam’s working on it.”
Madison nodded.
Cynthia pointed to the folder. “You will notice, I have results from the vaginal swab, and Lacy did have a sexual encounter within twenty-four hours before death.”
“DNA?”
“There was. It came back a match to one in the system. It wasn’t Hennessey or Bates.”
Madison looked at Terry wondering if it was going to be Peter Hargrove. She still needed to pull his background.
Cynthia continued. “The guy actually died a month ago.” Cynthia bent over the top of the folder and pointed a finger to the sheet. Madison’s eyes followed where she directed.
“Kevin Thorne,” Madison read the name aloud. Any passing thought she had to Lacy being involved with a john evaporated with this finding. Johns always wear condoms.
“Yeah, he apparently killed—”
“Yes, in a motel room, slits to both wrists. Ruled a suicide.”
“Maddy?” Cynthia sought an explanation.
Madison closed the folder and looked at her partner. “That is the case I told that woman I’d look into.” Madison’s eyes went to her colleague and friend. “This woman showed up here on Sunday and asked me to look into the case involving her fiancé.”
“Case? But it’s closed with the ruling of suicide,” Cynthia said.
“I know what the file says.”
Cynthia enlarged her eyes toward Terry.
“What was that for?” Madison asked.
“Just you. You doubt the findings.”
Madison adjusted her stance, jutting her hip to the right and placing one hand there while the other held the closed folder. “Maybe I’m the only one finding this odd, but the guy cuts both wrists to kill himself. His fiancée claims he never would have done that. Richards mentioned she was pregnant and that Kevin had recently lost his job—”
“It could have pushed him over the edge,” Cynthia said.
“But all this combined with your recent findings. He had sex with our victim.”
“Lacy,” Cynthia’s smile was subtle and barely curved her lips.
Madison waved a dismissive hand at her. Her mind was trying to discern the connection between everyone. How did Kevin Thorne factor into Lacy’s death? Was his death actually a suicide or was it murder, as his fiancée had claimed?
“I’ve got to go.” She took a few steps and heard Cynthia call out to her, but she didn’t turn back. She knew what she had to do now. She waved a hand over her head. “Thanks, Cyn.”
-
Chapter 28
MADISON WENT TO THE EVIDENCE storage locker and Terry came with her. She told the officer behind the counter what she wanted and he told her “two minutes.”
Terry stood beside her with a ham sandwich he had grabbed on the way down. He took a bite and swallowed the mouthful before speaking. “So, now you don’t think the guy killed himself? You doubt Richards’s ruling on the cause of death? Thought you guys were friends. His favorite detective, he says.”
“He used to—”
Terry tore another mouthful from his lunch. Meat dangled from the edge of the bread, taunting her, begging her to come back to the life where she could eat what she wanted, when she wanted. Terry didn’t miss it.
“You’re eating right?”
“Don’t worry about me.”
“Come on, you need someone to.” He smirked.
She balled up a fist and punched his right shoulder. As she retracted her arm, she dwelled on his words about needing someone to care for her. She was the job. She had limited friends, a pretty much non-existent social life, and now tension with coworkers. Somehow, things would return to normal between her and Richards—maybe. At least she hoped so. She’d stand a better chance if she weren’t now forced to question his ruling. She considered her options and, given the situation, would rather upset the balance in another relationship first, a relationship which didn’t really matter to her anymore and was already beyond repair.
“We’ll need to talk to Sovereign.”
“I guess Hargrove’s not the older man after all. I win the bet.”
“I say we need to talk to Sovereign, and you say that?”
Terry bobbed his head.
“No bets are settled until charges are laid. Those are the rules.”
“Why delay the inevitable?” Terry’s eyes flashed with a revelation. “Suppose I’ll have more time to bask in the vi—”
“There isn’t any victory until—”
“Here ya go.” The officer placed a box on the counter. “Case evidence for Thorne, Kevin. Sign here.” He extended a log sheet toward her along with a pen that had been tucked behind an ear.
“Only the one?”
“Yes, ma’am.” His eyes were bright.
“All right then.” She scribbled her name and badge number, with a pen she had on her, and then looked up and smiled at the officer.
Madison grabbed the box, bending at the knees, anticipating it to be heavy, but it was light. “They must not have gotten much.”
She didn’t say what else she was thinking, but for an instant, she doubted her colleagues. Had they gathered all the evidence? Was something left behind—something that would confirm Thorne’s death was a murder, not a suicide?
MADISON AND TERRY TOOK THE evidence box to an interrogation room and rummaged through it. The contents were easily spread on the table with room to spare. She fanned the crime scene photos out and studied them.
It was a standard cheap motel room. A tube television sat on a long dresser, opposite the bed. The artwork on the walls dated back to the seventies. The comforter on the bed matched the carpeting and had faded in equal harmony with it over the years.
“He was found here.” Madison pointed to the bloodstained tub. “This photo was one taken after Thorne was removed. Tox showed two times the legal limit of alcohol in his system, and there was also a cocktail of drugs in his bloodstream.” Madison looked up from the photo to her partner. “There was no physical evidence to support he used drugs regularly. The razor was on the tub ledge and only had Thorne’
s prints.”
“And the fact he had no history of drug use wasn’t found suspicious?”
“Guess not enough so.”
Terry picked up the photo. “There are no alcohol bottles next to the tub. One would think he would have brought those in with him before doing the deed.”
“Good point. Once a person is heavily intoxicated, a switch goes off. They wouldn’t let their drink from their sight.”
She looked back at the photo of the motel room and pointed at a bottle on the nightstand. She read the crime scene report. “An empty bottle of tequila was found. It was dusted for prints and it only showed Thorne’s.”
“Any mention of where they found the drugs he consumed? Any specifics on the drugs?” Terry asked.
Madison braced both her hands on the table and stretched out her back. Her focus stayed on the report. “It seemed to be a blend of drugs—meth, coke, and heroin.”
She turned the sheet to Detective Sovereign’s notes. She read some of it aloud. “No trace of cocaine or meth, or any other drug, was found in the motel room, despite confirmation drugs were found in the victim’s system. As noted by Cole Richards, Medical Examiner, the victim was not a habitual user.”
Madison looked at Terry, who gestured for her to continue.
“A puncture hole was found between two of his toes. It’s figured that the cocktail he was on was in liquid form.”
Madison stopped reading. “What’s saying someone else didn’t shoot this guy up and then kill him? No record of drug abuse, why did he start now?”
“He was under a lot of pressure right. Think about it, Thorne lost his job, had a pregnant fiancée, and an upcoming marriage that was a sham to start.”
“Still, to turn to drugs—hardcore drugs? It seems a stretch to me,” Madison said. “Most people who haven’t used drugs just turn to alcohol and get wasted.”
“Well, did they find any evidence connecting his death to anyone? Was there any trace drawing back to another person?”
“I talked to Richards about this—”
“You did?”
She read his eyes, his concern about questioning the ME’s findings. “I wasn’t confronting him. I asked if he remembered. I should have known he would, as he remembers every one that comes to his table. Anyway, his response was the body was pulled from a motel room, so there was trace, but nothing that could lead them anywhere.”
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