Heather stood on the sidewalk in front of her house, Bella in her arms, Camilla by her side, as they watched Walt and Danielle drive off, following the van carrying Hunny to the veterinarian’s office for surgery.
Bella let out a pitiful meow.
“She’s worried about her friend,” Camilla told Heather.
Heather glanced down at Bella. “Friend? Did she tell you that?”
“In her own way. I’m trying to get used to how they send me their thoughts. But yes, Bella loves Hunny.”
Heather smiled down at Bella. “Sometimes it takes almost losing someone to realize what they mean to us. We can’t lose Hunny.” Heather gave Bella a gentle squeeze, kissed the top of her furry head, and turned toward her house.
Camilla looked at Heather. “I’m sorry about the dog.”
Now walking toward her house, still holding Bella, Heather glanced back at Camilla. “I have to go to the police station. But before I do, I need you to do something for me.”
“What?”
Heather stopped at her front door and faced Camilla. “I need you to tell me everything you didn’t tell us about Clay. You know why he killed you, don’t you?”
* * *
When Heather arrived at the police station, an anxious and excited Colleen greeted her. “It’s crazy down here. Chief MacDonald showed up about fifteen minutes ago. He’s using a walker. They arrested Chief Bowman, but I assume you already know that because Brian said they arrested him at your house. Fred Lyons showed up a few minutes ago, and he’s super mad. He’s in the chief’s office with him—although I’m not sure who’s the chief and whose office it is.”
“Why is Fred Lyons here?” Heather asked.
“When they brought Chief Bowman in, Chief MacDonald wasn’t here yet. Chief Bowman insisted on his phone call. So they let him, and apparently he called Mr. Lyons.”
“Where is Bowman now?”
“He hates when anyone calls him Bowman,” Colleen whispered. “He doesn’t even like Mr. Bowman. Only Chief Bowman.”
Heather let out a snort. “Not sure how that’s going to play behind bars.”
“Do you think he could really go to jail? What did he do?”
“Why don’t you call the chief, tell him I’m here,” Heather said.
* * *
“You shouldn’t even be here,” Fred told MacDonald, who sat in the chair behind the desk, his walker by his side. “You’re supposed to be out on medical leave. I think Clay is right. We have a serious problem in Frederickport. The number of capital crimes has spiked in the last five years. And while we have another killer on the loose, our police officers are arresting their own chief! What is going on?”
“I hope to find out,” MacDonald said.
The phone rang on the chief’s desk. MacDonald answered it, spoke quietly a few moments to whomever was on the other side, and hung up. He looked up at Fred. “Heather Donovan’s here. I need to speak to her.”
“Are you putting her under arrest?” Fred asked.
MacDonald frowned. “Why would I put her under arrest?”
“When Clay called me, asking to contact an attorney for him, he explained he had been investigating Camilla Henderson’s murder. He went undercover because he’d lost all confidence in your officers. In fact, he was beginning to believe Brian was someway involved, especially considering how he attempted to sabotage Clay at every turn.”
“Sabotage?”
Fred nodded. “Clay decided to talk to Donovan again. She let him into her house and seemed quite willing to talk to him. He asked her a few questions, and she told him there was something she needed to show him that Brian had left at the house. He walked upstairs with her, and before he realized what was happening, she set a pit bull on him. The dog would have probably killed him if he hadn’t shot it. Unfortunately, after he shot the dog, Donovan hit Clay over the head with something. Knocked him out.”
MacDonald arched his brows. “Really?”
“When he came to, he was being arrested. Clay suspects the only reason she called the police is because he shot the dog. Clay figures Donovan planned to get rid of his body later. But with the dog shot—a dog that belongs to her boss—she had to come up with a story explaining the injured animal.”
“Exactly why did Heather want Clay dead?” MacDonald asked.
“Because she understood Clay would not let her get away with murder.”
“Well, that’s quite a fascinating story. Clay has already told us he will not be talking to anyone until he speaks to his attorney. But I’m going to let you and Clay stay in the office next to the interrogation room while I question Heather. Of course, Joe and Brian will need to be in there too.”
* * *
Heather sat in the interrogation room, waiting for the chief to arrive. She kept looking at the clock, wondering how Hunny’s surgery was going. Her cellphone buzzed, showing an incoming message. Assuming it was Walt or Danielle giving her a Hunny update, she checked her phone. The text was from Brian.
“FYI. Joe and I are in the next office, with Fred Lyons and Clay. Watching.”
Heather set her phone on the table and glanced over to the one-way mirror. The next minute, the chief shuffled into the room with his walker.
“Ahh, Chief, how is your leg?” Heather asked.
“I’m okay.” MacDonald shuffled to the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down, awkwardly keeping his right leg straight. “I need you to tell me everything that happened today.”
