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Marzillo didn’t blink. “We don’t know. We haven’t located the weapon yet.”
Jo tilted forward, calculating the concentration of blood. “Looks like the blow came from the front, above the ear?”
“That’s my guess, but I can’t say until we remove the blindfold.”
Jo scanned the area. Far enough away from the corner of the building that nobody would have seen accidentally. Farther away from the car than Deena Scott had been, and at the back rather than the side, due to the layout of the parking lot. But, otherwise, the scene was largely the same as Scott’s, complete with posed arms.
But different from Ashville’s and Sakurai’s in important ways. They’d been killed in a backyard and a park respectively. What was the significance of those differences? Was it purely a matter of convenience, of where the killer was able to catch the victim alone and out of the eyes of security cameras? And why was the first murder done with a gun but the others weren’t? Winnie had been killed by a weapon of opportunity, a rock taken from the site, but the killer had brought the crowbar to kill Deena Scott. In those two cases, they’d left the weapon right on scene, but not in this case, or Ashville’s.
Her hands clenched into fists. And why the blindfolds? Why the posing? Everybody already knew he’d been the victim of a miscarriage of justice. Was this just his way of playing with them, just his above-and-beyond ‘fuck you’? Was he really that egotistical that he’d risk covering himself in his victims’ blood just to thumb his nose at them?
She shook her head to clear it. None of it mattered. She was overthinking again.
She turned and strode back to the perimeter, stripped and bagged her PPE, and then crossed to where Arnett was waiting in his car. He rolled down his window as she tapped in a phone call.
“I want Ossokov in interrogation, now.”
CHAPTERFORTY-SEVEN
Half an hour later, as Arnett, Goran, and Coyne all watched from behind two-way glass, Jo strode into the spartan interrogation room, started the recording, then slid into the plastic chair across the table from Kent and Ossokov. Kent sipped casually from a venti Starbucks cup he’d apparently taken the time to pick up on the way, telegraphing nonchalance. Ossokov, his matching cup untouched, sat straight and tense, one leg bouncing continually.
“Use this time wisely, Detective,” Kent said over the lid of his coffee. “It’s the last time you’ll be talking to my client.”
Jo was well aware she was walking a fine line. She had nothing close to the type of evidence needed for a grand jury indictment, and if she arrested Ossokov at this point Kent would hold that up as further harassment. Her only hope was to provoke Ossokov into revealing something, or making some other mistake. So she chose her words carefully and kept her expression inscrutable. “That’s not a very helpful attitude.”
Kent laced his fingers together and set his hands on the table. “I don’t feel the need to advise my client to assist in a witch-hunt. You already searched his home and took a court-ordered DNA sample that we know will exonerate him, especially since, in light of the harassment suit, we’ll be making sure the analysis is carefully supervised to ensure no more ‘mistakes’ are made.”
“A witch-hunt. Huh.” Jo tilted her head. “That’s an interesting take on it. Here’s my take, a perspective shared by the Oakhurst County SPDU. Four people are dead, all killed by the same person.” She paused, weighing whether Kent’s and Ossokov’s surprised expressions were genuine. “That’s right, four. Early this morning we found former Detective Steve Murphy murdered in a parking lot.”
Kent’s expression morphed into undertaker-greeting-bereaved-family, and he shook his head. “I’m very sorry to hear that. But it has nothing to do with my client.”
Jo was more interested in the fear that flashed across Ossokov’s face. “You don’t have an alibi for the previous murders. Since you made quite a show of making sure our surveillance unit was pulled off you last night, I’m hoping for your sake you have a solid alibi for the early hours of this morning.”
Ossokov’s eyes widened and flicked to Kent; they whispered a quick conversation before Ossokov responded. “I was at work until just before midnight. Then I went home, watched TV, and went to bed.”
“Which your mother again can’t verify because she was already asleep.”
“That’s correct,” Ossokov said, eyes flicking between her and Kent.
Jo bought herself a moment by sipping her coffee. Something here wasn’t right—Ossokov’s reactions were off. The shift in his demeanor didn’t match any of the options she’d anticipated. Despite what pop culture tried to claim, there was no telltale signal, like avoiding eye contact, that let you know when someone was lying; the very same behaviors that signaled deception in one person signaled veracity in the next. What mattered was ashiftin behavior, a shift in communication and body language from their norm when engaged in casual conversation with no reason to lie. Ossokov’s demeanor should have remained unchanged from the interview at his house, or should have doubled-down in terms of passive aggression. But he was tense and anxious in a way he hadn’t been before. Why? Surely he must have known they’d pull him into interrogation once they found Murphy?
She probed more directly. “Four people intimately involved in your conviction—the prosecutor, the judge, the senior detective on the case, and your own defense attorney—have all turned up dead. That’s far past any possibility of coincidence, and there’s no avoiding the conclusion this has something to do with you.”
“Was there a question in there?” Kent asked. “My client has nothing to do with these murders, so I’m not sure what you expect him to say.”
As Kent spoke, Ossokov’s gaze glanced from Kent’s profile to the far wall, off to Ossokov’s right.
Jo’s radar honed in—he’d never done anything remotely like that during their previous conversations. People often stared at the ceiling when they were thinking, or at the door when they wanted to leave, but quick furtive glances at a far wall was either something a person did habitually or didn’t do at all.
Jo kept her expression neutral and sipped her coffee again as she followed his glance, careful not to tip him off to her attention. There was nothing on the wall to capture his attention: no artwork, no window, nothing but plain, aged white paint. She mentally followed the direction of the gaze through to the outside world—it was in the general direction of his house.
A possibility glimmered in the back of her mind. She decided to run with it.
She held up her empty palm. “If you have nothing to do with this, Cooper, help us understand why it’s happening.”
“We’re not going to do your job for you, Detective,” Kent said.
Jo continued to speak directly to Ossokov. “My job is to talk to whoever might know why these murders are happening. The only connection between these people is you, Cooper. So if you’re not responsible, you must have an idea who is. Tell me where I should be looking.”
