Dan: But the gun had been fired more recently than two weeks ago. And I’m betting ballistics will confirm that it was the weapon used to kill those two boys in your barn.
Eli: That can’t be. It just can’t be. The gun was locked in the safe. I would swear to it. I had not removed it since I last used it. If I had used it to commit murder, do you think I would be stupid enough to leave it at the crime scene? Or to let you look into the safe without a search warrant?
Charlie: Who besides you knows the combination to the safe?
Eli: My wife, of course. My two sons. And Abe Basham, my attorney.
Charlie: That’s it? You’ve positive of that?
Eli: Yes.
Dan: I have to tell you, Mr. Whitehouse. This does not look good for you. And if ballistics does bear out my suspicions, things are going to look a lot worse. What it’s going to mean is, you committed these murders.
Eli: I did not. As God is my witness, I did no such thing.
Dan: Well, let’s wait and see if the evidence has the same eyes God has.
Several pages later Dantzler read the transcript of Eli’s second interrogation. This one took place the next day, after he had officially been charged with the crime. For this meeting, Abe Basham, Eli’s attorney, was present.
Charlie: Do I need to read you your rights again, Reverend?
Eli: It’s not necessary.
Abe: Why don’t you do it anyway, Detective? For the sake of protocol.
Charlie: John Elijah Whitehouse, you have…
Eli: This is not necessary, Abe.
Abe: Have it your way, Eli. Proceed, Detective.
Dan: Mr. Whitehouse, it appears as though God and the physical evidence are not on the same page. We have your prints on the murder weapon discovered at the crime scene. That pretty much makes it a done deal. Why not confess? Tell us how it went down?
Eli: I can’t confess to a crime I did not commit.
Charlie: Then give us a scenario that backs your story.
Eli: I can’t.
Dan: You claim you were at the church when the murders occurred? Right?
Eli: Yes. I was working on Sunday’s sermon.
Dan: What time did you return home?
Eli: I’m not positive. Around midnight, I would say.
Dan: Can anyone verify that you were at the church?
Eli: No.
Dan: You made no calls to your wife or kids? No one called you?
Eli: No.
Dan: The evidence points directly at you and you have no alibi. You did it, Mr. Whitehouse. There can be no other explanation.
Eli: I did not do it.
Charlie: Convince me.
Eli: I have nothing else to say.
Dan: Why not confess, Reverend Whitehouse? I’ve always heard confession is good for the soul. You, being a man of God, should know that better than anyone.
Abe: Don’t say another word, Eli. That’s it, fellows. We’re done here.
Dantzler briefly scanned interviews with Eli’s wife, children, Abe Basham, and several members of the congregation. The verdict was unanimous-Eli could not have committed these murders. Unfortunately for Eli, not one of them could provide an alibi proving his innocence. At the time of the murders-estimated by the medical examiner to have occurred between nine-thirty and eleven that night-no one could remember seeing Eli Whitehouse.
Charlie and Dan had every right to arrest Eli for the crime. The full weight of evidence pointed directly at him. The murder happened on his property, the murder weapon was his, it had his prints on it, and it was at the scene. That alone was damning enough. Throw in lack of an alibi and the case became, as Dan said, “a done deal.”
Dantzler had seen plenty of suspects convicted on much less evidence.
Still-
Three areas troubled Dantzler. The first was motive. Or, more specifically, lack of a motive. Why would Eli kill two young men he did not know? During the entire investigation, Charlie and Dan never established a connection between Eli and the victims. What could possibly have been his motive for ending the lives of two complete strangers?
The second troubling factor was the one that also bothered Charlie-why would Eli leave the murder weapon at the crime scene? Why not toss it somewhere? Or at the very least, wipe it clean of fingerprints? Only an idiot would leave it next to the bodies, in plain sight, and Eli was no idiot.
Dantzler, like Charlie, had a problem with how the murders were carried out. Single shot, back of the head, small caliber weapon-that had professional hit written all over it. Was it reasonable to believe Eli Whitehouse, a man who had not committed a violent crime in his life, had suddenly morphed into a cold-blooded Mafia-style hit man? That a man of God had suddenly become Bugsy Siegel? Dantzler wasn’t buying it.
