“I just want to see,” he said. “I want to see him in handcuffs.”
She smiled. “I know. You will.”
Once she was sure Knox wasn’t going to drop over, she went back to the house. Trent was in the kitchen with the two uniformed officers, interviewing Francine, his voice soft and soothing. Francine gave mostly monosyllabic answers, her gaze still vacant.
Trent had staged the scene for maximum effect. They all stood around the kitchen table—him, Jocelyn, a crime scene technician, and the two uniformed officers. The jewelry was in three separate bags, spread on the table where Cash would be able to see them.
They heard him come in—the opening and closing of the front door, the blast of cold air, and the rustling of his coat. He must have noticed the debris on the floor when he went to hang his coat in the foyer closet because there was a hint of panic in his voice when he yelled, “Fran!”
His footsteps sounded in the entryway. Trent gave Francine a look and she called, “In the kitchen,” her voice reedy and high-pitched.
“Jesus Christ, Fran, what the hell happ—”
He pulled up short at the entrance to the kitchen, the soles of his sneakers squeaking on the tile. He stared at them, his eyes taking in each one of them, and his face growing whiter by the second. “What the hell is going on? Why are you people in my house?”
You people.
Jocelyn wanted to punch him in the face.
“They found Sydney’s jewelry,” Francine blurted.
Trent held up a hand to silence her. At the same time, Jocelyn said, “Mrs. Rigo.”
Cash looked baffled. His eyes flicked to the tabletop. They were all gathered around it like onlookers at the scene of a horrific accident. He took a step closer, then another. He pointed. “Is that . . . ? Oh my God.”
His eyes locked on his wife’s face. “Oh my God,” he cried. “Oh my God, Francine.” He looked on the verge of hysteria, his skin gray, eyes bulging, his entire body starting to wobble.
With a nod from Trent, the two uniformed officers moved in, flanking Cash and taking hold of his arms. He didn’t resist. He didn’t even look away from his wife. His voice was quieter when he spoke next, tinged with sadness, and what sounded to Jocelyn like resignation. “Oh my God, Fran.”
Her name was a question and a plea. She didn’t blink. As Trent read Cash his rights in a loud, clear voice, Francine told her husband, “Do the right thing.”
Chapter 34
November 17, 2014
Cash looked exactly like a man whose whole life had just disappeared before his eyes. Once at the Roundhouse, Trent placed him in an interrogation room. The Homicide Unit’s interrogation rooms were small and equipped with a table and chairs that had seen better days. Every surface inside the room was scarred by cigarette burns and graffiti. They didn’t have a fancy two-way mirror. Inset into the wall was a large glassed-in video camera, its unapologetic eye pointed right at the center of the room.
From another, more comfortable room down the hall, Jocelyn and Knox watched Cash on a small closed-circuit television. It wasn’t the best picture, but it was good enough for Jocelyn to see that the color still hadn’t come back into Cash’s face. His expression was pinched, tortured, like someone was jamming bamboo shoots under his fingernails. But he was alone in the room.
Trent left him there for a long time. It was a technique cops used sometimes. Let the suspect get all worked up, give them time for their imagination to conjure the worst case scenario. By the time the detective came in, they were so relieved to see another person, someone in authority, someone with the power to get them out of the tiny room, that they were more inclined to tell investigators anything they wanted to know. It didn’t work on all suspects, and depending on the person, it could backfire, but in this case, the Trent-imposed alone time seemed to be having the desired effect.
Cash paced, then sat down, his heels bobbing, tapping out a staccato beat on the tile floor. Then he paced some more. He kept running both hands through his hair, then raising his face to the ceiling, a gesture of helplessness. A couple of times, he looked close to tears.
Knox sat in a chair, eyes fixed on the screen, a strange, satisfied smile on his face. Jocelyn alternated between watching Cash slowly lose his shit and watching Knox watch Cash. She had already called Camille to make sure she was okay with feeding Olivia dinner and getting her to bed. She had Camille put Olivia on the phone so she could apologize and explain why she wasn’t home, but Olivia didn’t seem to notice Jocelyn’s absence at all as she was so thrilled to have her Aunt Camille all to herself for a whole night. Jocelyn had also updated Anita and sent brief texts to Caleb, Kevin, and Inez.
She was still digesting what Francine had unearthed. She couldn’t remember a time in her nearly twenty-year career that evidence had been dropped in her lap in such a way. Handed to her on the proverbial silver platter. She had expected to feel more jubilant about it. She and Knox should have been high-fiving their asses off on the way to the nearest bar, but all Jocelyn felt was uncomfortable.
“Knox?” she said finally.
“Yeah.” He looked up at her, his eyes twinkling.
She’d given him what he wanted, fulfilled his dying wish. She’d closed Sydney Adams’ cold case. Gotten a murderer—and a molester of teenage girls—off the street. She smiled uneasily. “Nothing,” she said. “Never mind.” She squeezed his shoulder. “You need anything? I’m going to go get a soda.”
“No,” he said, turning his eyes back to the television. “I don’t need anything at all.”
Jocelyn had been to the vending machine twice and the restroom three times by the time Trent graced Cash with his presence. Jocelyn’s empty coke bottles were lined up on the table beside the television. Cash’s whole body slackened with relief once Trent entered.
“Have a seat, Mr. Rigo,” Trent said. Under one arm, he carried a file folder and legal pad. He had a cup of coffee in one hand and a water bottle in the other. When Cash wasn’t looking, Trent looked directly at the camera and nodded, his signal to them that he’d gotten confirmation from Jynx that the jewelry found in Cash Rigo’s home belonged to her late sister.
Cash plopped into the nearest chair and waited for Trent to take his place at the table. Trent placed the coffee and the water in front of the other man. “I didn’t know what you’d prefer, but I figured you’d be thirsty.”
“Thank you,” Cash said, reaching for the water. He slugged down half of it while Trent sat down, arranging his legal pad and pen in front of him and pushing the file folder off to the side. Trent read Cash his Miranda rights for the second time that day. Jocelyn held her breath when he finished, expecting Cash to immediately demand a lawyer, but he didn’t.
“Can I get you anything else?” Trent asked. The friendliness was calculated. Jocelyn knew that Trent wanted to punch Cash in the throat just as much as she did. Neither one of them was fully recovered from the coffee incident.
Cash shook his head. “No, no. I’m fine.”
Trent took him through some baseline questions, things they knew to be true like his name, age, address, and occupation. Finally, Trent said, “I want to talk to you about Sydney Adams.”