“I’m on my way. And, Cusack,” she added quickly, “have Debbie Norman brought in for more questioning.”
“Why?”
“I have reason to believe even if Robert is our killer, Debbie was in on it, too. I’ll explain more when I get there.”
* * * *
Megan shaved minutes off her arrival time, racing through the streets of Gulfport and Biloxi at breakneck speeds. She left Drake at his place with strict orders to stay there. She didn’t expect him to listen. She had given him a quick rundown of her phone call with Cusack and fully suspected Drake had walked out his house minutes after she left, heading to the hospital to check on Marie. It didn’t matter. Drake was no longer a suspect. Cusack had his man.
At least he thinks he does.
Yet again, her gut was screaming at her, telling her something wasn’t right. If she had been unable to believe Robert had killed Paul, she certainly couldn’t believe he had shot Marie.
She whipped into a slot in the parking lot of the Biloxi P.D. and double-timed it into the building.
“The sergeant is in there with him,” one of the officers who had been working the case told her as she passed him on her way to Cusack’s office. “He said to tell you he’s in interrogation room two.”
“Thanks.” Megan did a one-eighty in the hallway and headed for the interrogation room. She knocked sharply on the door and pushed it open. Robert sat on one side of the oblong table, his hands fisted in front of him. His head jerked her direction when she walked in, his face nearly bloodless, his expression full of horror and sorrow.
Cusack sat on the other side of the table, straddling a chair turned backward, his forearms resting on the metal back. “I asked you about the gun.”
“And I told you the gun belongs to me,” Robert said, his tone weary. “You already know it does, Sergeant. I keep it in the locked cabinet in my apartment.”
“It wasn’t in that cabinet tonight. It was found at the crime scene on the floor right next to your aunt’s body.”
“Yeah, no shit. I was found there, too.”
“What happened tonight, Robert?” Megan walked to the table and stood beside Cusack. Cusack scowled up at her, but didn’t comment on her interrupting his line of questioning.
Robert raked a hand down his face and met her gaze. “Aunt Marie called me around nine o’clock. She was ecstatic. She said she met with Drake Allen this afternoon and he’s buying into the place, or something like that. I didn’t really get everything she was trying to tell me, but I got that, between the two of them, they had figured out how to save the aquarium. She said she had already called Brandon, Walter, and Joan to tell them the news and that they were having another meeting between all the partners and Drake tomorrow morning.”
Drake hadn’t told her he would be meeting with Marie again in the morning. On the other hand, they really hadn’t talked much in the hours she spent at his house that night.
“She asked me to come over,” Robert continued. “She wanted to run some ideas by me that Drake has. She said she wanted to give me my job back and have me work with Drake on a few things.”
Megan hid her surprise. Drake definitely hadn’t mentioned that. She could see it, though. She would bet it had been one of Marie’s stipulations, to bring Robert back on as an employee.
Robert sighed. “When I got to Aunt Marie’s, I knocked on the door, but she didn’t answer. I checked the knob, found it unlocked, and let myself in. I called for her, but she didn’t answer. Then I heard a noise in the family room.”
“What kind of noise?” Cusack asked.
Robert shrugged. “Footsteps, a door closing…I walked into the family room, and that’s when I found her. I saw the gun on the floor beside her and all the blood.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “God, there was so much blood. I ran to her, kneeled down to check for a pulse, and that’s when the cops barged in. I don’t know. I’m guessing a neighbor heard the shot or something and called 911. The cops jerked me away from her and, the next thing I know, they were slapping cuffs on me.”
“You said you heard footsteps,” Megan prompted. “What did they sound like?”
“Aunt Marie’s house has hardwood floors. It was like heels or something, hard-soled shoes.”
“And you don’t know how your gun ended up in her house?” Cusack asked skeptically.
“You didn’t loan it to Marie?” Megan took the question further. “Maybe for protection or something?”
“No, the last time I looked at it, the gun was in its case in my apartment inside that locked cabinet where it was supposed to be.”
Megan felt the puzzle pieces slowly start to fit together. Robert hadn’t shot Marie any more than he had killed Paul. He was being framed, again, and she had a good idea now who was behind it. “Who’s been in your apartment lately? Say, within the last week or two?”
Robert rubbed the back of his neck, taking a moment to think. “No one except Debbie, you, and the sergeant.”
Debbie, who had called Megan mere minutes before Cusack with another lie she had instantly seen right through. She thought about that conversation, about the holes her gut had picked up in the girl’s story.
“Did you plan to return to the aquarium Friday night?”
Robert’s shoulders rose and fell in a breath of obvious forced patience. “I told both of you I never left my apartment building after I got home Friday. I went to the bar, tied one on, and passed out on the couch. Uncle Paul fired me, remember? Why would I go back?”
Megan shrugged. “To talk to him. Maybe you were thinking you would give him some time to cool off and then you would go back, explain yourself, and ask for your job back?”
Robert let out a laugh full of cynicism. “Yeah, right. Come on, Megan. You knew my uncle as well as I did. I could’ve given him ten years to cool off and he wouldn’t have listened to a thing I had to say, much less hire me back, without Aunt Marie forcing him to.”
Chapter Eight
Megan waited until Cusack joined her in the hallway outside interrogation room two before she turned to him. “Did you have Debbie Norman brought in like I asked you to?”
Cusack glared at her. “You mean like you
told
me to? I don’t take orders from my detectives very well, Pontius, not without a damn good reason.”
“And I told you I would give you that reason when I got here.” She ran through her phone call with Debbie word for word, leaving nothing out. “She was in that aquarium Friday night, Jerry. She had access to Robert’s locker in the building and the gun in his apartment.”
Cusack shook his head and started walking toward his office. “You think Debbie Norman did all of this and set up her boyfriend to take the fall?”
