She looked at him with what he thought was annoyance.
He started to say “Sorry,” but was interrupted by Jack Williamson, bitterly asking, “You got a good look, I hope?”
He turned his back to Williamson and touched Detective Lassiter’s arm.
“You get anything out of him?” and then, before she could reply, asked, “Why didn’t you get him out of here?”
“I was just getting him calmed down enough to talk when you walked in,” she said. “He doesn’t want to leave, and I didn’t want to push him.”
“Come with me,” Matt said.
“That sounds like an order,” she said.
“Okay,” Matt said. “It was a request, a suggestion, but I want you to come with me.”
She met his eyes defiantly for a moment, then shrugged and turned away from the open door.
Matt walked to the couch. Jack Williamson looked up at him with cold contempt.
“Mr. Williamson, I’m Sergeant Payne. I’m the Homicide supervisor, and I need to talk to you, and we can’t do that in here. In just a few minutes, there will be technicians all over the place, and we can’t be in their way. I want you to come with Detective Lassiter and me to someplace where we can talk. Okay?”
“The lady next door offered anything we need,” Olivia said. “What about her kitchen? She had said she would put a pot of coffee on.”
“We’ll just sit around and have a friendly cup of coffee, right? And maybe a Big Mac? With my sister like that in there?”
“We have to talk someplace, Mr. Williamson, and we have to get out of the way of the technicians, and sitting down over a cup of coffee seems a better idea to me than standing on the sidewalk,” Matt said. “What do you say?”
Williamson shrugged, a gesture of surrender, and stood up.
“Mrs. McGrory, this is Sergeant Payne of Homicide. We have to talk, privately, to Mr. Williamson,” Olivia said when Mrs. McGrory answered her knock. “Could we use your kitchen?”
“Certainly.”
“Thank you very much,” Matt said, as she led them in her kitchen.
“Anything I can do to help. There’s a fresh pot in the Mr. Coffee. Just help yourself.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Matt said.
“I feel just terrible about this, especially with the cops being outside while it was happening.”
“We don’t know for sure that’s what happened, Mrs. McGrory,” Matt said.
“Of course, that’s what happened. I was here, wasn’t I?”
“Thank you very much, Mrs. McGrory,” Olivia said, easing her out of the kitchen and then closing the door.
“Why don’t you sit down?” Matt suggested to Williamson. “I’ll get the coffee. How do you take yours, Mr. Williamson?”
“Black,” Williamson said.
“Black,” Olivia said.
Olivia and Williamson sat down at the kitchen table while Matt took the glass decanter and poured coffee into ceramic mugs. He walked to the table and set the mugs on it.
“Okay,” Matt said. “Let’s get a couple of things understood between us, Mr. Williamson. I don’t know what happened last night, when Mrs. McGrory called the police, and I don’t care.”
“You don’t fucking care?” Williamson asked, disgusted and incredulous.