Split Black /#Wattys 2021

Chapter Thirty-three

He couldn't speak well enough to work Clay's interrogation, but he showed up for it. Whatever Clay had to say about Julie, about Pride, about anything, John wanted to be there. Savonn filled in for him in the interrogation room with Mike—which was a disadvantage, even though Savonn had years of experience on both of them. Savonn only knew about the Samuels case. He could never give his interrogation the subtle tilt toward Pride that John could give it.

John tried not to think about it, but the thought wouldn't stay down: This could be a good thing. He had always thought Pride was a solid guy. Maybe he had gotten himself addicted to prescription painkillers—any cop with a torn cruciate could—but basically he was a solid guy. And if he wasn't a solid guy, if John had to hear that now after everything else he'd heard this week, he didn't know what he'd do.

He stood in the corridor with Arlene, who had come to supervise, and stared through the one-way glass as Savonn and Mike paced around the room. They went through the standard stuff: You're charged with attempted murder, here's how long you're gonna go away for. Clay sat through it with a self-satisfied smirk on his rugged, tough-guy face. His orange jumpsuit opened just low enough to show part of the bandage that covered the gunshot wound John had put in his shoulder.

Mike had brought in a picture of Julie Samuels. "You knew this young lady, didn't you? But you don't know her anymore—she's dead. She worked for you, didn't she? For your escort service?"

Clay had his eyes fixed on one point in the one-way glass—right where John happened to be standing. He smiled as if his gaze could bore right through to him, as if he were subtly laughing right at him. It was unnerving.

"How much was she worth an hour?" Mike said. "You got any hard leads on who killed her, maybe we can cut a deal." Or, Say something stupid and incriminate yourself.

Clay leaned forward and put one arm on the metal table. "I'm not answering any questions without my attorney present."

                                                                                                   ***

To search both houses would take all day and maybe into the evening, considering the three hours' round trip to Hampton and the need to hook up with Hampton PD. John could have begged out of part of it, owing to his throat and the fact that he had to be in court early tomorrow for the Donna Greenhouse trial, but there was no way he would miss this. This was when they'd crack the secret room in the beach house, legally—and he had to be there to make sure they didn't miss it. This was when they'd pick up the poker that didn't belong in a house with a gas fireplace. This was when they'd find Julie's modeling shots and the blackmail photos of Pride. And Pride's lighter had to be somewhere. Where was that?

They found no drugs in Clay's Evergreen Condominiums apartment—just firearms, several of them. There was a Glock 17 and a Remington 70. John was sure the fingerprints would be Silvano's. If this was the Remington that had killed Pride—but no "freelance expediter" would be that stupid.

The long ride to Hampton PD and 842 First Street yielded nothing. John saw a switch plate off the wall where he'd installed a bug. Clay must have had the place swept regularly.

The secret room upstairs was empty. Utterly empty. No filing cabinets full of drug blackmail photos. No modeling photos. No fireplace irons. Nothing.