“K—” He clears his throat. “Kara Becker used that type, I believe.”
“Where were you on the night of Kara Becker’s murder?”
“Home.”
I nod at Finch, who steps into the booth, then returns with a laptop. Setting it down on the table, he turns it to face the doctor. “This shot from the elevator was taken the night of the murder at approximately 10:33 p.m. We have similar footage showing you leaving the premises the same way just over an hour later.” Plenty of time.
Buchanan leans forward, watching as Finch hits Play. When he sees himself on-screen, he sits back abruptly. “I must’ve gone to see Daisy.” He looks at the video, then back at me. “I did. I remember now. I went to see Daisy. She asked me to come.”
I highly doubt that.
“We’ll be sure to ask Miss Buchanan about that,” Finch says, snapping the computer shut. Taking the laptop, he returns to the confines of the booth.
“We have you there, in the building, the night of the murder. We have images of you and Miss Becker in, well, in an amorous position. Images that could harm your reputation,” I state.
“Kara and I stopped seeing each other. There was no reason for me to kill her.”
“We have Miss Becker’s journal. She mentions getting money from someone. Did she ask you for money in exchange for those images?”
“No. Of course not.” He slaps his palm down onto the table. “There’s nothing wrong with her and I—”
“Did her grade jump from an F to an A before or after you slept with her?”
His face blanches.
I’ve got him.
“She did the necessary work to improve her grade. Both semesters.”
“Uh-huh.”
“She did,” he says angrily. “There’s nothing in our contracts that says we cannot date students.”
“Date?” I frown. “Did you two date? Were you courting?”
“Courting?” He scoffs. “I’m married.”
“So ‘affair’ is a better word, isn’t it? How would your wife feel about you sleeping with another woman?”
“How the hell would I know? She won’t return my calls.”
Daisy said something similar.
“The last I heard, she was in Utah or somewhere out in the boonies,” he continues.
I think Daisy mentioned California. I stand, picking up my notebook. “I’ll be right back.” I want to give Buchanan enough time to stew on this conversation, plus I want to ask Daisy about her father’s visit. She never mentioned that either.
In the booth, I stop in front of Finch and the captain.
“I think you’ve got him,” Captain Billings says with a smile.
I think I do too. “I’m going to ask Daisy about his claim that he was there to see her.”
“Good.” He smiles. “I’ll watch him squirm until you get back.”
Out in the main room of Ames PD, I grab a set of keys and head back to the holding cells. I hate the idea that she’s back here, locked up. When I reach her cell, she’s lying on a cot, her eyes red and puffy.
“Honey,” I say softly.
“Gage?” She jumps up from the cot and races to the bars. “Can I go now?”
“Not yet. I need to ask you something.”
“Okay.” Her voice is hesitant.
“We have footage of your father taking the elevator from the parking garage up to your floor the night of the murder.”
Daisy gasps.
“He says he was there to see you. Is that true?”
“No.” Her face looks fierce. “He’s lying.”
“He said you asked him to come.”
Scoffing, she grabs the bars between us. “Like I’d call him.”
“That’s what I thought.” Turning, I reach out and touch one of her hands. “I’ll be back.”
“Hurry, Gage.” She sniffles. “I’ve always hated being locked up.”
That’s a strange way of putting it, but I get what she means. “I’ll be back.”
“Okay.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Gage
“We’ve got him at the scene at the time of the murder. We’ve got a motive—Kara’s blackmail scheme,” Captain Billings notes.
“He must be the dude who had ‘bank,’ according to Dylan Forrester.”
“Agree,” I say as I write down the captain’s summary. “When we went back in to speak to him, to tell him Daisy denied his claim that she’d asked him to visit, he then claimed to have seen someone else in the hallway outside of Kara’s apartment as he was leaving.”
“Right,” Finch grumbles. “We’ve identified every person who came and went from the front and back entrances of Becker’s building. Besides residents, there’s been no others who left around that time.”
I shrug. “It could have been a resident. You know, walking by her door.”
“He said the guy was knocking on her door.”
The captain stands and paces in front of the small conference room. “Let’s show the professor a picture lineup. Include all of the players and see if he picks someone we’ve already vetted.”
Finch gets the task of creating the photo lineup. He’s including Dylan Forrester, Luke Green, Bryant Falco, and seven others, some of whom came from Kara Becker’s social media accounts. Once it’s prepared, Finch is given the pleasure of placing the lineup in front of Dr. Buchanan while we watch from the booth.
“Please look at all ten photos and point to the person you believe you saw in the hallway outside of Kara Becker’s apartment.”
We watch as Dorian scoots his chair closer to the table. He leans down over the pictures. His head moves from my right to left and back again.
“Doubt he points to anyone,” mumbles the captain.
I’m not so sure. He’s gone back to the same part of the page several times. When he raises his hand, first finger extended, I hold my breath. Almost in slow motion, Buchanan moves his finger down, pressing on one image. “That one.”
“That one?” Finch asks, looking perplexed.
“Yeah. He was outside her door. Knocking.”
Finch says aloud, “Let the recording show that Dr. Dorian Buchanan picked number seven from the photo lineup.”
I look down at the photocopy and blink. Buchanan just fingered, Bryant Falco. What the ever-loving hell?
Finch steps back into the booth looking perplexed. “I questioned his roommates; they all corroborated his story. He was back home that night.”
“He could still have made the
