Gulliver’s estate,” Adam said. “You mentioned it when you and Pinky were looking for it. While you were in the shop.”
Not exactly, but if it helped to move the interrogation along…
Ackerson remained mum. He must have realized he shouldn’t have said anything about being in Brooke’s attic in the first place.
“She recognized you as the man who carried in the box the mail carrier delivered earlier in the day. She saw you casing the shop, entering all the off-limits rooms, but you couldn’t get into the attic because it was locked,” Josh said. “She thought you’d been chivalrous when you carried the box for her. Then she discovered you’d trespassed in all the rooms where you shouldn’t have been, and she had another impression of you. A potential thief.
“When she heard you and Pinky in the shop, destroying her property, she called the police from the attic. You told Pinky you should have checked that room first since the light was on and the door was open. She heard everything you said. She told the police you broke the window with a brass lamp after you couldn’t get the window open.”
Ackerson tapped his fingers on the table.
“You grabbed a couple of boxes at the antique shop in a stolen Camaro and ditched the boxes, their contents, and the stolen car, then went to see Daisy Gulliver at the bakery across the street from the antique shop. We have video of you speaking with the woman who hired you,” Adam said. “You didn’t find the thumb drive in either of the boxes from the Gulliver estate.”
Ackerson flinched, then looked down at the table.
“You didn’t take Pinky to the hospital,” Josh said.
“He bled out.”
“Not for a while. You dumped him in an alley. If you’d taken him to a hospital or even called 911 so someone could give him emergency medical care, he could have survived. We found your prints in the abandoned car and his blood. It’s all over for you,” Josh said. “Unless you can give us something on the woman who orchestrated this, and we can press charges against her.”
“Immunity?”
Josh shook his head. No way would they offer him a deal like that after he’d shot Brooke and fired shots in one of the jewelry stores. The guy was bad news. “Maybe a lesser sentence. But we need the person behind all this. The mastermind.”
“Hell. She goes by the name of Daisy Fern because Fern was her biological father’s name and most people don’t know that. Randolph Gulliver adopted her, so she’s Daisy Gulliver. A thumb drive’s in one of those boxes shipped to the antique shop.”
Josh frowned at him. “What’s on the thumb drive?”
“Something incriminating, she figures. She was ready to shoot me herself when we didn’t get the job done. It wasn’t my fault Pinky was so clumsy he cut himself badly on the broken window.”
“How do you know her?” Adam asked.
“I did a lot of work for her rich daddy. If you ask me”—Ackerson leaned into the table, pressing his arms against it—“she killed her daddy for the money and for the power.” He sat back in his chair and stretched his legs out and crossed them at the ankles. “They didn’t get along. She was always saying she wanted to kill him for some reason or another.”
“Did she? Kill him? Or hire someone to do it?” Josh asked.
“I’d say she had it in her to kill him, personal vendetta because she wanted to run the business and he wouldn’t let her, but she likes to hire us to do her dirty work.”
“What about his assistant, Mr. Lee?” Josh hoped they could catch Daisy and put her in jail before she hired any more thugs to go after Brooke and her store, or anyone else.
“She said Lee was gathering damning evidence against her daddy and he had to go. But I think Lee gathered evidence against her, and that’s why she’s so anxious to get the drive.”
“Who killed Lee?” Josh asked.
Ackerson shrugged. “You got ’em locked up, don’t you? Howie and that other joker? They might have even killed her daddy. They’re both from Phoenix.”
“And you?” Adam asked.
“Me too, but I didn’t do them.”
“What about the jewelry stores?” Adam asked.
“What about them?”
“Did she hire you for those too?” Josh asked.
“Nah. Those were my idea. I’ll testify she hired me for the job at the antique shop. Once you catch her, she said she’d give me up to you, if I hadn’t been caught already, so I