Page 27 of Beyond Her Reach (Bree Taggert #10)

Matt exited the interview room last. “I’ll see them out.”

“Thanks,” Bree said, and turned into the break room.

Still contemplating the interview, Matt directed Harrison and his attorney down the hallway toward the lobby. Kelly’s husband was a garbage human, but had he killed her?

Opportunity wasn’t proof. But his answers didn’t sit well with Matt.

Guilty people lie.

A few feet down the corridor, Harrison halted.

Juarez was walking toward them with another man in his midfifties. Matt recognized Jeff Burke from his photo, and knew he was scheduled to come in for an interview that afternoon. Jeff was huge, taller than Matt and just as broad.

Harrison froze suddenly. Matt nearly walked into him. He took a step to the side to avoid the collision.

Jeff stopped cold. Anger narrowed his eyes. “Harrison.”

“Jeff.” Harrison’s voice was just as hostile.

No love between those two.

With no warning, Jeff launched himself at Harrison.

The attorney executed a deft, graceful spin and sidestepped through the break room doorway, like a running back evading a tackle.

Harrison wasn’t as quick. Jeff caught him around the midsection, his shoulder plowing into Harrison’s gut, his greater weight and momentum driving the smaller man backward.

Matt let them go by. He couldn’t stop the fight if he was on the bottom of the dogpile.

The two men went flying. Harrison hit the floor flat on his back, and the wind left his lungs with an audible whoosh .

Jeff landed on top and used his larger size to pin Harrison to the floor.

He scrambled onto his knees, straddling Harrison.

“Did you fucking kill her?” Jeff leaned right into Harrison’s face and shouted.

Harrison didn’t seem to have enough oxygen to answer. Wheezing and purple-faced, he gasped and shook his head.

Juarez and Matt waded into the fray.

“Can’t. Breathe,” croaked Harrison.

Jeff straightened, cocked back a fist, and prepared to punch Harrison in the face.

Matt grabbed his arm, preventing the blow, but he was unable to unseat the big man.

Juarez snagged Jeff around the chest. Juarez wasn’t tall, but he was stocky and had the strength of youth on his side.

Still, he and Matt together couldn’t budge Jeff Burke.

The guy was strong as a bull and just as focused.

Frustrated, Matt strained, throwing his weight backward. But his position didn’t give him leverage, and there was no room to maneuver in the narrow hallway.

“Get up!” Matt shouted in Jeff’s ear.

But Jeff was beyond hearing him. A vein on his temple pulsed, and his eyes bulged with rage. “You killed her!”

Over Jeff’s shoulder, Matt saw Harrison still shaking his head, his eyes rolling backward.

“Let go!” Matt snaked his forearm across Jeff’s throat. Technically, choke holds weren’t legal, but what could he do? Harrison couldn’t breathe. Jeff was going to kill him. Still Matt took care not to compress Jeff’s windpipe. He braced his body and pulled, but Jeff still didn’t move.

Juarez had his baton out, but he didn’t have room to swing it.

Something cracked. Jeff seized. His body convulsed hard, then went limp and collapsed on Harrison’s chest.

Harrison wheezed, “Help.”

Juarez shoved Jeff off Harrison’s body and into the wall. Harrison rolled away, his hand on the center of his chest, just breathing and gagging.

Matt looked up. Bree stood a few feet away, shaking her head, Taser in hand. She pointed to Jeff, twitching on the floor, and snapped out an order to Juarez. “Cuff him.”

Juarez scrambled to obey, his expression sheepish. Once he had the cuffs secure, Juarez checked Jeff’s pulse. “He’s Ok .”

The attorney magically reappeared, poking his head out of the break room. “How did you two not get shocked? You were touching him.”

Bree holstered her Taser. “Because the current travels between the two probes in the shortest path possible.”

From the other side of the altercation, she’d had a direct shot at Jeff’s chest. One prong had struck the front of his shoulder. The other had hit him in the ribs.

Now that the scuffle was over, the attorney helped Harrison to scramble a few feet away and sit up with his back against the wall.

The lawyer speared Bree with his gaze. “Is this how you run your sheriff’s department?”

Bree said nothing, and kept her expression carefully guarded.

“I’ll be taking my client to the emergency room,” the lawyer huffed. “He could have broken bones or other hidden injuries. We demand you bring assault charges.”

“Mr. Burke is looking at charges,” Bree affirmed.

“And we’re going to sue you, your department, and the county too.” He pointed at Bree. “This shouldn’t have happened. A person should be safe in the sheriff’s department of all places.”

With the giant man no longer on top of him, Harrison looked fine.

