Culross thought he’d figured things out. “You guys are pulling my leg, right?”
Lando shook his head. “Nope. Jocelyn Trask Williams might’ve killed at least a dozen people.”
“That we know of,” Zeb added for effect. “Could be there are more victims out there we don’t know about.”
Jake was starting to believe they were on the level. “Maybe I should get a raise.”
“Don’t push it, kid. You did let her get by you.”
“She used her car as a weapon,” Jake pointed out.
“Which is why he should stay put and see it towed in as evidence,” Lando suggested. “Follow through to the finish.”
Zeb grinned. “There. See. You get to book all that luggage into evidence and write up a report. Just keep thinking about that commendation the entire time you’re doing the paperwork. It’ll look good on your performance review.”
“Then I get a raise, right?”
“Sure,” Zeb assured the kid as he watched him make the call into the tow truck company. Zeb watched him walk back to his cruiser with a certain bounce in his step. “That should keep him energized for another month or two.”
“Kids. Were we ever that young and naïve?” Lando asked.
“Not me, but you sure were.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I remember that time you were out on patrol by yourself and thought you saw bigfoot. If memory serves, you even called it in. Sighting turned out to be a big ol’ fierce brown bear scratching his butt on a tree.”
“You promised me you’d never bring that up again.”
Lando tapped the side of his head. “Yeah, well, it helps to carry around blackmail material if I ever need a favor.”
“A favor? You always need my help, and you know it.”
Lando slapped his brother-in-law on the back. “Haven’t you heard? That’s what family’s good for.”
23
The highlight of Lando’s week saw Jocelyn locked in a jail cell. But when Gemma wanted to celebrate, he had to remind her it was too early for that. What he needed was to get Jocelyn to talk before he interviewed Derrick Ross.
He had Dale bring Jocelyn into an interview room where she spent half an hour screeching about how they had the wrong person.
After giving her plenty of time to throw a tantrum and then sulk, Lando invited Gemma to join him. Maybe having Gemma there would buffer his accusations. At least he hoped it would.
It was Lando who started with a direct statement, hitting her with the truth. “Look, it’s over, Jocelyn. You’re not going anywhere. That stunt with the car gets you the attempted murder of a police officer. You’re looking at fifteen years to life. I guarantee you won’t get bail from Judge Hartwell. You know it’s true. Fancy lawyer or not, we’ve finally figured out your sordid past. All of it. Bail is usually frowned upon when it concerns a serial killer.”
“You’re dreaming,” Jocelyn huffed out. “Or maybe just delusional. Both of you don’t know the first thing about me.”
“Now that’s just not true,” Gemma noted. “Everything you’ve been hiding for the past twenty years is out in the open now. It’s all over town how you did it. Lando and I decided this was always about the Trask family fortune. Nothing else but greed and money.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Lando’s mouth bowed in a smile. “Okay. Then correct us when we get something wrong. Fair enough?”
Jocelyn crossed her arms over her chest and sat there in defiant petulance, refusing to cooperate.
“I’ll take your silence as a yes,” Lando said and went on, “You tried to set Ben’s place on fire when you realized his death prompted a new look at your sister’s murder. This is what killers like you fail to realize. They make mistakes. Your mistake was killing Ben. But before we get to that, we know it all started with you somehow managing to screw with the brakes on the car your parents were driving when they visited you that day at college. You see, we obtained a copy of the accident report from Marin County. That was back in 1998. Accident investigators went over the car with a microscope, but all they could find was that the car had no brake fluid left in the system. They chalked it up to poor maintenance, a fluke. But now we know better. You wanted your inheritance and didn’t want to wait until your parents died of old age.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Sandra might’ve thought so back then, that the idea of you causing the accident was ridiculous. But Sandra soon learned