* Glad that last chapter was a little surprise. ;) Thanks for all the great reviews!
Chapter 14 — Totally normal, said no cop ever.
"George!" Frank heard Nancy gasp. The entire station froze, watching the drama unfold. Frank moved slowly toward the girl, waving back the officers with the drawn guns. She had indicated she was unarmed, and he didn't think she was the sort to come into a police station with guns blazing or a hidden grenade anyway.
"Miss Fayne, would you like to come in and talk about this?" he asked, making his voice as calm as possible. "We would be very interested to hear whatever information you might have on this case."
"You can't possibly think she did this?!" Nancy hissed behind him.
Frank waved her back. "Miss Fayne, why don't you come in here and have a seat," he said, gesturing towards the interview room. "Then we can go over everything."
"You can go over everything with her when her lawyer arrives," Nancy said sharply. "I'll pay the legal fees." Frank looked back at her. She was staring angrily at Chet, but Chet was watching George curiously.
After a moment he nodded and pulled out his phone. "I'll call Iola."
Frank's eyes flicked to his brother. Joe had dated Chet's sister, the other half of Morton & Morton, years ago and it hadn't ended well. But Joe wasn't paying any attention to Chet. He was watching George with the same puzzled expression Frank was sure he wore himself. He'd only joined this force five years ago, and he knew his small town experience in Bayport didn't match the years Joe had spent here, but surely this was out of the ordinary everywhere?
After George had been settled in an interview room and Nancy had fixed her a cup of tea the way she knew the girl liked it, Nancy settled herself in one of the hard plastic chairs in the waiting area and informed Frank in a defiant tone that she wasn't leaving until George was. He was equal parts impressed and amused by her attitude. He remembered several interrogations where the suspect was only too eager to throw someone else under the bus for their crime, including children and parents, siblings, and poor suckers who swore up and down that so and so would never turn on them. It was admirable, if a bit naïve of her to be so certain of George's innocence.
He settled himself at his desk, across from Joe's, grabbed George's folder and prepared a new sheet for her interview. Joe slid into his own seat and drummed his fingers on the desktop. Frank leaned closer to him and asked in a low voice, "Has that ever happened to you before?"
Joe gave him a wry look. "Do you mean how many times has someone rushed into the station to confess to a murder? A whopping total of zero times."
Frank sat back, tapping his pen on the arm of his chair as he thought. "It's bizarre. We hadn't been looking at her all that seriously. The motive was thin at best."
"If she knows Drew is guilty, then she could be trying to just create confusion by directing suspicion elsewhere," Joe suggested. "Keep us busy chasing down leads that aren't really there."
Frank grunted his opinion of that. "Once she admitted that she recognized Marisol she didn't give off any guilt markers that I noticed when we questioned her before. There's something strange about this whole thing."
But Joe wasn't even listening to him anymore, watching something over Frank's shoulder. Frank spun around in his chair, and wasn't at all surprised to see Iola Morton. The tall, dark-haired beauty was walking briskly towards them, her stilettos tapping furiously.
"You ready for this?" Frank muttered.
"It doesn't matter," Joe sighed, almost wistfully. "She'll tear us to pieces, and part of me will enjoy it."
Frank chuckled and stood to his feet. "Ms. Morton," he greeted her, extending a hand.
Iola shook it firmly. "Where's my client?" she asked without preamble.
"Interview Room Two," Joe said, pointing towards the room with the pen in his hand. He leaned back in his chair, clearly trying not to act like he cared one bit about the woman standing in front of him.
Her delicately tweezed eyebrows arched upwards. "Always a pleasure seeing you as well, Joe," she said. "We really must catch up sometime."
Joe looked skeptical, but Frank saw a mischievous twinkle in Iola's eyes. He cleared his throat and escorted her to the interview room. George looked up at them, her short brown hair tousled and face miserable.
"Ms. Fayne, my name is Ms. Morton. We're going to get this all sorted out, all right?" She turned to Frank and jerked her head back toward the door. "Can you give me twenty minutes to speak with my client and then start your interview?"
If Frank had honestly thought George guilty he would never have agreed, but he hoped Iola could convince the girl to tell them the truth. At least that way they didn't have to waste time following up false leads. He nodded and backed out of the room, closing the door behind them.
He slid back into his chair and Joe handed him a folder. "Ok, let's make sure we have our timeline down for everyone's movements that night," he said, stifling a yawn. "Maybe we can trip her up in the details."
