Cross Justice (Alex Cross 23)

I heard a creak behind me as Pinkie sat forward.

Marvin Bell looked around the room as if desperate for someone to rescue him. Drummond lashed out again with the hammer, hit Bell’s right hand. Bell let out a scream that shook everyone in the room except Drummond, who seemed calm, clinical.

“Answer the question, Marvin,” the sergeant said. “Did Finn Davis shoot Sydney Fox?”

“Yes.” Bell moaned.

“Fucking knew it,” Pinkie said, and he smacked his fist in his palm. “That sonofabitch.”

“Why did he kill her?” Drummond asked.

“’Cause he hated her, and she needed killing.”

“Why did Sydney Fox need killing?”

“Having been married to Finn, she suspected too much,” Bell said. “And she was talking to Tate, who was poking around the train tracks. It was all no good, so he killed her.”

Drummond asked, “Did Sydney Fox know about your supplier?”

Marvin Bell groaned and shifted in his chair, said, “No.”

“Your distribution system got so big you were having trouble getting supply, especially methamphetamine, correct?” Drummond flipped the hammer in the air and caught it.

Marvin Bell flinched, said, “Yes.”

“So you found a secret partner right here in Starksville who could manufacture meth for you. In fact, a partner who could provide you with an almost unlimited supply and never get caught. Right?”

A secret partner? I thought.

“I called it,” Bree whispered, lowering her iPhone and pumping her fist.

“Called what?” I said.

Before she could answer, Drummond said, “Is that correct, Marvin?”

“Yes. I had a partner.”

Judge Varney had broken out in a sweat and looked agitated, and I feared he was about to keel over again from kidney-stone pain.

Drummond said, “You and your partner, you didn’t like Stefan Tate sneaking around, looking into things by the tracks, did you?”

“No.”

“You and your partner decided that Stefan Tate had to go.”

Marvin Bell moved his hands, winced, said, “I agreed Tate had to go. But I had no idea what he had in mind. No idea that he’d do all that to the boy.”

“You know for a fact your partner killed Rashawn Turnbull?”

Bell looked out into the spectators and seemed to be speaking directly to Cece Turnbull. “I know for a fact he killed Rashawn and framed Tate. He told me so himself afterward.”

“What did your partner say?” Drummond said. “Word for word.”

Bell swallowed and replied, “He said he’d gotten rid of two problems at the same time, Stefan Tate and his black bastard grandson.”

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