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“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head as a tear rolled down her cheek. “I don’t know who killed her.”
“But you know who else she was sleeping with,” Jack said. “Who was it?”
“Kevin,” she said. “She was doing it to get back at John and Kevin knew it. But he didn’t care. I think he’s getting tired of Thea and figured if she found out about it maybe she’d break things off with him. So the arrangement benefitted both of them.”
“She told you all this?” Jack asked.
She sighed and rubbed the back of her neck and then she gave a half-hearted laugh. “Again, I caught them. I’m forever walking in on people having sex. Lucky me. I actually caught them at work. There’s a small copy room on the fourth floor, but no one ever uses it because the copier is old and takes forever. But all of the other ones were in use, so I ran upstairs to use it because I was in a hurry. And I walked in on them. Not something that can easily be erased from the mind, believe me. So I closed the door and left them at it, not sure if I should stand guard or pretend like nothing ever happened.
“But the funny thing is that room is right next to Judge Mitchell’s chambers. I guess John was in there with him kissing ass or doing whatever it is he does on a day-to-day basis—he certainly wasn’t making copies—but John comes out of Judge Mitchell’s chambers with a big grin on his face and I wanted nothing more in that moment than to reach over and open that door. But I think that’s why Cami picked that room. She wanted to get as close to under John’s nose as she possibly could. Risk makes for exhilarating sex, right?”
“John never found out?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Not that day. I just turned around and walked away.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Now what?” I asked, after Toby left the conference room.
“We’ll talk to Kevin and see what he’s got to say,” Jack said. “See if we can place him as the mystery lover on the night of her murder.”
“Why do you think you haven’t heard from Kevin’s dad yet?” I asked.
“Oh, I’ve heard from him,” Jack said. “I’ve just chosen to ignore him. There’s nothing he can do for now and he knows it. Assaulting an officer is a felony battery charge, and he can’t even get a magistrate to set bail until sometime on Monday.”
“Are you going to stick with that charge?”
“Depends,” Jack said. “My first priority is the girl who was murdered and finding out who killed her. If Kevin is guilty of murder then felony battery is the least of his worries. If he’s innocent and he can help us find who did kill her I’m willing to downgrade the charges to pure stupidity. But nothing and no one is going to get in the way of finding out who killed Cami Downey.”
I agreed with him. These people were playing games where there could be no winners. A woman was dead. Brutally murdered. And the people who shared a home with her were keeping secrets, lying, trying to make themselves look good, blaming others, and making it harder for the truth to come out. But the truth could always be found within the lies. It was just asking the right questions and listening for unspoken answers to reveal themselves.
“Since we’ve got Kevin in jail, I want to look at his hands,” I said.
“What for?” Jack asked.
“Because Cami had contusions along her jawline. It was a perimortem injury. A punch to the jaw like that would knock someone out, especially someone Cami’s size and weight. It would give the killer the opportunity to get her into the car and drive her to Hangman’s Bridge.”
“Let’s go,” Jack said. “We’re getting close with this one. I want to check in with Cole and see if anything has turned up with the search warrant. I want John and Will in here. All of these guys will start throwing one another to the wolves for self-preservation. One of them knows something. We just have to get them in here to tell us what it is.”
Jack called Cole and set the phone on the table so it could be put on speaker.
“Sheriff,” Cole said. “Did you know that you and me and every cop in this county is going to lose his job soon?”
“Oh really?” Jack asked. “That’s news to me.”
“I figured it would be,” Cole said, his drawl lazy. “I’ve got all kinds of lawyers and some guy named Clark Tippin out here pacing around our crime scene. Media started showing up, I’m guessing because the guy in the fancy suit called them.”
“How’d that go over?”
“We moved the perimeter back and are taking our sweet time,” Cole said. “And it started raining again, so now they’re all wet, so that’s lifted my spirits quite a bit.”
“At least you’re having a good time during your last days as a sworn officer,” Jack said sarcastically. “Enjoy them while you can. Have you found a serrated knife hidden under anyone’s mattress, by chance?”
“Not a knife,” Cole said. “But we found an ounce of cocaine, paraphernalia, and three thousand dollars in cash in Will Matthews’s nightstand drawer.”
“Oh perfect,” Jack said, grinning. “We were just talking about how to get Will and John in for questioning. They politely declined my request.”
“So would I,” Cole said. “Can’t say I blame them.”
