Darby McCormick: Fear The Dark Part 30

People who aren't psychopaths or pathological liars reveal themselves in small ways when they're working at trying to conceal the truth. They begin to fidget and sweat, and they have trouble maintaining eye contact. The rush of adrenalin dries up their saliva and they constantly swallow and clear their throats; they breathe faster, their noses itch and they constantly scratch or cover their mouths as if trying to cover the lie. The mouth appears tense, the lips pursed.

Nine times out of ten, their eyes and 'micro-expressions' those fraction-of-a-second facial movements that reveal the true emotion beneath the lie are what betray them. They act distressed and their eyes are drawn upwards and they blink rapidly. Darby watched for any changes in the woman's expression.

'Who told you?'

'It was on the radio. I listen to the news and NPR while I'm cleaning the rooms.'

'Was Eli on the radio too?'

The woman blinked once, and her brow furrowed in thought. 'Eli?'

'Eli Savran. People call him Tim or Timmy.'

'I don't think I heard anything like that on the radio.'

'Do you know him?'

'No.'

'You sure? Guy I'm talking about smells like a human garbage truck.'

The lobby door opened. Richards watched as Coop headed their way.

'Ms Richards?'

'No. No, I don't know anyone like that.'

When a suspect, witness or any ordinary citizen hesitated before answering a question, it meant they were debating whether to hide information or whether deliberately to lie about it. Laurie Richards hadn't paused to think about her responses; she didn't look away and she seemed genuinely confused about who Eli Savran was. Now Darby had a baseline to work with when she asked her next set of questions.

Coop stepped up to the counter. His face was not friendly.

'Would you tell me?' Darby asked Richards.

'Tell you what?'

'If you did know someone like Eli Savran.'

'Of course I would,' Richards replied, indignant. 'My mother didn't raise a liar.'

'Good. So I don't have to explain to you that lying to a police or federal officer is a crime.'

Richards arched her back slightly. After she placed the bucket on the counter, she put her hands on her hips and puffed out her chest a little.

'With all due respect to the both of you, I don't like the way you're treating me. I've been nothing but helpful to you people, I've been nothing but truthful.'

'Then maybe you can explain this,' Darby said. She tapped a finger against the bottle of ink, her eyes never leaving the woman's face.

It was only a fraction of a second, but Darby saw that her words had hit home. And, while her gut said the woman had nothing to do with Eli Savran or the Red Hill Ripper, Darby knew she had stumbled upon something. Richards swallowed and licked her lips. Then she swallowed again.

'That's a bottle of ink.'

'A bottle of ink that's no longer in production,' Darby said. 'It's actually forty years old.'

'So?'

'It showed up on the duct tape wrapped around David Downes's mouth.'

Now Laurie Richards looked distressed. Her eyebrows drew upwards, towards the middle of her forehead, and suddenly she didn't know what to do with her hands.

Coop took out his handcuffs. 'Think real carefully before you answer,' he said, and placed the cuffs on the front counter.

'It was a gift,' Richards said.

'From Eli Savran?' Darby asked.

'No! I told you I don't know who he is. David gave them to me. The ink and the fountain pen.'

'David who?'

'Downes. He was really into fountain pens and stuff. He was cleaning out his office closet or something and came across the bottle of ink it's called "Magic Moon", see? We're the Silver Moon Inn, and David thought the owner would like to use it here on the front desk because it went with the decor. He was kind like that.'

'You didn't tell us you knew him.'

'You didn't ask.'

'But you didn't volunteer the information either. Why? Were you having an affair with him?'

'An affair,' Richards said, aghast. 'He was a married man.'

'So David Downes just waltzed in here one day out of the blue and decided to give these things to the hotel? That's what you're telling us?'

'No, he did He '

'He what?'

'Stop yelling at me! You're getting me all confused.' A sour, unwashed odour rose from Richards, and her breath was rank. 'When my husband, Larry, dropped dead of a heart attack, David helped me with all the probate stuff. Larry was a good man but he wasn't exactly a forward-thinker, so he didn't leave a will. I went to David's office a few times, and during one of them he gave me the pen and the bottle of ink. Why? Because David was a very thoughtful and very kind man. If you don't believe me, I suggest you talk to his secretary, Sally Kelly. She was there the day David gave me the pen and the ink.'

'So explain to me how the ink from that bottle wound up at a crime scene.'

'How the heck should I know? That's your job, number one. Number two, who's to say David didn't have a similar bottle inside his office? Or his house?' The woman smiled a greasy, triumphant smile; her eyes roved over them as though she had made a profound observation.

Everything Laurie Richards had said sounded perfectly logical, and Darby sensed the woman was telling the truth. And maybe Darby would have let the whole thing go if it weren't for the smile that had punctuated her last words. It was as if she had swerved at the last moment to avoid a head-on collision and had righted herself, back on course to her destination, no one knowing how close she had come to a fatal accident.

'That's it, the whole big whopping mystery,' Richards said in mocking sarcasm. 'Satisfied?'

Not yet, Darby thought, and moved behind the reception desk.

64.

Laurie Richards made gulping sounds as Darby approached.

'I told you the truth,' Richards said.

'Not all of it.' The woman was still holding something back. Darby could sense it the way a bloodhound picks up a scent.

'Yes, I did! Why do you insist on hara.s.sing me?'

To get anything more out of Richards, Darby would need a warrant but both she and the FBI had been booted off the case. So she decided to play the only card she had left, one that would, hopefully, push the envelope.

