Booked for Murder: A Balefire Bay Cozy Mystery by Shannon Symonds

Author:Shannon Symonds [Symonds, Shannon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2023-11-19T16:00:00+00:00

13

Witnesses or Suspects

Ivy’s stomach churned as she sat alone in one of the interview rooms. Every minute felt like an hour as time passed. Finally, a female officer with tight, black curls opened the door.

“Do you need any water or to use the bathroom, ma’am?”

“My name is Ivy and yes. I would love to use the restroom.”

“I am officer Beck.” The officer held the door for her and motioned her down the hall toward dispatch. Conner rounded the corner, head down, in his full uniform, and nearly ran into them.

“Hey,” the female officer said.

“Sorry, Beck.” He watched Ivy as they passed with his eyes drawn together, scowling. “Beck.”

“Yes.”

“What is she doing here?” Conner asked.

“The Chief has some questions.” Beck pushed her toward a small bathroom.

“He isn’t going to be back today. He’ll be with Veronica and Roger in Eugene for a while,” Conner said.

“Take that up with him. I’m just doing what he asked us to do.”

Beck gave Ivy a gentle push into the bathroom, turned the lights on, and shut the door.

Ivy closed her eyes and took a long-jagged breath. Why do they want me?

“We don’t have any probable cause. We can’t hold her forever. I’m going to call him.” She heard Conner talking loudly to Beck through the door.

“Don’t you have a conflict of interest?” Beck said.

“What?” Conner sounded incredulous, but Ivy knew it might be true.

“Jerry at Medics told dispatch, who told me, you were hanging all over each other.” Beck laughed. “Listen. Don’t tell her, but we have two people saying they saw her at the cliff when he went over and even though one of the witnesses couldn’t keep their story straight, there was a window of opportunity for her to have pushed him off the cliff. The Chief doesn’t want her to leave town before he sorts it out.”

Conner was silent. “I’ll call the Chief. Be careful of passing on gossip like that. This is a harassment-free safe zone.”

Beck laughed louder. Conner was gone when the bathroom door opened. Beck walked behind Ivy until she was back in the holding room. After letting Ivy in she slammed the door shut and locked it.

Beck came back, handed her a paper cup with water in it, and left. Ivy checked. The door was still locked.

After sipping her water for a few minutes, she decided to put her head down on the table and go to sleep.

***

A knock on the door woke Ivy from a troubled sleep. When she lifted her head from her folded arms, a long string of drool went from her to the table. She wiped her mouth with her sleeve. There was a movement outside the door. Conner unlocked it and came in.

“The Chief is releasing you to my custody. I told him you’re innocent. He said I’ve got a clear conflict of interest.”

“What made him think there is a conflict of interest?” Ivy raised her brows and waited almost a full minute before Conner spoke.

“I told him I was crazy about you and knew you could never push anyone off a cliff,” Conner said.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.