Matt doubted he’d suffered more than a couple of bruises.

His ego would be more damaged than his body.

Hell, Matt’s ego had taken a hit. He guessed that Jeff Burke had some sort of grappling experience.

He knew how to position his body to utilize maximum leverage.

The lawyer heaved Harrison to his feet and made a show of assisting him down the hallway. Matt followed them to the lobby, then returned to Bree.

She propped a hand on her duty belt. “Never a dull moment.”

Jeff Burke still lay on the floor, an occasional twitch running through his entire body.

Bree crouched. “You Ok , Jeff?”

Jeff nodded.

“Give it a couple of minutes.” She didn’t move, clearly intending to stay with him until she was sure he was all right.

“I’m Ok now. Sorry about that.” His jaw clenched and released. “Sometimes, my temper gets the better of me.”

“You should work on that,” Bree said. “You’re under arrest for assault. Do you need medical assistance?”

Jeff lifted his head, almost experimentally, then did the same with his legs. “No. I’m good.”

Bree rose. “Can you stand?”

Jeff nodded. Matt and Juarez heaved him upright. He weighed a ton.

“Put him in the holding cell,” she said to Juarez. “We’ll talk when you feel better.”

“I’m Ok ,” Jeff insisted. “I’m sorry for going off on Harrison, but I want to help you prove he killed Kelly.”

Or did Jeff kill Kelly and want to poke his nose into the case to throw off the investigation?

Bree shrugged. “Interview room two.”

Juarez started down the hall. The jolt seemed to have brought Jeff back to his senses. Bree and Matt followed. Matt was curious about what Jeff was going to say.

Matt glanced at Bree. She looked annoyed at the entire situation. He couldn’t blame her. But no one had a Magic 8 Ball. They couldn’t have foreseen Jeff’s explosion. “Harrison’s lawyer is going to use this against us,” he said.

Bree lifted a palm. “I don’t blame him. He’s just doing his job.”

Matt still didn’t like it.

“He’s right, though. It shouldn’t have happened.” Bree frowned.

Ahead, Juarez marched Jeff into the interview room. The knuckles on Jeff’s hand looked red. Bruises? He hadn’t landed a single punch.

They entered the interview room. Matt usually liked to remove handcuffs before asking questions.

People tended to be more open when they weren’t restrained.

But given Jeff’s strength and volatility, freeing him wasn’t a good idea.

Cuffs would limit the amount of damage he could do and make him much easier to control if necessary.

Juarez guided Jeff into a chair, and Bree sat across from him. Jeff seemed calm. Matt stayed on alert in case the guy flipped out again, but Bree seemed to have a power over him that Matt didn’t.

Juarez took a step back, then hesitated. “Do you want me to stay, ma’am?”

Bree shook her head. “No. Jeff isn’t going to give me any trouble, are you, Jeff?”

“No, ma’am.” Jeff was downright subdued.

Was it the Taser shock or something else?

The psychology of interrogation fascinated Matt.

He’d seen combative criminals turn meek when confronted by a female authority figure.

The next suspect might despise women and refuse to speak to one at all.

The key was using whatever worked. So, in this case, Matt sat back so Bree could take the lead.

She would do the same if the subject responded better to Matt.

She started the video recording, made the usual disclaimers, and read Jeff his rights. Then she started with easy questions. “What do you do for a living, Jeff?”

“I have a podcast.” Jeff squeezed his eyes shut and opened them, as if they were sticky or something. “I teach people how to stay off the government radar.”

“Does that pay enough to live on?”

“I do Ok ,” said Jeff. “I bought my house a long time ago. It was cheaper then. I couldn’t afford to buy it at today’s prices, though.”

“How long have you lived across the street from Kelly and Harrison Gibson?”

“I lived here when they moved in.” His tone turned wistful. “She was so beautiful.”

Bree was right. Jeff did sound like a long-term stalker. Had he been enamored with his neighbor’s wife for decades? Did he finally snap when her husband left her, and she still didn’t want him?

“Did they appear to have a good marriage back then?” Bree asked.

“Yeah, it was good enough, I guess,” he admitted in a grudging tone.

“When did their problems seem to start?”

Jeff contemplated her question, staring at the ceiling for a few seconds. “I don’t remember a sudden start. Maybe a slow disintegration over the last ten years.” He rolled his eyes. “Anyway, a few years ago, at a neighborhood block party, I heard him criticize her for gaining a few pounds.”

“Do you remember when this happened?”

“Summer, three or four years ago, maybe Memorial Day or the Fourth of July?” He shook his head. “That’s the best I can do.”

“What did Harrison say to her?”