James Patterson - Murder House

“It does now. Or I take Five.”

Most people are afraid to invoke their Fifth Amendment rights. They think it makes them look guilty. They’re right, but they’re wrong. Yeah, you look bad if you won’t talk. But how you appear at that moment to a cop pales in comparison to the damage you do by answering detailed questions, locking yourself in.

Maybe I should be heeding that advice right now.

“The bodies were Annie and Dede?” I ask.

Isaac closes his eyes, nods. “We have a rush on DNA. We won’t have it for another day or so. But there was a missing finger, and some personal articles on the bodies that the families confirmed. It’s not official, but unofficially? There’s no doubt.”

“How did you make the discovery?” I ask.

Still planted against the wall, still stoic, but now with a gleam in his eye. He knows Ricketts and I are friends. He knows I know.

“Anonymous tip,” he says.

“How convenient.”

He cocks his head. “Convenient? How so?”

I shrug. “Maybe someone was getting too close to solving this whole thing. Maybe Aiden’s being given up as a sacrificial lamb. A scapegoat.”

“A scapegoat.” Isaac’s eyes narrow. “Meaning he’s innocent.”

“Meaning,” I say, “that he wasn’t the only one. He has a partner.”

Isaac doesn’t move. Expression doesn’t break. Tough to read, because interrogators are playing a role, acting out a scene, so it could be just him doing his job. Or it could be he’s sweating bullets underneath that uniform.

“A partner,” he says. “Two people?”

“At least two,” I say, “and the partner just fucked Aiden.”

Isaac pushes himself off the wall and pulls out the chair across from me. He takes his time getting seated, settling in, training his stare on me.

“How did the partner fuck Aiden?” he asks.

My heartbeat ratcheting up. He has me in an enclosed room, in his custody. But it’s a police station. There are witnesses, other cops watching through the one-way. It’s not like he can silence me.

Do I want to do this? Right here, right now?

Hell yes, I do. With other cops as witnesses.

“Let’s say Aiden was getting nervous,” I say. “He talks to his partner. He says, ‘They’re getting close.’ So his partner tells Aiden to leave town. Get out of Dodge for a while. Let things settle down.”

Isaac nods, listening intently.

“Maybe the partner tells Aiden, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll take care of this.’”

Isaac does a double blink with his eyes. I’ve just quoted what he said to Aiden on the phone last night — when he didn’t see me hiding outside.

“Go on,” he says, his voice flat and cold.

“But once Aiden scrams, his partner makes an anonymous tip to the cops. Bodies are discovered a stone’s throw from Aiden’s property line. And ten gets you twenty there’s incriminating evidence found at that burial scene, evidence that implicates Aiden and Aiden alone. My guess? Aiden’s fingerprints on the murder weapon.”

Isaac is silent, his eyes deadened.

“So now Aiden’s an obvious suspect,” I say. “Gift-wrapped, practically. And his partner walks away scot-free.”

Isaac takes a breath, leans back in his chair.

“Cat got your tongue, Chief?”

His fingers tap the table. “You think Aiden’s a part of this.”

“Yes. I’ve suspected him for a while now. In fact, I tried to confront him last night at his house. He ran from me before I could question him. But... you already know that, don’t you, Isaac?”

The dam has burst. I’ve all but accused him now. I don’t know if this is the smart move here, but I’m running out of options. Smart or not, it’s time to move.

Isaac tries to smile. It doesn’t work very well.

“Tell me more about this second killer,” he says.

I shrug. “He’s lasted this long, eight murders over five years, so he’s smart, and he’s able to function in society as a normal person. A classic psychopath. He could be anyone. He could be a construction worker. He could be a ditch-digger.”

I look Isaac squarely in the eye.

“He could be a cop,” I say.

“A cop? Interesting.” Isaac purses his lips. “Well, Murphy, it turns out we did find Aiden’s fingerprints on the murder weapon.”

“You have Aiden’s prints on file?”

“He was arrested once, long time ago, for retail theft. Shoplifting. His prints are in the database.”

“Did you run all the databases, Chief? Even the government employees’ database? Every cop in our department has their prints in that database. Did you remember to check that database, too? Or did it... slip your mind?”

My blood is boiling now. But the cops who are watching this interview need to hear this, all of it.

“You figure,” says Isaac, “that if we found another set of prints, we’d have the second person — Aiden’s partner.”

“Worth a shot.”

“Someone who can act perfectly normal in society. Like a construction worker.”

“Or a cop,” I say again.

“Yeah, you said that before,” he says. “A cop?”

“Why not? It’s the perfect cover. He could manipulate the evidence. He could influence the investigation.”

“True,” says Isaac. “That’s true.”

I open my hands. “What are you afraid of, Isaac? Check the government database. Or... are you worried that maybe your hand slipped, and your prints accidentally got on that knife?”

Now his smile comes on, full glow. He shakes his head.

“We did run the prints on the murder weapon through the government database,” he says. “And we got a match.”

He rises out of his chair and leans over the table, so he can whisper his next words.

“Aiden’s prints weren’t the only ones on that murder weapon,” he says. “We found yours, too, Jenna Murphy.”

I spring out of my chair. A slow burn through my chest.

“No,” I say. “No way.”

Chief Isaac Marks is suddenly enjoying himself very much. He sits back in his chair, crosses a leg. “I suppose now you’re going to claim that I manipulated the process somehow. Planted your fingerprints. Right?”

My mind racing, my throat full, everything moving too fast.

“Well, let me put you at ease, Murphy. I had no part in the gathering of the evidence or in running the prints. If you don’t believe me, you can ask your bestest buddy, Officer Ricketts.”

The walls closing in. The heat turned way up. This isn’t right. It can’t be right.

“You can’t possibly think...” My throat closes before I can finish the sentence.

“I can’t possibly think what?” he says whimsically. “That you had something to do with Annie’s and Dede’s murders? Well, let’s think about that. Have a seat, if you would.”

I put my hand against the wall to brace myself. My prints are on the murder weapon? That can’t possibly be right. Somebody, somehow, must have—

“I said sit the fuck down, Murphy.”

My legs unsteady, I find the seat and plant myself.

“So let’s think this through,” he says. “You have very persuasively argued that there were two killers — Aiden Willis and another person. You have also persuaded me that the second killer could be a police officer, that it would be the perfect cover for a psychopath.”

“I didn’t mean me—”

“So we have two girls who were murdered in the summer of 2007. Since we don’t know the exact day, or even the exact month of their death, it’s impossible to know your whereabouts at the time. You were a cop in Manhattan, but how easy would it have been to drive out here and do the deed, then drive back without anyone knowing? Very easy, I’d say.”