Frank stared at his computer screen, a photo of the bloody shirt spread out on Nancy's lawn stared back at him. "Maybe we can shock her into telling the truth," he murmured. Grabbing another folder and flipping through it quickly, he pulled out one of Marisol's autopsy photos. "Let's see how she reacts to these."
Frank glanced over at Nancy in the waiting area. One hand clutched the mug he'd given her earlier and she chewed the thumbnail of the other, her face clearly worried. Part of him wished he were able to be objective and calculating enough to use that worry against her. Any other suspect would have been grilled within an inch of his sanity. It was like a switch he could turn on and off, the short barked questions, quickly restating and flipping phrases around until the person was so rattled they gave something up. But the other part of him was glad he couldn't see her as a suspect. Instead he wanted to just fix all of this for her, to make the fear and confusion vanish, to shield her from whatever was happening. He scrubbed a hand over his face and swore under his breath. That part of him could likely get the whole of him fired and botch the entire case.
Forcing himself to reread the timeline, and then reread it again, he made a couple notes on where inconsistencies might show up if George was lying. When Iola's twenty minutes were up, he and Joe headed for the Interview room, any traces of good humor gone from both of their faces.
Frank slid into the chair across from George and flung open the Medical Examiner's report. "I'd like you to take a look at these photos," he said, sliding the autopsy photos in front of her. George glanced down and immediately looked away again.
"And what is your point in doing this?" Iola asked, tapping her pen on the edge of the table.
"I thought Ms. Fayne might like to see the results of her handiwork. She couldn't have had much time that night to really see what had happened. Clearing up afterwards is the primary concern, especially on the tight timeline she would have had, just a couple hours between leaving the dry cleaners and Ms. Drew calling us."
"Yes, autopsy photos really allow you to see details that get missed in the moment," Joe added. "There's no clothing to absorb the blood. And the skin has started to dehydrate and pull a little tighter around the wounds."
George had squeezed her eyes shut and was sitting very still, her hands clenched together on the tabletop as if she were praying, her face a sickly pale.
"That's quite enough," Iola said sharply. "If you have questions, ask them, otherwise cease with the dramatics." Joe sat back in his seat and offered her a rueful half-smile.
"Ms. Fayne, can you tell me what happened on the night of Marisol's murder?" Frank asked in a softer voice.
"My client is choosing not to answer any questions on the grounds that she may incriminate herself," Iola said in a calm, steady voice, staring straight at Frank.
He tried to keep his own face blank, even though he was gritting his teeth and grousing at the lawyer in his head. "Your client came into the station and confessed to the murder," he replied. "Why doesn't she want to explain what happened?"
"How are you planning to charge her?" Iola asked, ignoring the question.
"This is a murder investigation," Joe said in exasperation. "That's a first-degree felony."
The side of her mouth quirked up slightly. "Only if you can prove that there was premeditated intent and not just reckless conduct. Come now, detective. I can't do your job for you."
"Well, we can hold her for seventy-two hours until we get some additional lab reports in." Joe sighed, gathering up the papers on the table.
"Fine. We will consider making a statement at that time," Iola said with a nod.
Frank and Joe stood, George cowering away slightly as Frank towered over her. He frowned. He wasn't buying her confession. This girl might strike out at someone in a moment of fear, maybe even rage. But she wasn't the type to try and cover it up, to deal with a body more than she had to.
Leaving the interview room, Frank waved an officer over to process the kid and joined Joe back at their desks. He exhaled slowly as he sank into the chair.
"Do you think they teach that in law school?" Joe asked abruptly.
"What?" Frank followed his brother's gaze back to the room, where he could just see Iola's profile through the doorway.
"How to look like a super-expensive hot-shot attorney that can charge hundreds of dollars just for us to look at her," Joe said, turning back to Frank and making a face.
Frank raised his eyebrows. "If what you're really asking is if I think she's too good for you, then yes. But I thought that twenty years ago too. Now that we know what you're thinking about, what do you think I'm thinking about?"
Joe grinned. "You're thinking this would all be much easier if Micah Fernandez had just confessed. And there's probably a tiny part of you wondering if you should give Nancy a ride home, but you're going to ignore that part and let Chet do it."
Before Joe could duck, Frank grabbed a small stack of post it notes and threw them straight at his brother's head.