“I was alone at home. Well, except for Hunny and Bella. Bella was in the kitchen, and Hunny was behind the sofa, sleeping. I heard a crash in the kitchen. I thought Bella knocked something over. The next minute Clay Bowman barges into my living room, demanding I write a note to Brian, telling him I love him and that I’m sorry.”
“Why would he want you to write a note to Brian?”
“I didn’t think too much about why he wanted the note; I kept looking at that gun pointed at me. Bella came into the living room, and Clay grabbed her, threatened to kill her if I didn’t write the note. So I wrote it. At that point, it didn’t dawn on me; I was writing my suicide note. I found out a few minutes later he intended to kill me.”
“Why would he want to kill you?”
“Because he killed Camilla. He wanted to frame me for the murder.”
“He told you that?”
“He said something about how I’d just written my suicide note—because I was remorseful for killing my boyfriend’s ex. I told him I hadn’t killed Camilla. He laughed and admitted he killed her. And then, he just started talking, like he wanted to tell someone, and I guess he figured I’d be dead in a few minutes after he dragged me upstairs and hung me from the banister, so I’d be the perfect one to tell. You see, he and Camilla used to be lovers.”
* * *
In the next room, Clay bolted up from the chair he had been sitting on, while shouting, “I never told her that!” Joe hushed Clay and pushed him back down on the chair.
The men continued to watch Heather, who sat primly in the chair facing MacDonald, her hands folded neatly on the table.
“I don’t think Clay expected to run into Camilla when he moved back to Frederickport. But then Camilla’s uncle died, and she came back to town and decided to stay. Clay told me Camilla barged into his office one day and told him she didn’t want him in Frederickport. That she’d left town once because of him, screwed up her life, and she was coming back and wanted to get back with Brian. She couldn’t do it with him here. She told him to find an excuse to leave town, or she would tell Debbie everything. That’s why he killed her.” Heather folded her arms over her chest and leaned back in the chair and smiled.
* * *
“She’s lying! I never said any of that!” Clay shouted.
Fred told Clay to calm down because he had an idea. He picked up his cellphone and called the chief. The men in the room with Fred watched as the chief answered his phone and then listened as Fred said, “Clay insists she’s lying. He’s willing to take a lie detector test. Is Donovan willing?”
The chief looked from his phone to the one-way mirror and then back to Heather. Reluctantly, he repeated Fred’s demand to Heather.
Heather considered for a moment and then smiled. She looked in the mirror. “I’ll take a lie detector test under one condition. Bowman takes it first—yet instead of asking him if he told me those things, ask him if he did those things. If he agrees to that, then okay.”
In the other room, Clay stared dumbly at the window, looking into the interrogation room. Finally, he said, “I can’t do anything until I speak to my attorney.”
* * *
They took Clay back to a cell, and to Fred’s chagrin, they brought Debbie into the station to be questioned. Fred asked to watch from the office next to the interrogation room, as he had with Heather.
* * *
“What’s going on? Is my husband okay?” Debbie asked when she was brought into the interrogation room and found Chief MacDonald sitting at the table with a walker by his side.
“We have arrested your husband for the murder of Camilla Henderson,” he explained.
Debbie let out a gasp and then sat down without being told. She closed her eyes for a few moments and took a deep breath before exhaling. She looked at the chief.
“Were you aware of your husband’s affair with Camilla Henderson?”
Debbie closed her eyes again and took another deep breath.
“Debbie? Did you know?” the chief asked.
Debbie opened her eyes and nodded. “Yes. I did. But it wasn’t really Clay’s fault. We had been trying to get pregnant forever. And when I couldn’t get pregnant, I started keeping track of my cycles, taking my temperature. Sex for me became about making a baby, and unless it was the exact time in my cycle, I didn’t want us to. I think that’s when the cheating started.”
“So you knew about Camilla?”
“Yes. But it wasn’t serious, him and Camilla. She was older than him. It’s not like he was going to leave me for her, because she couldn’t have kids. It wasn’t just her age, but someone once told me she’d had a hysterectomy. Clay always wanted kids.”
“Did Clay know you knew about Camilla?”
Debbie shook her head. “No. I don’t think he had any idea that I even suspected his affair. But after I found out I was pregnant, he started talking about how we should leave Frederickport. He said he wanted to get a better job now that we were starting a family. But I understood why he really wanted to move. He wanted to get away from Camilla, make a clean break. I didn’t really want to go, move so far away from my sister, but I realized it was probably the best thing for our marriage.”
“How did you feel when you saw Camilla had moved back to town?”
“I didn’t like it. Because she was still single, looked great, and I worried Clay might cheat again. The fact she couldn’t have kids, Clay would probably see as a plus now. The twins are a handful. Not that he doesn’t love them, but having a woman like Camilla in such close proximity, who can’t get pregnant, well, that’s simply too convenient. After all, Clay is just a man. But I didn’t kill her. Honest. And I don’t believe Clay would kill her either.”