The police officers who had been there as protectors earlier were now Barbara’s enemies. “Get your hands off my daughter!” she shouted as they tried to cuff Emily. “What is going on?”
“Hold it, guys,” Kent said over her yelling. “I want to talk to the one who issued the warrant.”
One of them gave him the arresting officer’s name — Detective Stone, from Birmingham, whom Kent had already talked to once today.
Emily looked as if she might hit the floor. “She’s dead?” she asked, face twisted. “He killed her? I tried to tell them. I tried to warn her!”
“Sit down, Emily,” Kent said, punching out the number on his phone. “Everybody just calm down. Guys, just give me a minute.”
But Barbara couldn’t calm down. “How can they think she did this, when she’s the one who’s been waving a flag all day long? Did they tell you that? Do you even care?”
Kent waited as the phone rang at the Birmingham police department. “Barb, it’s not their decision to make. They’re just doing their job.”
“Don’t defend them!” she cried. “This is insane, and we’re supposed to accept it because there’s a warrant?”
Someone answered for the BPD, and Kent asked to be transferred to Detective Stone. Finally, she picked up. “Detective Stone, Kent Harlan again. I understand you’ve issued a warrant for Emily Covington.”
“That’s right. Have your people brought her in yet?”
“We have her here.” All five people in Barbara’s living room gaped at him, hanging on every word, so he opened the door and stepped out onto the front doorstep. “Tell me about Cassandra Price.”
“Her neighbor found her an hour ago,” Stone said. “Shot through the head in her living room.”
He closed his eyes. “Just like Emily predicted. Why is she a suspect?”
“Because there was a necklace with the initials EC found on the floor a few feet from the body.”
His heart crashed.
“It had her fingerprints on it. And she was stalking Cassandra today.”
“Stalking?”
“Yeah. Cassandra Price called the police department twice today. The first time she reported that a woman left a message on her machine telling her that she was going to die. That call came from Emily Covington. Later, Price reported that Emily approached her. The neighbor who found the body identified Emily as the woman she talked to at the Price house earlier today.”
Kent forced back the urge to defend Emily. He had to be professional. “I’m aware of that. According to her statement, Emily wasn’t threatening her, she was warning her. Did you check Cassandra’s husband’s whereabouts?”
“He was at work. He works at the steel plant, and all the people on his shift were able to vouch for him.”
Kent heard Barbara’s angry voice on the other side of the door. He hoped she didn’t get arrested, too. “You guys must have something on the DA if he gave you a warrant with this little evidence.”
Stone didn’t appreciate that. “That isn’t helpful, Detective Harlan.”
He rubbed his eyes. “What was her time of death?”
“The case is still new, and we haven’t gotten a time of death yet. But it happened sometime between 2:30 and 4:30. She was discovered just before 5:00.”
Kent tried to think. If the murder scheme had been carried out, Bo would have been tasked with Cassandra’s murder. But his mother said he’d been with her and the kids all day. Kent had been with him around 2:30 to 3:00. It was a stretch to think Bo could have made it to Birmingham within that timeframe. But if he’d flown over the speed limit, it was possible.
“I’ve been interviewing Emily since she got back to Atlanta at 4:30. She left Birmingham just after 2:30.”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose and tried to think. A necklace at the scene? Emily did often wear a necklace like that, but she hadn’t been wearing it today. He’d noticed this morning because she’d been wearing the cross necklace that he’d given her for her birthday — the one she was wearing now. “Listen, I can’t help wondering about this necklace. It’s just too convenient . . . her leaving evidence with her initials behind. She’s been in contact with the police like four times today. She called you this morning, and she told me exactly what she’s been doing. That’s not the MO of someone who’d just committed murder, or planned to commit murder. If her story is true, then Bo Lawrence would have been the one who’d want Cassandra dead.”
“You just said he has an alibi.”
Kent wiped a drip of sweat from his temple.
“This story Emily Covington is telling,” the detective said. “It’s pretty out there, don’t you think?”
He tried to control his voice. “Why would she call our attention to herself if she was the killer? If she’d just kept her mouth shut we never would have connected her. Even the necklace probably wouldn’t have led you to her.”
“Maybe she’s playing a game. Drugs do bad things to people, Detective. I don’t have to tell you that.”
Kent didn’t want to tell her that he knew Emily, that he’d seen her spiritual growth, that he hoped she’d be his daughter soon, that she wasn’t on drugs. “There was an attempt on her life this morning, too. Somebody planted a bomb under her car, then later there was a break-in at her home. The necklace must have been stolen then.”
“She could have set that up herself to make herself look like a victim.”
He wanted to kick something. “But she didn’t even notice it was missing! Everything’s a possibility, but it has to make sense. We can’t just dismiss her story.”
“I agree with you,” Stone said. “Why don’t you drive over tomorrow and we can put our heads together? I assume they’ll transport her tonight?”
Kent glanced back at Barbara’s front door, trying to think. Somehow, he had to delay her transport. “No, I can’t let her go. If she’s a suspect in the Price murder, then I have to question her further about the Lawrence case here.”
The woman gave a disgusted sigh. “All right, Detective, but do it tonight.”
Kent’s head was throbbing by the time he got off the phone.