Darby glared at the woman and said, 'You know why he's killing these families.'

The woman's mouth went slack, and her small eyes were bright with terror.

'You knew all this time and yet you didn't tell us,' Darby said. 'That's called obstruction of justice and we're talking about a federal-level charge here. Coop, what's the going rate these days for a federal charge?'

'Minimum of ten years,' Coop replied. 'Max of twenty.'

Richards blinked rapidly, and she seemed to have trouble catching her breath.

'Why are you protecting him?' Darby asked the woman.

'I'm doing no such thing,' Richards replied. A steely resolve had wormed its way into her tone. 'You don't scare me. You don't '

'Let me tell you what's going to happen, Ms Richards. I'm going to pick up these handcuffs, and then we're going to take a ride down to the station. You can call your lawyer, if you have one, and while you're on the phone with him or her I'm going to be on the phone with the reporter from the Red Hill Evening Item. I'm going to tell him how Laurie Richards has known all along why the Red Hill Ripper has been torturing and murdering these families '

'I don't know who he is!'

' and that you didn't come forward with this information.' Darby picked up the handcuffs. 'All these families were murdered because you, Laurie Richards '

'I'M SICK AND TIRED OF WAITING FOR THEIR Sc.r.a.pS AND CRUMBS!'

Darby stood stock still. Her ears rang in the silence and her feet felt as if they had been welded to the floor.

Laurie Richards's face was flushed and heated; tears streamed down her ruddy cheeks. She heaved in great gulps of air and her limbs and voice trembled when she spoke.

'They could've saved us. David and his family, the Connelly family and the others they could have saved the entire town but they kept saying no because they were selfish and greedy. They wouldn't sell their properties to the state. They were offered fair market value for their homes and their land, but no, the money was never good enough, because people like that, no matter how much you give them they're never satisfied, their bellies and bank accounts are never full. They always want more and more while the rest of us are left to fight over the crumbs from their table. It's their own G.o.dd.a.m.n fault, what happened to 'em.'

Darby felt like her heart had stopped beating.

'I'm looking out for my family just like they were looking out for theirs and you're here hara.s.sing me? I had to send my son to live with my b.i.t.c.h of a sister because I can't afford to feed my child or pay rent I'm barely sc.r.a.ping by and you waltz into town and have the nerve to lecture me about what's fair and right?' Some steel had entered the woman's voice. 'I've played by the rules my entire life and for what? What does being nice and thoughtful and fair get you in the end? I'll tell you what. A big, fat whopping nothing.'

Then the woman's expression changed. The neurotic mess of anxiety and fear that lived inside her head like a nest of snakes had shed its skin, giving birth to something else, something darker. Laurie held her head high and proud and said, 'The Red Hill Ripper's a G.o.dd.a.m.n saint as far as I'm concerned.'

What Darby saw in the woman's eyes scared the s.h.i.t out of her. Put a gun in Laurie Richards's hand and she'd squeeze the trigger without a moment's hesitation. She'd b.i.t.c.h nonstop about having to clean up the mess but she wouldn't lose any sleep over a murder. She wouldn't kill out of malice or anger or fear or because of twisted psychological wiring. She was no different than a mother lion protecting its cub.

Right then Darby understood what this was about: survival.

'You think I'm the only one who turned their back and decided to look the other way?' Richards snorted. 'Please. It's their own fault what happened to them. They decided to be greedy, not me. You think I'm going to put my life in danger because a bunch of greedy p.r.i.c.ks are holding out for more money?'

'Tell me why he killed these families,' Darby said.

65.

Laurie Richards crossed her arms over her chest and stared defiantly at Darby and Coop.

Darby continued to press her with questions, but Richards refused to answer refused to speak. When Coop threatened to arrest her, Richards calmly turned around, put her hands behind her back and waited to be handcuffed.

Darby knew as well as Coop that the obstruction of justice charge wouldn't stick; she had thrown it out as a scare tactic to get the woman to talk. But now that Richards was deliberately stonewalling them, refusing to share the reason why the families had been killed and, technically, impeding their investigation, Coop could arrest her, and he did. Darby knew why: the reality of being arrested and placed in a holding cell might jolt the woman out of her self-imposed silence and convince her to co-operate.

They brought her to the station and handed her over to the officer in charge of booking.

Darby went to the break-room for coffee. Coop joined her ten minutes later. He held a small stack of sheets in his hand.

'What'cha got there?' she asked.

'A list of everyone in Red Hill who's logged on to the newspaper's website and watched the video. Savran's name and address aren't on it.' He handed the sheets to her and picked up the coffee pot. 'The computer guys in Denver are handling the traces.'

'You told me.'

'I can't think straight.' Coop picked up the coffee pot.

Darby looked through the pages as she spoke. 'It's got to be tied into the town's incorporation somehow the reason why the families were killed.'

'Agreed. All this time we've been thinking that the incorporation was just about re-districting town a.s.sets. It's also about money, if we believe Richards. My guess? Developers were probably targeting key sites to build on in this town, and these families were holding out because they were offered less than fair market value for their homes. What did she call them again?'

'A bunch of greedy p.r.i.c.ks whose bellies and bank accounts were never full.'

'Said and I quote "It's their own G.o.dd.a.m.n fault, what happened to 'em." '

'Called him a G.o.dd.a.m.n saint.'

'Robin Hood as a serial killer. That's a new one.' Coop drank his coffee. 'Looks like your theory about the town protecting this guy was correct.'