Page 57 of The Murder Between Us
“Noah, you’ve got to keep me awayfrom that room.” He’d nodded to the conference room and the bustle of agents and deputies and police officers hauling in boxes of evidence taken from Garrett’s townhome. “Keep me away from him. If he hurt my little girl…”
There was a particular agony that erupted when you watched a man break. It was something wholly alien, an excruciating horror reflected when you witnessed a man fracture on the fault lines of his soul. Noah had felt it six years ago, watching as Deputy Venneslund was escorted out of the morgue, and he felt the echoes of it again in his office as Venneslund curled over his knees and tried to choke back his sobs.
“Stay here,” Noah had said again, squeezing his shoulder. “As long as you need. Then go home.”
“Promise me, Noah. Promise me you’ll find out if that son of a bitch did it.”
“I promise.”
Venneslund had held his gaze, tears like waves rocking in his eyes, and nodded.
Now it was time to try to put the pieces together.
Who was Andy Garrett?
* * *
Garrett wasin almost the same position they’d left him in the night before. His head hung as he slumped forward, staring at the floor. He’d been changed out of his dirt-caked jeans, blood-spattered T-shirt, and plaid overshirt and into a jumpsuit. His hair, usually trim and neat, was wild, sticking up in every direction. But it was his eyes that seared Noah, the empty holes where his soul used to be.
He stared at Garrett, then flicked his gaze to the one-way mirror. Cole was in the observation room, along with half the task force. Checking Garrett’s answers, if he gave any, against the facts they’d compiled. Would Garrett lie? Would he try to evade the truth?
What was the truth?
“Hello, Andy,” Noah said. “How are you doing today?”
Garrett didn’t budge. One finger twitched on the steel table. He stared beyond Noah, beyond the plain wall of the interrogation room.
Noah set down three items: Garrett’s call records, all his calls to Jessie Olson highlighted across the pages and pages of billing; an evidence photo taken of Jessie’s picture on the shard of mirror glass; and the results of the DNA swab from Jessie Olson’s lips. He tapped the last. “Can you tell me why your DNA is on Jessie Olson?”
Garrett’s Adam’s apple rose. His chin trembled. “Because I kissed her,” he rumbled. His voice was like a freight train barreling through midnight.
“You kissed her. When?”
“That night,” he whispered.
“That night. The night she died?”
Garrett nodded. His eyes closed. He looked down. His expression cracked, and he clenched and squeezed and seemed to wipe himself thin as the tears started to come, tiny, snuffling sounds that seemed like breaking glass.
“Did you kiss her when you strangled her? Is that when you—”
“No!” Garrett roared, suddenly not crying but raging, bellowing at Noah and lunging forward as far as his shackles would allow. “No!I didn’t kill her!”
Noah blinked. Behind Garrett, Cole and Jacob appeared at the door, ready to burst in. He shook his head, a tiny movement. Cole scowled.
“When did you see Jessie that night?”
Garrett slumped back, the rage vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. “Just after midnight. I stopped by during my shift. I knew her dad wasn’t home, and neither was her mom.”
“Her dad. Sheriff Bart Olson.” Garrett’s jaw clenched. He nodded. “Why did you want to see Jessie without her dad around?”
Silence.
“Did Jessie want to see you that night?”
Garrett frowned. “Of course she did. We were dating.”
Noah’s eyebrows shot straight up. “You were dating? Wow. That’s news to me. News to everyone, I think. When did that start?”
