Write, Edit, KILL: A page-turning serial killer thriller (Detective Erin Bond Book 2) by Bella Forrest

Author:Bella Forrest [Forrest, Bella]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: NightLight Press
Published: 2016-12-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Erin’s impression of Lieutenant Bleiler over the phone turned out to be correct. He was professional, open-minded, and vastly overworked.

He greeted her in his crowded office at the back of a police station that looked like it hadn’t been remodeled since the late Seventies, having to move a tottering stack of files from a chair so she could sit down. File cabinets crowded in on them. His desk was covered with more files, leaving barely any room for the antiquated computer.

“You’ve had a long trip. Would you like some coffee?” he asked. “I know you English like tea but we don’t have any. Budget cuts.”

“Coffee would be lovely, thank you.”

He came back a minute later with two Styrofoam cups. Erin took a sip and couldn’t quite manage to hide her reaction.

“It’s made with two parts motor oil and five parts toxic waste material from the chemical plant down the road,” Lieutenant Bleiler informed her. “It does have caffeine, though, and that’s what really matters.”

“Is this the product of budget cuts as well?” Erin asked, putting her cup down.

Lieutenant Bleiler grinned. “No. It’s always been this bad. Policeman’s tradition. Have you ever gotten good coffee in a police station?”

“I must admit that I haven’t. Not even in England, although there at least we have tea.”

Lieutenant Bleiler kept grinning as he rummaged through a pile of papers and pulled out a folder.

“Bob Ayers is stuck with bad coffee too. He’s locked up over in county. Want to see him?”

Their eyes met. Erin saw collusion in his.

“Yes, I suspect he’ll want to talk to me.”

“I suspect that he would.”

I suspect you want him to hire me so I can indirectly help you on this case.

Lieutenant Bleiler wrote out a note. “Talk to the head officer over there, Nigel Vangels. Friend of mine. He’ll get you in. When you’re done, come back and see me.”

He handed her a note. She read it. It was more along the lines of a personal request than an official correspondence. Erin nodded her thanks. Personal requests were how things got done in the small city police forces. Everybody knew everybody else. There was always a lot of politics too. She had to be careful not to tread on any sensitive toes.

An hour’s time and some red tape later, she was sitting in the county jail visitor’s booth talking through a screen to Bob Ayers. He was a middle-aged man, slightly overweight with a drinker’s nose and sunken cheeks, his appearance made worse by the obvious fact that he hadn’t slept in a couple of days. He recounted the events of the night of the murder, crying as he did so.

Erin immediately felt that Bob Ayers had not murdered his wife. She had seen a lot of fake tears in her line of work, or tears of remorse from a killer who had done the deed, regretted it, and yet still wanted to dodge justice. The suspect’s tears were of neither variety.

His were tears of insufferable pain.

“So you didn’t see the intruder? Did your son?”

Bob shook his head.

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