Past tense, interesting.
“She was nothing but a cheating slut but she was still the mother of our kids. I wouldn’t kill her just for that.”
He knew. We have motive.
“Frank, why haven’t you been answering your phone and where is your car?”
I could tell he was still processing the news of his wife when he started to tell me about how he confronted his wife and her lover at his house. He said he didn’t take it well that her lover was in his home and he pushed the guy around a little but that was it. He did tell her since the house was in his name only, he wanted her out and that she would be served with divorce papers as soon as he could call his lawyer.
When I asked him again about his car he told me he caught some line wrap from the overhead utility work and dragged it all the way to the motel he was staying at. That was the reason for rescheduling this morning’s appointment. A local garage has his car and he planned on going there directly from his meeting to pick it up so he could head back home. Actually, he was going to a motel for the few days until Beverly mover her shit out of his house.
Since it would be part of the investigation and for the moment I needed to keep Frank in my custody, I drove us over to the garage working on his car. Sure enough his car was there and per Frank’s insistence they provided the written order detailing the time he dropped off his car and work they performed. The car never left their possession. As a courtesy the owner drove Frank over to his motel and to his meeting this morning.
I told Frank we were going over to a restaurant so we could talk more and have lunch. At this point I no longer worried about his fleeing. There was enough preliminary evidence to show he wasn’t the killer, but I needed to know about things between him and Beverly.
For the next hour and a half he spelled out what sounded like a bad internet cheating wife story. He was on the verge of tears through out his telling. Seeing the pain in the eyes of a man I knew on a personal level magnified my dislike for adulterers even more.
I’ve been a homicide cop for a long time and seen some extremely stupid reasons to kill someone. Like the guy who killed his brother because he ate the last pork chop. But here and now I could almost understand why someone loses it and uses a shotgun on another human being.
Sitting in that diner I knew I was retiring one month too late. I knew for a fact he was distraught over Beverly’s cheating and her murder. No one is that good of an actor. However, as a cop I knew he could be distraught and still be the murderer.
With our lunch over I told Frank that I was allowing him to drive his own car home but that I would follow him. At the moment I had no direct evidence of his being the killer and with his car in a garage in Parkersburg, I had no reason to place him under arrest. There was enough reasonable doubt.
I called my Lieutenant on the drive back and brought him up to speed. He advised me they still haven’t identified the male victim. His finger prints haven’t showed up on any data bases.