Lloyd Corricelli - Ronan Marino 01 - Two Redheads & a Dead Blonde by Lloyd Corricelli Read Free Book Online Page B

reversed.
    I’d used the same technique for many years. Was the suspect nervous or cool, calm and collected? Right now, I was upset, verging on anger, but I made an effort to conceal it. They were probably hoping I’d just admit to killing Karen, so they could spend the rest of the day accepting pats on the back for a job well done. If that was the case, I was about to dash their hopes.
    After what seemed like an eternity but was much closer to five minutes, I grew impatient and waved to them from my side of the mirror. They returned, shortly after, without my coffee. Bastards.
    Morley took the lead interviewer chair directly across from me while Garcia sat behind me with a steno pad. He wouldn’t write anything important, just notes like what an asshole when I told them to shove their questions.
    Morley just stared, trying to instill the fear of the Lowell Police Department into me. It wasn’t working. The staring went on for a good thirty seconds before I chose to instigate the questioning. I’m a great instigator.
    “Do you have something to ask me, or are we going to sit here all day and see who blinks first?”
    “Don’t get smart, you’re in a lot of trouble, pal,” Morley growled in his best Jack Webb voice.
    “Really? Then let’s start with my Miranda rights.”
    That threw them off. They looked at each other, and Morley stammered. His breath was killing me. I could probably confess to anything right now, and it would be thrown out for being extracted with torture.
    “We could do that, but I’d just like to chat first, Ronan.”
    “Okay. I didn’t catch your first name.”
    “Detective Morley.”
    I saw that one coming. It was a common tactic to make a suspect feel inferior by addressing them by their first name and not giving them yours.
    “Tell us about your relationship with the deceased.”
    I hated hearing Karen referred to that way. “We’d been dating for about six weeks.”
    “You don’t seem too upset,” Morley said. “I’d be crying if something happened to my wife–unless, of course, I did something to her.”
    Bad analogy, but he was right in one sense. I wasn’t visibly shaken. I’d lost a lot of good friends, some right before my eyes, and I’d become hardened by it. I was hurting inside, but I wasn’t going to let these fine public servants see it.
    “Just because I’m not sitting here bawling my eyes out like a little girl doesn’t mean I’m not upset.”
    “I see. Two of our officers observed you with her last night in a secluded parking lot. I have the contact card they filled out at the end of their shift. What happened after they left you and the deceased in the parking lot?”
    “Can we stop calling her that?”
    “What’s that?” Garcia asked.
    “The deceased. She had a name.”
    “Yesterday she was alive, today she’s dead,” Morley said.
    “You insensitive fucking bastard,” I sneered.
    The detectives looked at each other, neither showing any emotion. Morley thought he had something. He was wrong.
    “What happened after you left…Ms. Pommer last night?” Morley asked.
    “She went to her apartment, and I went home to bed.”
    “Can anyone verify this?”
    “No, can you?”
    “We’re asking the questions,” Garcia interjected.
    I could feel his eyes on me, another common tactic used to make the suspect feel subordinate and break him down.
    “Did you and the deceased do any illicit drugs last night?”
    This came right out of left field. “No, why?”
    “You’re lying. I found a used syringe inside her car that field-tested positive for coke and heroin,” Morley said.
    “You like the speedballs, Ronan?” Garcia asked.
    “I don’t know where that could have come from.”
    “So if we searched you, there won’t be any track marks?”
    “You could try, but I told you I don’t use and, as far as I know, neither did she.”
    “Uh huh. We also found a used condom wrapper on the back floorboard. Did you have sexual intercourse with her