I was more than a little surprised that he even knew the words “Prisoner of Zenda.” I wondered if he’d actually read the book.
Mel didn’t allow herself to be deflected.
“Tell me about the scarf,” she said.
Josh crossed his arms. “I already told you. I don’t know anything about the scarf,” he insisted. “I found it in my locker.”
“Why’d you hide it under your mattress? If the scarf turns out to be our murder weapon, that’s going to put you at the top of our suspect list.”
“Maybe it’s not the same scarf,” Josh said.
Mel shook her head. “Guess again, Charm Boy. We found the scarf concealed here in this room where you, by your own admission, are the only person coming and going. A video file showing what appears to be the same scarf being used to strangle someone shows up on your phone, and you expect us to believe that you don’t know anything about it? Give me a break. This isn’t my first day, you know.”
Josh said nothing.
Far below us I heard the sound of a ringing doorbell. Whatever reinforcements Governor Longmire had summoned-probably one of her fat-cat major contributors-was riding to Josh’s rescue. That meant our chance to interview Josh Deeson was almost over.
“Look,” I said quickly. “We know you didn’t kill her. I get that; Ms. Soames here gets that, but I’m guessing you do know who’s responsible. You need to tell us who she was and who did this to her. You need to name names. Let us help you put this terrible mess behind you. This is your last chance to make that deal work, Josh. We’ll go to the prosecutor. We’ll tell him you helped us. That’ll be a big mark in your favor with everybody, including that poor girl’s parents. Their daughter is dead. They need to know what happened to her.”
Josh’s facade cracked a little right along with his voice. “Sure,” he said, “like being a snitch is going to make my life better? But I already told you. I don’t know who did this. I’ve never seen that girl before just now. I don’t know who she is or what happened to her.”
“You do know what happened to her,” Mel shot back. “You saw it on that video. Someone strangled her before your very eyes.”
Switching topics, Mel tapped a scarlet-tipped fingernail on the stack of drawings. “You are a kid who likes thinking about dead people, aren’t you,” she said. “You must think torturing people is cool somehow. Who are the people in these pictures, Josh? Are they people you know from school, maybe people you don’t like very much?”
“It’s art,” Josh said. “It’s what I do in my spare time. It doesn’t mean anything. Art isn’t against the law. Isn’t there something called freedom of speech in this country?”
“These drawings speak to the type of person you are,” Mel said. “They tell us the kinds of hobbies and interests you have as well as the kinds of things you’d like to do to other people if you ever have the chance.”
We were running out of time. Mel and I knew it; so did Josh. All three of us heard the sound of heavy footsteps pounding up the second flight of stairs. Josh crossed his arms, shook his head, and said nothing.
The bedroom door slammed open hard enough that it bounced off the wall behind us.
A burly man in a well-cut suit charged into the room.
“I’m Mr. Deeson’s attorney,” he said. “I demand to know what’s going on here! Who are you? What are you doing here?”
Mel stepped forward to meet him, holding up her badge in one hand and the search warrant in another.
“My name is Melissa Soames,” she said. “This is my partner, J. P. Beaumont. We’re with the attorney general’s Special Homicide Investigation Team. We’re executing a properly issued search warrant of this young man’s room. I don’t believe I caught your name.”
“Garvin McCarthy,” he growled, snatching the search warrant from Mel’s hands. “Let me see that.”
The gesture would have been more effective if McCarthy hadn’t had to dig a pair of reading glasses out of the jacket of his designer suit in order to read what was written on the documents. Before he began reading, however, he shot a venomous look in Josh’s direction.
“Not another word from you, young man. Understand?”
I half expected Josh to balk at this unmistakable order from someone he didn’t know, but I think our questions had scared the crap out of him. He knew he was in trouble. He knew he needed help even if that help was unappreciated and coming from his “not” grandmother. He nodded and kept quiet.
While McCarthy read the warrant through, line by line, Mel quietly switched off the recorder and stowed it in her purse. Finished reading, he handed the warrant back to Mel.
“What’s this all about?” he demanded. “Why Special Homicide?”
“Ask your client,” she said.
“Who’s dead?”
“Ask your client.”
“What are you, a one-trick pony?”
Mel smiled at him and handed him a business card. That was her only answer. Then she picked up one of the Bankers Boxes and turned to me.
“We’re done here,” she said casually. “Let’s go. We can stop by and see Mr. Willis on our way out.”
That comment got a rise out of Garvin McCarthy and out of Josh Deeson as well.
“No,” they said, speaking in inadvertent unison.
The lawyer turned his ire on Josh. “I told you to be quiet and I meant it,” he said, shaking an admonishing finger in the kid’s direction. “Not another word.” He turned to Mel. “Receipts,” he said. “I want receipts for everything in those two boxes.”
“Talk to my partner,” Mel said sweetly. “He’s the one in charge of paperwork.”
I gave him a lowly carbon copy of the receipt form. I knew in advance that it wasn’t especially legible. McCarthy looked at the paper, then at me.
“You expect me to read this?” he demanded.
“Sorry about that,” I said with a shrug. “Old technology and all that. I can copy the originals and fax them to you later if you like.”
McCarthy didn’t say yes or no to that. “Is my client under arrest?” he asked.
“Not so far,” I told him cheerfully. “Right now he’s merely a person of interest. With any kind of luck on our part, however, he’ll be a full-fledged suspect under suspicion and under arrest in no time at all.”
Scowling, McCarthy gave me a business card with his name and a whole collection of phone numbers embossed on what looked and felt like expensive paper. I dropped the card in my jacket pocket. I offered him my hand. He ignored it. I love it when attorneys can’t bring themselves to be collegial, to say nothing of polite. In my book, that was strike one against Garvin McCarthy.
I took my box and followed Mel out into the hall. On the second floor I made my way to the balcony and picked up the coil of rope ladder that was still lying in the far corner of the balcony where Josh had left it. Once that was in my Bankers Box, I finally stripped off my latex gloves and dropped them into my pocket.
Back in the hallway I heard raised voices coming from the landing at the bottom of the stairs. I recognized the governor’s voice. Hers was followed by a man’s voice, an angry man’s voice. The First Husband had evidently emerged unexpectedly from his hospital bed in the maid’s quarters. It sounded as though he wasn’t happy to discover that any number of things had transpired behind his back.
“What the hell is going on up there?” he demanded. “Who are all these people coming and going?”
“Some police officers stopped by,” Marsha responded pleadingly. “Please, Gerry. It’s just a little problem with Josh. I’m taking care of it. It’s handled.”
“It’s not a little problem,” Mel said, stepping briskly into the argument as well as into the lion’s den. “My name is Agent Melissa Soames. I’m with the attorney general’s Special Homicide Investigation Team, Mr. Willis. My partner, J. P. Beaumont, and I are here executing a search warrant of your grandson’s room.”
“A search warrant?” Gerry Willis repeated. “What kind of search warrant? Why? What’s going on? Is Josh in some kind of trouble? And what team again?”