Chapter Twenty-Eight
Echo
Robert sat quietly in the interrogation room with his pudgy, short, bald-headed lawyer.
Chief and I were ready to get this resolved and find out if the bad guy was here with us or still on the loose.
I was going to be the bad cop, because we both knew I was a bitch naturally, and he was my boss, so he had to be nice.
I tossed the pictures of Amanda’s cut-up body before him on the table. Then the pictures of my parents, and the ones before them. All cut up, with slits on their backs or foreheads.
“Mother of God. Why are you showing me these?” Robert cringed, but I knew killers that were excellent actors.
The lawyer started to spout off about how we were harassing his client and had no proof to tie him to this case.
“The drug you have stashed in your desk is the same drug that was used to subdue all these victims. Amanda was friends with your wife; she volunteered at your church, working with children. And she was a woman with special powers. We both know how you feel about people with powers. So, what is it? You hurt them before they could hurt you?”
His face paled, and his lawyer told him to be quiet. I could see he was a man that would stay quiet until told not to. Maybe I just needed to scare him a bit more to open up.
“Or maybe you’re protecting someone else. Something is going on between your wife and you. Was Amanda getting in the way? Pretty coincidental that Amanda is murdered, and you are suddenly called to California for your sick mother. The sick mother who is doing fine in Texas. Stop me any time, Robert. Tell us why you have the date rape drug in your desk. Why did you murder Amanda Johnson?” My voice had gotten louder, and Robert ignored his lawyer, his voice echoing in the room.
“I didn’t kill the girl. I have the drug because, yeah, it’s scary having people around you that could hurt you with a thought or a flick on your head. I just wanted some kind of protection, that if one of those people got rowdy, I could calm them down until the police arrived.”
“Where were you when Amanda was murdered? We know for a fact that you were not with your mother. What is your alibi?” I asked with a completely bitchy look on my face.
“I was—” He started to speak, but the lawyer told him it wasn’t necessary, that the burden of proof was on us.
Robert looked at his lawyer then back at me.
“I have faith that my mistakes will be forgiven. But the death of this girl is not one of them.” He sighed, then spoke again.
“I was having an affair. Sarah and I have been having problems, and I strayed. I met her at a convention for a larger church a year ago. I went to meet her and tell her it was over. Sarah knows, and we are working through it.” He held his head high after admitting that he cheated.
I was about to speak when Chief cut in first.
“We need your alibi and any other proof that you can give us that you were not with Amanda at the time of her death.”
That was it. Robert Burke was not the killer.
“Do you have any idea who would want her dead?” Chief was taking the lead from now on. We still had a killer to catch.
Robert shook his head.
“She was a nice girl despite her powers. She made Sarah happy, was a good friend. Most of the people she works with come to worship on Sunday. The young folk. Always drama with young people these days,” he commented, and I wanted to call the pot a kettle. He was sleeping around on his wife, and he had the nerve to complain that young folk were the cause of drama? His life was like a soap opera. I’d bet my next paycheck the mistress winds up pregnant in his story.
“Maybe talk to the guy she was seeing.”
“Neil from the ER?” She’d broken up with her boyfriend for him, so maybe they were already together despite him saying they hadn’t taken that leap.
“No, I don’t remember hearing anything about a guy in the ER. She was talking with Sarah one day, and her scarf moved, showing a hickey on her neck. She was always coming in with hickeys and marks on her wrists. Probably into that BDSM. Satan’s work there, if you ask me.”
I didn’t ask him, and for him to judge people like that made him seem even more hypocritical in my eyes. But what he said confused me. Did Amanda have another lover besides the boyfriend she left and the one she wanted?
Chief worked with him to get all the official statements and his alibi checked out. His wife was sitting in our waiting room, and I took the opportunity to tell her that he was not Amanda’s killer, and he’d be out soon.
Even though she knew, I didn’t bring up the affair. To me that was something that was unforgivable, but others might be able to forgive and move on.
Her eyes were red, and puffy. She’d been crying a lot that was for sure.
“We weren’t able to have a baby, and I know that’s what made him stray.” Her voice was low as she stared at the door that her husband was behind.
“Amanda was there for you during the hard times.” It was a statement easily made. Amanda just seemed like the kind of person friends would lean on.
“She was. She was kind and didn’t judge me for not leaving him. She would tell me everything would work out as God planned.” She turned her head so she could look at me, woman to woman.
“I miss her.” Tears started to flow down her cheeks, and I felt bad for her, losing her closest friend in a time where she needed her the most.
“Was Amanda seeing anybody? We know she had left her boyfriend and had eyes on Neil. But your husband mentioned hickeys and red marks. Both of those lead us to think she had a lover. If you were her closest friend, then maybe she confided in you?” I hope this led somewhere, otherwise we were back to nothing but the scent of shoe polish as our only connection to the murder and Lisa’s almost-murder.
I could tell she was trying to think over what she and Amanda had talked about in the last few weeks, and then a light bulb went off in her head.
“I noticed those too but didn’t say anything. She did mention something happening at the hospital but didn’t tell me who. I wanted her to live a little outside of work, so I was hoping she took my advice to have a fling in the storage room.”
Interesting that she told her to go out and sex it up.
“She’s young and could have fun before settling down. It may not be the church way of waiting till marriage, but I just wanted her to be happy. She made so many people happy; she deserved some too.” Sarah smiled slightly, and all I could do was think about how there was another person in the picture. But who?
An hour later, Robert, his wife, and his lawyer were walking out of the station.
I wasn’t ready to be still, and I had a new lead to go on, so I drove to the hospital.
Hopefully I would be able to flush out more information about who Amanda had been seeing.