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Slice sat bolt upright. “What evidence?”
Finn opened his leather briefcase and pulled out a laptop. Then he plugged in a USB stick, and after a few clicks to the keyboard, he showed them the screen.
Cora saw grainy footage of a gas station parking lot. Slice and two other guys pulled up on their motorcycles, parking at the pumps.
“How’d you even know I went out there?” Slice asked.
“Your mother was kind enough to show me her credit card statements,” Finn said briskly. “She said you’d borrowed her card that night, and the transaction history indicated where you were. Most gas stations have cameras, so this was simple enough to obtain.”
“Dang,” Slice said under his breath. “My mom found out I—”
“Borrowed her credit card?” Finn interrupted. “Yes, and she was happy to help.”
“Great,” Slice whispered, scratching the side of his neck. From the look on the young man’s face, it was clear he thought dealing with his mother was going to be even worse than this.
“Note the time stamp in the corner,” Finn said, addressing Liam and Cora. “Nine fifty-seven p.m. on Tuesday, July third.”
In the video Slice appeared to be doing exactly what he’d said—nothing much. He and his friends gassed up their bikes and bought drinks and cigarettes from the convenience store.
Cora and Liam continued watching as the gas station video footage played out, with Finn occasionally sliding the bar along the bottom of the screen to speed up the film. Slice and his friends spent more than a couple of hours outside loitering on the sidewalk, drinking and smoking and shooting the breeze. For a while they appeared to be watching sports on Slice’s phone, their heads bent over the screen as they spoke animatedly. Occasionally, the team would score, and the guys would jump up, whooping and laughing and thumping each other on the back. By the time Slice and his buddies drove away, the time stamp showed that it was well past midnight.
When it was finished, Finn shut the laptop and handed over the USB stick. “The gas station in this video is located east of Providence Falls, about an hour away. As you can see from the footage, my client was at this location during the time of Lindsey Albright’s murder on July third.”
Liam frowned at Slice. “There’s not much near the hills an hour east of here, save for a few acres of farmland and some state parks. What were you doing all the way out there in the middle of nowhere on a weeknight?”
“You don’t have to answer that,” Finn said as he snapped his briefcase shut.
Cora was wondering the same thing, but the evidence Finn had just provided was irrefutable. Slice did not kill Lindsey.
“Do you have any further questions for my client, or are we done here?” Finn asked.
“We’re done,” Cora said with a sigh. “Mr.Biddlesworth is free to go.”
“Yes,”Slice said, pumping his fist. For the first time since they’d arrested him, he broke into a smile. It transformed his face. The sadness and fatigue were still there, but the grin he gave Finn was nothing less than hero-worship. “Thanks, man. You really came through for me.”
Finn nodded, thanked Cora and Liam for their time, then ushered his beaming client from the room. On his way out the door, Finn gave Cora a smile. For some reason that tiny acknowledgment lifted her spirits. Underneath the smooth, emotionless veneer of power attorney, the Finn she knew was alive and well. She liked that.
“Slice is hiding something,” Liam said as they left the room. “If Finn hadn’t showed up today like the bloody north wind to blow our chances to hell, I could’ve found out.”
“Oh, come on. Finn was just doing his job.”
“Aye, and now it will be that much harder for us to do ours.”
Later, they sat in Captain Thompson’s cluttered office, briefing him on the interrogation, then listening to him grouse about Slice walking free.
The captain paced behind his desk with his tie askew and his face lined with stress. He was only a few inches taller than Cora, but his commanding presence and solid build somehow made him seem bigger. The captain’s close-set eyes darted between her and Liam, his mouth pressed in a grim line. Every once in a while he ran a hand through his hair, leaving the cropped, dark curls to stick up in all directions. Normally, he controlled it with some sort of pomade, but today it looked as though he’d forgotten to use it. The pressure from the higher-ups was clearly getting to him.
“Now we’re SOL with that kid, and he was the best lead we had.” Captain Thompson grabbed a bottle of Tums from his desk and popped a couple, chewing them like candy.
“There’s something else, sir,” Cora said. “Both Liam and I thought Slice was hiding something. The video proved he wasn’t with Lindsey at the time of her murder, but he was acting sketchy during the interview. It could’ve just been nerves, but until Finn showed up, Slice was stalling. He didn’t want to tell us anything about where he was, or what he’d been doing.”
“So you think he’s still involved somehow?” Captain Thompson asked.
Cora shook her head, unsure. “Maybe, maybe not. But I’d like to question the two men with him in that video.”
“Yes. Good.” Captain Thompson seemed appeased for the first time since they’d entered his office. “I still think that kid, or someone he knows, is connected to the murder. He isn’t exactly a pillar of the community. He’s a Booze Dog, for Christ’s sake.” He stopped pacing and sank heavily into his chair. “Young man from the wrong side of the tracks gets himself a girlfriend with a shiny future ahead of her. Maybe he falls harder than she does. Maybe he gets possessive. She tries to end it, and he doesn’t want to let her go. If he can’t have her, no one can, so he pays to have someone off her and dump her in the woods. In cases like these, it’s almost always the boyfriend or husband who’s responsible.”
“With all due respect, sir,” Cora said, “I don’t believe Slice had an active hand in her murder. He might be keeping information from us, but he seemed to really love her.”
