Page 54 of Dirty Weekend

“I need you to take your rings off and put them in here,” Jack said, holding out an evidence bag.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “These are important to me. Like I told you before, a gift from my mother.”

“The warrant covers anything in your personal residence or on your person,” Jack said. “You really don’t have a choice.”

She stared at Jack for a few seconds and then one by one took the silver rings off and put them in the evidence bag.

“I need to see your right hand,” I told her.

She turned to me and I could see the wheels turning in her head, trying to figure out the best angle to play this out. She finally handed me her right hand. I knew just where to touch. Thea gasped and pulled her hand back, cradling it in her other hand.

“The jawbone is hard, isn’t it,” I said. “No tissue there to soften the blow of impact with your knuckles. And then with your ring…you probably chipped a bone. That’s why your hand is still so sore.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

“Sure you do,” Jack said. “You killed Cami Downey.”

A deputy came up behind the bar and started reading Thea her rights.

“You’re grasping at straws,” she said. “You’ll never prove it.”

“Tip for the future,” I told her. “Don’t wear a ring when you punch someone. It leaves an impression in the tissue. Easy to match once you know what to look for. I can line your fist up directly with the photographs. Perfect match.”

“You knew about the affair between Cami and Kevin,” Jack said. “And you knew your good luck days were coming to an end. A woman knows these things, right? You knew or suspected something was off. Maybe that they were meeting at the Dupont Circle house. Or maybe that Kevin was going to ask Cami to move in with him instead of you. But you kept on pushing and claiming your territory.

“You really started to get nervous when Kevin stopped drinking so much,” Jack said. “That’s when you knew something was wrong. You kept giving him drinks and he either didn’t drink them or nursed them all night. It was easier to control him when he was drinking. So when you came home from work and you saw Cami in the kitchen getting wine, did you know she was setting the scene upstairs for Kevin to join her?”

Red streaks of color appeared on Thea’s cheeks and anger flashed in her eyes.

“Kevin snuck upstairs and spent the night with Cami,” Jack continued. “They talked it over and they were going to stop hiding their affair. There was no reason to keep dragging things out with you or John. They wanted to live their own lives. Your friends don’t think very highly of you. One called you a leech and another an opportunist.”

Thea stayed silent, but her anger intensified to the point I was surprised she didn’t explode with the rage she was holding inside. I could see now how easy it would have been for her to stab Cami so many times. Once you were that filled with rage anything was possible.

“How’d you find out for sure?” Jack asked. “Did you go back to Kevin’s place? Maybe under the pretense that you were just checking on him to see how he was feeling. You had access to his apartment. But he wasn’t there. There was only one place he could be. And that’s when you started planning.

“Cami came back downstairs to the kitchen and that’s where you were waiting for her,” Jack said. “If you’d argued much you would have woken up the whole house. So what’d you do? Probably just sucker punched her as soon as you saw her. She would have been wearing her big robe, but you took it off her. It probably made it too cumbersome to get her to the car.

“You had access to Kevin’s car as well. Keys on the table. All you had to do was get her to the garage and into the trunk. It’s hard moving a body, isn’t it? But Cami was small and she probably wasn’t knocked out long. You had to get her in the trunk. They found her blood and hair in the trunk, by the way.”

“It’s Kevin’s car,” she said, shrugging. “That doesn’t prove I did it.”

“That’s for the lawyers to figure out,” Jack said. “But with the evidence we have and you basically signing your name on Cami’s face when you punched her, we’re pretty confident in making the arrest for murder.

“Clever of you though to suggest to John that he should use his car guys to detail both vehicles. Will told us that was your suggestion. You’re good at manipulating circumstances, aren’t you. You grew up poor so you figured manipulating other people was the easiest way to get where you were going. I’m sure a psychologist would have a field day with you.”

The deputy pulled Thea’s hands behind her back and put the cuffs on her. The bar was completely silent—even the TVs had been muted—as everyone watched what was unfolding.

“John went along with your suggestion and had both cars detailed while you were all at work. But blood is really hard to remove. Here’s what I think happened. You shoved Cami in the trunk and by the time you got to Hangman’s Bridge she was awake.

“We did a little background on you, by the way. At first we thought maybe John’s mother and grandmother had lived in that part of town. Hangman’s Bridge isn’t well known, and it’s not easy to get to. But you grew up just a couple of miles from there. Your dad worked for one of the nearby farms.”

“Yeah, and the farm went under,” she said. “Dad left to find work and Mom was left with three kids living in a shack. So what?”

“The water was high when you got to the bridge and you scraped the bottom of the car as you drove onto it. We leave evidence everywhere we go. It’s almost impossible to be untraceable. You left marks on the bridge, marks on the car…hair and blood in the trunk. That’s where you stabbed her the first time, isn’t it?” Jack asked.

Thea jerked against the deputy holding her, her eyes narrowing at Jack.

“She was awake when you got to the bridge. You could probably hear her screaming or pounding against the trunk. You already knew you were going to kill her. That’s why you took the knife from the kitchen block. Stupid move, by the way. That immediately made us start looking at the five of you closer.

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