Chapter 35
Hayley stood outside the interrogation room, straining to hear what she could, as Sergio questioned Billy Parsons, who had just returned from his Massachusetts shrimping job earlier that morning. She was now convinced beyond a doubt that it was Nick Ward who shot Garth Rawlings through the wall of the warehouse and killed him. However, without the murder weapon or a viable witness, there was no way Sergio could prove it enough to warrant an arrest.
The plan now was to get one of Nick’s coworkers, either Billy or Hugo, to turn on him, to tell the truth of what really happened that night. Hugo was a scared kid, whom Nick had successfully intimidated into keeping his mouth shut. Billy was now their best bet. He was a bit surprised when Sergio called him and asked him to come into the station and make a statement, especially since he had already told everything he knew about the incident at the scene. Billy was an agreeable man, though, and certainly wanted to stay on the chief of police’s good side, so he offered to come in and go over the facts one more time.
Although the door to the interrogation room was closed and their voices were muffled, Hayley could make out most of what the two men were saying.
“Not sure what else I can tell you, Chief,” Billy said calmly. “Like I said before, me and the guys were just kicking back, drinking some beers, and didn’t hear anything until the sirens. That’s when we walked outside to see what was going on.”
She heard some faint clicking.
Sergio was obviously typing on a computer. He was writing up Billy’s statement as it was happening.
“So you swear you’ve told me everything? You’re not forgetting any details?”
“No, sir.”
“You were drinking alcohol that night, and we both know that can sometimes make your memory a little fuzzy.”
“Trust me. I remember everything, Chief. I may have slammed down three or four beers, but I’m a big guy and it takes a lot more than that to get me drunk and sloppy.”
“Okay, then,” Sergio said. “If that’s everything, let me just print out your statement and have you sign it.”
There was a whirring as the printer spit out a piece of paper. Hayley heard Sergio’s chair squeak as he stood up to retrieve the statement.
A moment of silence as Hayley assumed Billy was scribbling his signature and handing the piece of paper to Sergio.
“Is that all, Chief?”
“Looks good. You can go now, Billy. Thank you.” Billy’s chair squeaked as he stood up.
Hayley was about to dash down the hall to avoid Billy catching her eavesdropping at the door, when Sergio spoke again.
“Wait. There is one more thing.”
“What’s that, Chief?”
“The coroner reexamined the autopsy photos and has changed her conclusion about Garth Rawlings’s death.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Mr. Rawlings was shot.”
Another moment of silence as Hayley pictured the blood draining from Billy’s face.
“Shot?”
“That’s not all. We found a patched-up hole right in the office where you were drinking with the boys. That’s where the bullet entered the wall. And wouldn’t you know, we found the exit hole on the other side in Garth Rawlings’s kitchen, a few feet from where he dropped dead.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about—”
“Of course you do, Billy. You were there. You know exactly what happened, and I think you better tell me. Right now.”
More silence.
Hayley pictured Billy shaking his head in defiance.
“Go ahead. Mussel up on me.”
“Excuse me?”
Clam up. Sergio is mixing up his shellfish.
“You can always get yourself a lawyer and stick to your story, but here’s the problem. Eventually the real facts are going to come out. And when they do, I have this.”
The signed statement! Of course! Sergio is a genius.
The police chief might not have mastered the English language, but he was one hell of a law enforcement officer.
“You see, Billy, signing a false police statement is illegal. You could get serious jail time.”
“Say what?”
“I got the judge on speed dial. I can have the warrant in a couple of hours. But I don’t want to do that to you, Billy, because my gut tells me you weren’t the shooter. Tell me who was and I will rip up this report.”
“Nick! It was Nick!”
Billy wasn’t wasting a second.
“We were just fooling around. We’d only had a few beers. We weren’t drunk, but Nick pulled out his pistol and was waving it around, trying to get a rise out of Hugo. He said he wanted to toughen him up and teach him how to shoot. He pointed the gun right at the poor kid, who was just sitting at his desk. I thought the boy was going to piss his pants—he was so scared. Nick thought the safety was on, but it wasn’t. The gun went off and the bullet whizzed right past Hugo’s ear.”
Garth had been at war with Lex’s crew over their noisy shop machines.
The walls were extra thin.
The bullet went straight through.
“We . . . we never dreamed anyone got hurt, let alone—”
“Killed by the bullet.”
A long pause.
Hayley heard sniffling.
And whimpering.
Billy Parsons was crying.
“Hugo freaked out and Nick had to slap him hard across the face to calm him down. He tossed the kid another beer and we went back to drinking until we heard the sirens. Nick poked his head out first and saw what was going on. Rusty Wyatt told him Garth Rawlings was dead. That’s when he put two and two together and warned us to keep our mouths shut and not say a word and just to follow his lead. When we all read in the paper that the coroner thought Garth died from a beating, we breathed a huge sigh of relief. But I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. It keeps me up at night. I should’ve spoken up sooner.”
“Do you have any idea where Nick may have disposed of the gun?”
“Disposed of it? No way. He’d never get rid of it. It’s a family heirloom. Goes back in his family generations. He may have hidden it somewhere in his house, but he sure as hell would never, ever part with it.”
It made sense.
In Nick’s mind nobody was ever going to find out Garth Rawlings actually had been shot, given what the coroner and the papers were saying. So, why toss out a prized possession if there was no danger of it ever connecting him to any crime?
That gun was the key to pinning Garth Rawlings’s murder on Nick Ward.