Again his voice cracked when he spoke.
“That’s what we think,” Mel said. “What do you think?”
She sounded like such a hard-nosed bitch that I couldn’t help but be grateful that I wasn’t her suspect. But I also understood her urgency. The animosity between Josh and Governor Longmire might well be enough to call Marsha’s consent to our search into question. It might even be enough to void the search warrants Ross Connors had obtained. If the First Husband had any idea what was really going on in this room, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had risen from his deathbed, Lazarus-style, and crawled up the stairs to put a stop to it. I’m sure Mel suspected, as did I, that an attorney would show up momentarily. When he or she did, this conversation would be over. If the warrants were thrown out, what we got from Josh now might be all we had. Period.
“Where were you last night?” Mel asked.
“Around,” he said.
That was a one-word weasel answer if I’ve ever heard one. It’s exactly the kind of answer suspects give when they know they don’t have an alibi that will hold up to any kind of careful scrutiny.
“Are you kidding me?” Mel replied. “You went to all the trouble of climbing down two rope ladders to get out of the house and that’s the best you can do-around? Who were you with?”
“Nobody,” Josh insisted. “I was by myself.”
I thought he had been telling the truth about not recognizing the girl and maybe even about not knowing how the scarf had magically appeared in his locker. All I had to do was look at his face to see he was lying about being by himself. He had definitely been with somebody, and once we went through his phone and scrutinized his text messages, we’d probably have a name and a phone number. I didn’t call him on it, though, and neither did Mel. Instead, she favored me with a meaningful look that said it was time for the good cop to come to Josh’s rescue.
“Leave him alone,” I said to Mel. “He’s had a shock, and I don’t blame him for being upset.” I turned to Josh, putting on the charm and doing my best to sound sympathetic.
“Come on, Josh,” I wheedled. “Let us help you. This is the time. If you had nothing to do with what happened to the girl, you don’t have anything to worry about. Just tell us who she is and who did it. That’s all we want to know-who and maybe where. Somebody killed that poor girl, and it’s our job to find out who those people are. We don’t really care what’s on your phone or on your computer. We need to find out who killed her. Help us do that. Tell us what you know.”
Lying to suspects in interviews is standard operating procedure. I don’t like doing it, but sometimes telling a few little white lies is the only way to make any progress in the investigation.
“I already told you. I don’t know who she is. I don’t know who killed her.”
“Where’s your watch?” Mel asked.
“What watch?”
“The Seiko your grandfather gave you for eighth-grade graduation.”
“I don’t know where it is,” Josh said. “I lost it.”
“When?” Mel asked. “Where?”
“If I knew where I was when I lost it, then it wouldn’t be lost, now would it?”
Josh tried to reassume his devil-may-care attitude, but it didn’t quite work. Once again his cracking voice gave him away.
“How long ago did you lose it?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. It was a while ago. Maybe a couple of weeks.”
“Who else comes in this room?”
“Nobody,” Josh said. “I’m the only one.”
“No maids?” I asked. “No housekeepers?”
“I already told you,” Josh said. “Nobody comes here but me. I’m up here all by myself, like the Prisoner of Zenda or something.”
I was more than a little surprised that he even knew the words “Prisoner of Zenda.” I wondered if he’d actually read the book.
Mel didn’t allow herself to be deflected.
“Tell me about the scarf,” she said.
Josh crossed his arms. “I already told you. I don’t know anything about the scarf,” he insisted. “I found it in my locker.”
“Why’d you hide it under your mattress? If the scarf turns out to be our murder weapon, that’s going to put you at the top of our suspect list.”
“Maybe it’s not the same scarf,” Josh said.
Mel shook her head. “Guess again, Charm Boy. We found the scarf concealed here in this room where you, by your own admission, are the only person coming and going. A video file showing what appears to be the same scarf being used to strangle someone shows up on your phone, and you expect us to believe that you don’t know anything about it? Give me a break. This isn’t my first day, you know.”
Josh said nothing.
Far below us I heard the sound of a ringing doorbell. Whatever reinforcements Governor Longmire had summoned-probably one of her fat-cat major contributors-was riding to Josh’s rescue. That meant our chance to interview Josh Deeson was almost over.
“Look,” I said quickly. “We know you didn’t kill her. I get that; Ms. Soames here gets that, but I’m guessing you do know who’s responsible. You need to tell us who she was and who did this to her. You need to name names. Let us help you put this terrible mess behind you. This is your last chance to make that deal work, Josh. We’ll go to the prosecutor. We’ll tell him you helped us. That’ll be a big mark in your favor with everybody, including that poor girl’s parents. Their daughter is dead. They need to know what happened to her.”
Josh’s facade cracked a little right along with his voice. “Sure,” he said, “like being a snitch is going to make my life better? But I already told you. I don’t know who did this. I’ve never seen that girl before just now. I don’t know who she is or what happened to her.”
“You do know what happened to her,” Mel shot back. “You saw it on that video. Someone strangled her before your very eyes.”
Switching topics, Mel tapped a scarlet-tipped fingernail on the stack of drawings. “You are a kid who likes thinking about dead people, aren’t you,” she said. “You must think torturing people is cool somehow. Who are the people in these pictures, Josh? Are they people you know from school, maybe people you don’t like very much?”
“It’s art,” Josh said. “It’s what I do in my spare time. It doesn’t mean anything. Art isn’t against the law. Isn’t there something called freedom of speech in this country?”
“These drawings speak to the type of person you are,” Mel said. “They tell us the kinds of hobbies and interests you have as well as the kinds of things you’d like to do to other people if you ever have the chance.”
We were running out of time. Mel and I knew it; so did Josh. All three of us heard the sound of heavy footsteps pounding up the second flight of stairs. Josh crossed his arms, shook his head, and said nothing.
The bedroom door slammed open hard enough that it bounced off the wall behind us.
A burly man in a well-cut suit charged into the room.
“I’m Mr. Deeson’s attorney,” he said. “I demand to know what’s going on here! Who are you? What are you doing here?”
Mel stepped forward to meet him, holding up her badge in one hand and the search warrant in another.
“My name is Melissa Soames,” she said. “This is my partner, J. P. Beaumont. We’re with the attorney general’s Special Homicide Investigation Team. We’re executing a properly issued search warrant of this young man’s room. I don’t believe I caught your name.”
“Garvin McCarthy,” he growled, snatching the search warrant from Mel’s hands. “Let me see that.”
The gesture would have been more effective if McCarthy hadn’t had to dig a pair of reading glasses out of the jacket of his designer suit in order to read what was written on the documents. Before he began reading, however, he shot a venomous look in Josh’s direction.
“Not another word from you, young man. Understand?”
I half expected Josh to balk at this unmistakable order from someone he didn’t know, but I think our questions had scared the crap out of him. He knew he was in trouble. He knew he needed help even if that help was
