Sucker Punch (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 27)

“After you get hassled enough by the cops, you don’t trust any of them,” Edward said.

Hazel looked at him. “Yeah,” she said.

“What makes you think that Jocelyn and Rico had anything to do with Mike’s suicide?” I asked.

“Mike was back on drugs. They made him think wrong things, but he always got high when he was stressed and”—she started to cry softly again—“he tried to blackmail Jocelyn. He wouldn’t tell me where he was, but in his last call, he said he was going to get enough money from her for us to go out of the country where no one could find us. I begged him not to do it, to come in and talk to Pamela’s boyfriend. If there was a cop we knew that was trustworthy, it would be him, but Mike was high. He wasn’t thinking right.”

Hazel started crying harder now, rolling forward in her chair. I think if Pamela hadn’t put a hand on Hazel’s shoulder, she’d have fallen to the floor. Pamela held her while she had hysterics. The interview was over for now.

Livingston motioned us out of the room to the hallway. “Do you believe her?” Edward asked.

“Pamela does, but it’s all hearsay. Carmichael is dead, so we can’t even get him as a witness to any of it.”

“Can we prove any of it?” I asked.

“Not right now,” Livingston said.

“Do you believe that Rico is capable of this kind of violence?” Edward asked.

“I don’t know him that well, but I’d have said no.”

“We thought Rico was stupid, letting the Babingtons into the crime scene when he was supposed to be guarding it, but he was already planning to frame them,” I said.

“Framing them doesn’t make Jocelyn a billionaire,” Edward said.

“They need Bobby dead for that,” I said.

“And Jocelyn not implicated in Ray’s murder,” Livingston added.

“We have a confession that clears her and whatever accomplice she had. Shit, we played right into their hands,” I said.

“Rico found the murder weapon in the shed. It was the only stolen object in the house that wasn’t in the safe,” Livingston said.

“Did Rico plant it?” I asked, and we all looked at one another. “Did one of them help Carmichael with his suicide and his note?”

“Rico was with us,” Livingston said.

“The woman made sure we would see her at the aunt and uncle’s house,” Olaf said.

“She did make a scene,” I said.

“If she had just finished giving Carmichael an overdose and faking his suicide note, then she’s one of the coldest customers I’ve ever met,” Livingston said.

“If she planned the murder and the frame-up, then she was absolutely cold-blooded,” I said.

“Her alibi is perfect for the night of the first murder,” Edward said.

“Did anyone check Rico’s alibi for that night?” I said.

“Why would we?” Livingston asked.

“We have her voice on the video,” I said.

“You have a woman’s voice on the video that most people won’t even be able to hear without special equipment. Once they find out that a wereanimal—sorry, Therianthrope—heard it first and then told the human cops, it’ll probably get thrown out as evidence.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because judges don’t like supernatural witnesses or evidence that only exists because of something supernatural. It doesn’t play well in court.”