Page 28 of I Do, or Dye Trying
“I don’t know, man. You shot Broadman in front of her so she might not be too friendly,” Dorchester replied with his usual sarcasm. “Good jobs are scarce, and I’m not sure a person can claim unemployment in this type of circumstance.”
“Maybe I should’ve let him shoot your smart ass with your gun after he knocked you out and took it off you,” I replied good-naturedly. We both knew there was no way in hell I would’ve let that happen. “Save you from a life of frozen apple pies.” I made it sound like a fate worse than death. To be honest, it was really good frozen pie; it just wasn’t in the same stratosphere as Josh’s, so a comparison just wasn’t fair.
“You wound me,” Dorchester said while covering his heart. “I probably should show you a bit more gratitude when we work together since you made it possible for me to go home to my family that night. Mostly I’m mortified that Broadman got the jump on me,” he added humbly. Dorchester had been plenty thankful, and nothing more was needed, wanted, or required.
“Nah,” I replied waving him off. “At least it wasn’t a seventy-year-old woman who took you down.”
“Very true,” he said, sitting straighter in his seat. “Thanks for always making me feel better about myself, Gabe. You have a real talent.”
“Anything to please,” I said dryly, pulling up in front of the light gray bungalow house on Bay Street. “I hope this goes better than talking to Rylan’s parents did the second time.”
“Whitworth said they didn’t like you much,” Dorchester said, resuming his smartass demeanor.
“Not at all,” I replied with a wry smile. “I didn’t care for Broadman’s parents either, so it was okay. Whitworth seemed to enjoy the interview since he’d never seen me in full dickhead mode.” I discovered Whitworth wasn’t as bad as I thought once he let down his guard and I got to know him better.
“He liked being out in the field doing this kind of work. We spend the majority of our days enforcing warrants and investigating drug-related crimes, so it’s been a different experience for him. Not that I want there to be more homicides and arsons in the county,” he amended. “I’m ready for things to slow down and serve warrants again.” He acted like there wasn’t any danger knocking on the doors of people who didn’t want to be found.
With Adrian on paternity leave, Whitworth returned to the sheriff’s department instead of us forming a three-man team. He was only a phone call away if we needed him, but I hoped that we wouldn’t. Like Dorchester, I was ready for things to return to the peaceful, small town life I’d come to love.
“Here we go,” I said, opening my door. Lucy had been pretty hysterical the first time we interviewed her after Broadman’s arrest in the office. It was true that I shot him in the shoulder in front of her, which shocked the woman, but I think the hardest blow was finding the money Broadman stole from Robertson in the office safe. She had seemed very genuine in her denial that she knew anything about Broadman’s activities. The second time around, I wanted to focus more on the motive since we found the connection between Broadman and his victims.
Lucy at least attempted a smile when she answered the door of her parents’ home. “Hello, Detectives.” She stood back for us to enter her home.
“Did you have a nice vacation, Lucy?” I asked, hoping that small talk would relax her nerves a bit.
“Yeah, it was what I needed,” she answered. “Would either of you like something to drink? Coffee or something?”
“We’re fine, but thank you for asking,” I told her. “We appreciate you agreeing to meet with us this morning.”
“I’m not sure how helpful I’ll be since I already told you everything I know,” she replied. She might’ve known more than she realized so it was worth interviewing her again. “I’ll try my best.”
“That’s all we can ask for, Lucy,” Dorchester said, spreading his better-than-good cop routine on extra thick that morning. His charm caused the young lady to blush profusely.
“Do you recognize the name Nate Turner?” I asked.
“Besides what I read in the papers and saw online?” she responded.
“Yes,” I answered. “Do you recognize that name as someone who called the office in the past?”
“Not that I remember, but none of the people that Mr. Broadman allegedly killed ever phoned the office. They called him directly on his cell phone,” she told us. “I know for a fact that he took a call from Rick Spizer the week that Rick died. I heard him talking on his cell phone through his closed office door. Well, at least he referred to the caller as Spizer.”
“Lucy, we got copies of Broadman’s cell phone, home, and office records and there were no calls between Broadman and any of his alleged victims.” It was a key piece of evidence any half-decent defense attorney would use in court. Unless… Damn it; I should’ve picked up on it sooner. “He must have used a different cell phone for these calls, and we missed it when we searched his home, office, and truck.”
“I guess that’s possible, but I had never seen him with two phones, but then again I had never seen him act the way he did when you came to arrest him. See, I’m not very helpful,” she said dejectedly.
“But you were,” I told her, convinced we overlooked a key piece of evidence. “You’ve seen the faces of the men he’s accused of killing on the news, correct?” Lucy nodded her head. “Had any of them visited the office that you can remember?”
“Not recently. Mr. Spizer had been to our office during the first land contract negotiations between Mr. Robertson and McCarren Consortium, of course,” she replied. “But not since then and none of the others ever came to the office.”
“Is there any possibility that they called using fictitious names?” Dorchester asked.
“Fictitious?” she questioned.
“You know, clients who called repeatedly but there was no record of them in your system,” he explained.
“Not that I can recall,” she answered after thinking about it for several moments. “Honestly, there was never a single occurrence where Mr. Broadman acted in any way other than a kind man who loved his farm and his community.”
“Thank you for your time, Lucy,” I said, rising to my feet. “Hopefully, we won’t have to bug you again.”