you gave your statement earlier. Is that correct?”
“Yeah, I’d been partying pretty hard.”
“In light of that, is it possible that you inadvertently stumbled upon Ms. Estrada alive in Mr. Otis’s personal wing and mistook her for a threat of some kind? Maybe lashed out at what you thought was an attacker?”
Cord looked at her as if she was crazy.
“No way,” he insisted firmly. “I was messed up, sure. But I didn’t do anything like that. I walked into that bathroom and saw her in the shower. I tried to help but she was already dead. I admit I was high out of my mind. But I didn’t touch that chick. Give me a lie detector test. I’ve done some things I’m not proud of in my life, maybe even illegal things, but not this.”
And then, as if the stress of asserting his innocence had caught up to him, he suddenly leaned over to the side and vomited in the grass.
As Jessie looked at the guy, sickly and pathetic, she internally dismissed him as a suspect. Not because he might not be capable of doing something awful in a drunken stupor, but because she doubted he could keep it hidden. If he was guilty, Cord Mahoney would have already confessed by now.
“Thanks for thinking of coming out here,” he said to Jessie appreciatively when he’d caught his breath.
“Sure thing, Cord,” she said before turning her attention back to the others, Matilda in particular. “This is a waste of time. We need to talk to the person who actually runs this place. That’s the estate manager. Take us to Nancy Salter now, please.”
CHAPTER FIVE
They left Cord to sleep it off in his valentine bed.
Matilda led them to meet with Nancy Salter, who was supposedly going to get them in to formally interview Jasper Otis. As they followed the young girl, zipping past multiple guest houses at breakneck speed, Jessie and Karen considered what they’d just seen.
“I know they took Cord’s prints and DNA, but I doubt it’s going to turn up much,” Jessie said resignedly.
“You don’t think it could be him?” Karen asked.
“Never say never,” Jessie replied. “I’ve been burned too often to make that mistake. But it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. That whole wing was unoccupied. If he’d killed her, he could have walked right out of there and back to the party and no one would have been the wiser. But he called nine-one-one, gave his name, and stuck around, even though he was under the influence. Plus, even though polygraphs aren’t infallible, the general public doesn’t know that. Volunteering to take one suggests he’s either confident of his innocence or a sociopath of epic proportions. He didn’t strike me as the latter.”
Karen was about to respond when her phone rang. The way her face fell when she saw the caller and slowed her pace, Jessie knew this wasn’t going to be pleasant. She pretended not to notice and walked ahead, joining Purcell.
“Can you send me those crime scene photos?” she asked him. “I don’t want to wait for the preliminary report tomorrow to look at the body for the first time.”
He nodded without speaking and pulled out his own phone. Behind them Jessie could hear part of Karen’s conversation.
“I take him almost every week,” she said testily. “How hard is it for you to cut up some orange slices, sit on a lawn chair while cheering occasionally, then hand out said orange slices?”
Whatever the person on the other end of the line said, it didn’t go over well.
“I’m terribly sorry that you’ll have to miss the Rams game. Maybe you can record it. And if not, they play about fourteen more this year, so I think you’ll get over it.”
They were approaching a severe-looking woman standing on a stone staircase overlooking the garden and hedge maze. Jessie got the distinct suspicion that it was Nancy Salter and glanced back at Karen, giving her the official “time to wrap it up” look. Karen nodded.
“Just make it work,” she said. “We all have burdens. You have to find his cleats. I have to go solve a murder. Goodbye.”
Karen hung up just as they came to a stop. Jessie glanced over at Ernie Purcell. To his credit, he gave no indication that he’d heard a word of the conversation.
“Detectives,” Matilda said, “this is Nancy Salter. She’s the estate manager for Otis Estate. Nancy, you already know Detective Purcell. This is Detective Karen Bray and Jessie Hunt, a criminal