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He nodded. “Yeah. I’m thinking—”
“Enough.” Liam slapped a hand on the table in disgust.
Slice flinched.
“You’re wasting our time, Mr. Biddlesworth,” Liam said. “Let’s start over, shall we?”
Slice seemed to curl in on himself. So much for breaking the ice. Any progress Cora had just made was gone. The poor man couldn’t have looked more reluctant if Liam had been looming in the corner in a black hooded cloak, beckoning him with a scythe.
Liam fixed him with a steely glare. “Where were you on the night of Tuesday, July third between the hours of ten and midnight?”
Cora studied the young man’s reaction. The specialists from Raleigh had been able to pinpoint the time of the murder. If Slice had been involved in Lindsey’s death, the mentioned time frame might cause a flash of alarm in his eyes, or a sudden shift in his posture, or a nervous tick, but he didn’t exhibit any behavior beyond sadness and exhaustion.
“I—I didn’t do it,” Slice stammered. There was a haunted look on his face when he whispered, “I didn’t kill her.”
Liam braced his elbows on the table. “Then why did you run when we tried to bring you in yesterday?”
“I don’t know.” Slice’s gaze darted around the room like he was looking for answers, but the two-way mirror on the wall gave nothing away, and the security camera in the corner just glared with its blinking red eye. “I was drunk. I panicked.”
“Why were you hiding out in your mother’s tool shed?” Liam pressed.
“Because my buddy Bear called to say the cops were asking for me. He told me what you said—that my girl was...dead.” Slice swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “That’s not exactly feel-good news, you know? It messed me up bad. I needed a minute.”
“The only reason a man runs from the cops is if he’s guilty of something,” Liam said coldly. “Tell us where you were between ten and twelve last Tuesday night.”
“I wasn’t with Lindsey.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Slice finished his water in one gulp, then fidgeted with the paper cup again. Cora studied him, taking in his clenched jaw and rapidly blinking eyes. He was stalling. “Can I get some more water?”
Liam sent the empty cup flying off the table with one swipe. “Answer the question, Mr. Biddlesworth. Or do you enjoy the idea of a life behind bars?”
“I told you I didn’t do it!” Slice said in frustration. “I loved Lindsey, okay? You’ve got the wrong guy.”
“I believe you,” Cora said. And she did. Her gut instinct said he wasn’t a murderer, but she had a strong feeling he was still hiding something. Maybe he had information about what happened to Lindsey, and he was afraid to rat someone out. There were worse things than getting thrown in jail.
“Shebelieves you,” Liam said with a scoff. “Me, not so much.”
Cora nudged Liam’s foot under the table, warning him to tone it down. She needed to get Slice to talk, and Liam’s way wasn’t working.
“Look, Slice,” she said gently. “We both want the same thing here. If you can tell us about Lindsey, anything at all about the last time you saw her, or the night she died, it could help us track down her killer. That’s what we both want, isn’t it? Justice for Lindsey?”
Slice slumped in his chair with a heavy sigh. “I didn’t go out with Lindsey last Tuesday night. She was with me at The Doghouse over the weekend, and we partied like we usually do. On Sunday she came back to my apartment and stayed for a couple of days. The last time I saw her was Tuesday afternoon.”
“What time did she leave your place?” Cora asked, jotting down notes.
“I don’t remember exactly. Maybe four.”
“Did Lindsey mention where she was going?”
Slice shook his head, rubbing the scruff on his jaw. “Just that she had an important meeting later.”
“Did she say where, or with whom?”
“No, but I figured it had to do with school. She was taking summer classes, and sometimes she had study groups in the evening, but it’s not like I kept track of her schedule. We never talked about her college stuff.”
“Why not?” Liam asked. “You were together, and college was a big part of her life.”
