AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I assume you’ll be telling us the exact location for Lucy’s body?”
Mr. White answered for his client. “My client is more than willing to cooperate in any way deemed necessary.”
“So, you’ve said. Many times.”
Harris turned back to Langford. “So, I want to get this right. Your girlfriend catches you cheating and confronts you at your house. You get into a fight and accidentally push her down the—”
“I didn’t push her.” Langford’s face was red. “I’m not a common criminal, Detective Harris. Please don’t treat me like one.”
“My mistake,” Harris looked pleased with herself. “You get into a fight and she falls down the stairs. Then, instead of calling the cops and reporting the accident, you decide to bury her body and make it look like she left town.”
“An action my client regrets,” Mr. White said.
“Of course.” Harris wasn’t convinced. “And when the police showed up with questions, you doubled down on your story. Is this all correct?”
“More or less, yes,” Langford said.
“So, I guess the question is, how does any of this tie to the reason you decided to kill four other women?”
“I didn’t decide anything.” Langford sat up straight in his chair. “Like I said, I was coerced.”
“And who coerced you?”
“Oh, I have no idea.” Langford was dead serious. “He hasn’t told me who he is.”
Thirty-One
Harris kept her composure, but Cassie could tell she was fighting to keep her frustration at bay. She plastered a smile on her face and turned to the lawyer. “Mr. White, if your client is wasting my time, so help me—”
“I assure you, Detective Harris, he is quite serious. As he relayed the story to me, a letter showed up a week later. The sender knew my client had buried his girlfriend in his backyard and proceeded to mislead the police every step of the way in their investigation into her disappearance.”
“H
ow did he know?” Harris asked.
“Not a clue.” Langford’s voice was cold. “He didn’t stop and explain his evil plan before he told me to commit murder for him.”
Harris leaned back in her seat and crossed one leg over the other. “All right, start from the beginning.”
Langford looked over at his lawyer again. When White nodded, Langford turned back to the detectives.
“A week after Lucy died, a letter showed up in the mail. No return address. It pretty much said he knew what had happened. He told me that if I wanted it to stay a secret, I had to do a few things for him.”
“That was it?” Harris asked.
“That was it. A few days later, another letter showed up. This one told me to go to the junkyard and pay cash for an old medical transport van that was about to get scrapped.”
“Given your mode of transportation, I assume you did it.”
“At the time, it seemed like a small price to pay to keep my secret, uh, buried, for lack of a better word.”
Harris’s smile was tight. “Did another letter come after that?”
“Next, he told me to steal some tools from the hospital, including an electric bone saw. Again, it didn’t seem like a big deal.”
“When did it start becoming a big deal?”
“A few days later, he sent me a picture in the mail, along with a name and some basic information.”