“No, she was an accomplice to the man who did. But, I bet if you make her think we believe she killed Paul and shot Marie tonight, she’ll crack and tell us who that man is.”
Cusack stopped a few feet from the door to his office and lowered his voice. “You’re right about one thing. She was an accomplice. That’s the reason I had her brought in tonight. We’ll play it your way, but we already have our man in custody.”
“If we play it my way, we’ll find out if you’re right.”
He walked through the office doorway, and Debbie turned in the chair in front of his desk. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Miss Norman, and thank you for coming in at this late hour.” He sat behind his desk, but Debbie’s attention was focused on Megan.
“Did you tell the sergeant I called you tonight? Did you tell him what I told you?”
Megan gave her a curt nod. “I did. I also told him you lied to me again.”
Debbie gasped. Her jaw dropped, and her eyes widened. “I told you the truth. I told you everything.”
Megan folded her arms beneath her breasts. “You left out how you stabbed Paul with the knife Robert borrowed from Drake, how you pushed Paul into that shark tank. You left out how you took a 32-caliber pistol from Robert’s apartment and used that gun to shoot Marie Colton just a couple of hours ago in her own home.”
Debbie bolted from her seat. “I didn’t! No, you’ve got it all wrong. Oh my God, Marie was shot? Megan, Sergeant, you have to believe me. I didn’t do all that stuff. I—”
“Sit down, Miss Norman,” Cusack ordered sternly.
Megan didn’t let up. “You did it, Debbie, and you attempted to frame Robert for all of it.”
“No.” Debbie shook her head vehemently, tears spilling onto her cheeks. “No. He wasn’t supposed to die. He wasn’t supposed to kill him.”
Megan exchanged a glance with Cusack.
Bingo.
“Who wasn’t supposed to kill him?” Cusack asked, but Debbie didn’t answer.
“He said he just wanted to scare Paul, threaten him into selling. He promised me if I helped him he would see my father got the contract to build the new casino. We needed that contract. My mother has leukemia. She’s dying, and the bills for her treatment have put my father so far in debt he can’t afford them anymore. It’s exhausted their insurance, drained his bank account, and no one will give him a loan. That contract would have saved everything.”
Oh, you poor naive girl.
Megan watched her as she buried her face in her hands and wept. Though she already knew the answer, she needed to make Debbie say it. “Who promised you this, Debbie? Who killed Paul and shot Marie.”
“Walter Samuels.”
* * * *
Megan didn’t make it to her apartment until after nine o’clock the next morning. Running on sheer will alone, she stumbled inside, tossed her purse on the sofa, and headed for the coffee pot. She should be headed to bed, but her mind was still spinning from the events of last night. She also needed to go to the hospital to visit Marie.
Shower. Coffee. Hospital.
She made the mental checklist and followed through with the steps, setting the coffee to brew before she headed for the bathroom. The steam helped her sort her thoughts, helped her relax and come to terms with everything that had happened. They had Walter Samuels in custody, Debbie would face lesser charges for her involvement due to her cooperation with the police, and Robert had been released. All in all, it hadn’t been a bad night despite the lives that had been rocked by Paul’s murder.
She showered quickly and wrapped a towel around herself as she padded to her bedroom, stopping in the doorway when the doorbell rang.
Déjà vu.
She smiled as she headed for the front door, knowing it had to be Drake. She opened the door, saw his gaze fall down her, and watched as his lips tilted in the devious grin she loved so much.
“That’s twice.”
Yep, twice that she had opened the door wearing only a towel to find him on her doorstep. “You’re getting good at this.”
“At least this time it’s under better circumstances. I just left the hospital. Marie is in stable condition. She’s going to be okay.”
Megan nodded. “I called about an hour ago to get a report.” She stepped aside, giving him room to enter, and closed the door behind him. “Have you heard the rest?”
“I caught the tail end of something on the radio on the way over about Paul’s death, that it’s now been deemed a murder and the killer has been arrested.”
“Walter Samuels.”
“Walter? Are you serious?”
“Follow me and I’ll tell you the whole story. I need coffee.” She shot him a glance over her shoulder as she walked to the kitchen. “Want a cup?”
“Might as well. I don’t see sleep anywhere in my immediate future.”
Megan laughed. “Yeah, neither did I.” She pulled two cups from the cabinet and filled them. “It all boils down to greed. What a surprise,” she said sourly as she handed him a cup. “Debbie did have a part in it, a pretty big part. She was sleeping with him.”
“No shit?”
“He had been giving her money, not a lot, but a little here and there to help with her mother’s medical treatments. Her mother is dying of leukemia. Her father is an out-of-work contractor. Walter found out about this, knew her family was struggling, and promised her he would see her father got the building contract for the casino if she helped him. He fully intended to frame Robert, but he didn’t care if you were the one who took the fall.”
“As long as it didn’t come back on him,” Drake said dryly, taking a sip of his coffee.
“Walter wanted the aquarium gone, he wanted the sell, wanted the money. She let him in the back door that night. She claims he had told her he just planned to scare Paul, that she didn’t know he had gotten the knife out of Robert’s locker. Whether that’s really true or not is still in the air. Either way, those were Walter’s boots you heard on the steel steps out that back door Friday night.”
“And, when I changed Marie’s mind about selling the place yesterday, he went after her last night,” Drake concluded.
Megan nodded. “Robert had given Debbie a key to his apartment. She went there last night, got the gun out of the cabinet, and took it to Walter.”
“Knowing Robert would be blamed for Marie’s death, too. Damn, I wouldn’t have pegged her to be so devious.”
“She’s naive as hell. That’s for sure. By that time, I don’t think she cared if Robert went down for it all or not.”