“You’re booking Steve Cook for murder?” Colleen asked Inspector Owens. She was surprised, but not too much. Her own doubts continued to be stoked by the fact there were things Steve wasn’t telling her. Like why he went over to Lynda’s the night she was murdered.
She was back in the grubby interrogation room on the fifth floor of 850 with Inspector Owens sitting on the opposite side of the Formica table. A cardboard evidence box sat to his right.
“We picked Cook up this morning,” Owens said, tapping the eraser of his number two pencil on his ever-present yellow pad. Today he wore a white shirt and tie up to the collar.
That explained why Steve wasn’t home when she dropped by.
“What made you decide to pick Steve up?” she asked.
Owens dipped his head slightly, as if sizing up how much to tell her. “A tip.”
Interesting. “Care to say who?”
Owens shook his head side to side once.
“Was it a young woman?” Colleen said. “New York accent?”
“No,” he said. “Who might that be?”
She smiled. He smiled.
“You show me yours and I’ll show you mine,” Colleen said.
“The call was to the anonymous tip line,” Owens said. “Some kid, sounded as if he was outdoors, on a pay phone, reading it off a piece of paper: ‘Steve Cook killed his wife. Check his place.’ Someone probably paid him to make the call.”
Colleen nodded.
“And yours?” Owens said.
“Deena Vanderhaven,” she said. “The drummer with the band with no name. Steve sings in her band.”
Owens squinted in apparent surprise. “She told you Steve waxed his ex?”
“No, but she did say she saw him leave Lynda’s place around the time of the murder. Maybe a little bit before.”
“And when were you going to tell me this, Colleen?”
“I only found out about it late last night. Deena and I met at an all-night donut place.”
Owens wrote something down. “What is this Deena doing, watching Lynda’s house at night?”
“Following Steve around. Not that she’s jealous or anything.” Colleen gave a wry smile.
“Ah,” Owens said. “It’s like that.”
“They were involved at one time.”
“Any reason to thinks she’s lying?” Owens asked. “About seeing Steve at Lynda’s?”
“That crossed my mind, but I don’t think so.”
“Well,” Owens said, “she’s telling you the truth.”
Now Colleen was surprised. “You don’t think Steve did it, do you?”
Owens gave a nod.
“He confessed?” Colleen couldn’t believe that somehow. She realized now how much of her felt he was innocent.
“Just the opposite. But we are talking about the same guy who fled the U.K. when a nude girl was found dead in his hotel room.”
“You don’t think this is all a little fishy?” Colleen asked. “Steve has already been set up by a fake kidnapping. Now this.”
“I agree, it doesn’t look good.”
“Then let me ask again,” Colleen said. “If Steve did it, where’s Melanie? Deena saw him leave Lynda’s about the time of the murder—alone. On foot. Everything points to Melanie being taken in Lynda’s car. One of the occupants of that car was dripping blood. So where did Steve stash his own daughter if he didn’t take her after he supposedly shot Lynda?”
“He could have come back later.”
She shook her head. “And left Melanie there? With her mother—dead?”
“Maybe Melanie’s not alive. We don’t know.”
A chill shuddered down Colleen’s back. “That might be true, but if so, Steve had nothing to do with it. He borrowed money from the Mexican Mafia to save her. Lynda—he might have been tempted. But Melanie—no way.”
“So how about this?” Owens said, reaching into the box, coming out with a plastic baggie. He set it down in the middle of the table.
A LadySmith revolver with a baby-blue handle.