Page 34 of The Whisper Place
“You’re going to regret it.”
Back at Charlie’s place, shit hit the fan. He’d been quiet and even docile at Silas’s house, letting me lead the interview as he hovered in the background. As soon as we walked back into his kitchen, though, he went into a full meltdown.
“He killed her. God, do you think he killed her?” Charlie paced the yellow Formica, head in his hands like he was trying to pull his own hair out. “Why would she do that? Why would she threaten that asshat and steal back the money? Oh my god, she was trying to protect me and he killed her.”
He kept spiraling, ignoring me until I had to physically get in front of him, take him by the shoulders, and push him into a chair.
“Sit down. Breathe. Smoke something.”
“But you heard—”
“I did.” I sat across from him. “I’ve heard a lot of people say a lot of things, as a private investigator and as law enforcement. Most of it is bullshit or cover. When people get backed into a corner, they’ll say anything they think can get them out of that corner. You have any kids?”
He shook his head.
“Been around kids?”
He shrugged as his eyes filled with water and he backhanded his face with an arm. He was barely listening.
“Interviewing suspects is a lot like dealing with children. You’ve got to weed through their stories and figure out fact from fiction.”
Garrett, poor kid, was especially unlucky to have a dad who was a professional investigator. In his one attempt at outright lying, I’d decimated his story about the events leading up to a broken window at his friend’s house and had both him and his friend in tears and confessing everything in under twenty minutes. That was gold-medal parenting, a moment I pulled out and savored whenever I needed a pick-me-up.
“Silas is no different. We’ve got to weigh the evidence and decide what’s true and what’s bullshit. That’s where I need you.”
Charlie blinked and seemed to regain some focus. “What can I do?”
“First: do you think Kate actually went over there?”
He thought about it for a minute before nodding. “I don’t see why he would’ve made that up. And Kate brought up Silas a few times after I told her about him.”
“She wanted to know if he was still blackmailing you?”
He nodded again.
“Okay, so that tracks. And it tells us something important about Kate.”
“What’s that?” Charlie wiped his face again.
“She’s a fighter.”
He stared at me, wordless, before swallowing and looking at an empty chair on his right. “Thank you.”
We moved on to the other crucial point of the interview: Silas’s claim that he hadn’t seen or talked to Kate after that one encounter. He seemed shifty and triggered by the whole conversation, and he clearly couldn’t wait to get us off his land. Was he just an angry old man or did he have something to hide?
“You’ve known him for years at this point. Is he violent?”
Charlie was back up and pacing again—the guy couldn’t sit still—but it came off as less unhinged this time. Maybe Charlie Ashlock thought by the mile.
“Yes and no. He was always talking shit, but I never saw him do anything about it. He liked being angry; it was like he fed on it.”
I told Charlie about the assault charge on Hepworth’s record. “But a road rage brawl in a parking lot twenty years ago is a long way from premeditated kidnapping or murder.”
Charlie jerked at the word. I hadn’t spoken it aloud in front of him before now, but it was time. Kate had been gone almost ten days, not by her own choice as far as we could tell, and the incident with Hepworth made it a virtual certainty. She’d cared enough about Charlie to go out of her way to confront his blackmailer. She’d put herself in danger for him. Someone who did that didn’t turn around and leave town without even a note. She’d been taken, or forced to leave.
Hepworth could have intercepted her while she was on her morning run and overpowered her, or convinced her to come to his place for another talk. Once she was off the road, he would’ve been free to attack her. She’d had her keys with the mace on her at the time, but maybe the mace hadn’t done its job. After she was out of the way, either dead or still alive and trapped somewhere,Hepworth could’ve easily walked to Charlie’s house and driven her car to another location, even stowing it in one of the outbuildings on his property. He’d known Charlie a while and probably knew he wasn’t an early riser. The odds of Charlie waking up when he moved the car would’ve been low. Hepworth couldn’t get inside the house—so no way of taking her things—but at least by making the car disappear he could give the impression that Kate was somewhere farther away than the neighboring farm.
The scenario added up on a few different levels. Hepworth was the only suspect we had to date, at least now that I’d crossed Charlie himself off the list. He had opportunity and motive. On the other hand, it was hard to draw a straight line from being told “back off my boyfriend” to cold-blooded murder.
