"I hate coming here," Detective Mullen grumbled. He crossed his arms over his chest.
"Would you calm down? We haven't been here for ten minutes yet," Sheriff Winston responded.
"It's going to take them an hour to get him out here. The last time I was here, it took them over an hour. I spent an hour and thirteen minutes waiting to talk to a murder suspect."
Winston put his hands on top of the table. They sat in a small rectangular room. A desk sat in the middle of a ceramic floor. A correctional officer had placed three wooden chairs in the room.
Winston and Mullen sat on one side. An empty chair sat on the other side. Mullen couldn't sit still. His leg bounced underneath the table. Every so often, he cracked his knuckles.
Winston brought along the case file from the Houghton case. Jennifer's journal sat on top of the cream-colored file. His hands folded beside them. This was only his second time at the Brimington County Jail.
The old brick building sat in the heart of Lexing. It was built sometime in the early 1900s. It housed around eight hundred inmates between three floors. Correctional officers and supporting staff dotted the floors.
Winston and Mullen were in a visitation room on the first floor. Grant had been in custody for two hours. He was still completing the process to be booked into jail.
It was understandable now. Sheriff Winston didn't understand why Lindsay Bowers had been crying at the fire station. She was with her kids and, after all, it was a party. Grant must have used his one-phone-call privilege to call Greg Sullivan.
It explained why Sullivan flew into a frenzy and ran out of the building. It explained everything and yet it explained nothing. Why was he gunning it for Denise? There had to be a bigger explanation.
The door to the room swung open. Grant Bowers stood in silence. A correctional officer stood behind him. "Go on and take a seat. Sheriff Winston, feel free to take all the time you need."
Winston made eye contact with Grant. The door to the room started to close. Grant's hands were cuffed in front of him, but that didn't stop him. He swung around and grabbed the metal door handle.
"Wait, I don't think I should do this. I'm not feeling very well."
The correctional officer popped his head around the door. "That's why you were cracking jokes on the way down here. Good try. Let go of the door and sit down."
Grant's shoulders slumped beneath a bright orange jumpsuit. He sighed before turning to Winston and Mullen. "What do you want?"
"That's not a nice way to greet the sheriff and homicide detective." Mullen kicked underneath the table. The empty chair jutted forward. "Go ahead and sit down, make yourself comfortable."
Winston's jaw clenched as he looked at the man. Grant Bowers had to be the guy that hit Simon's pizza man. He looked the same under fluorescent lights as he did under Denise's front porch light.
The bright red pizza shirt and baseball cap had been replaced with a worn prison jumpsuit. The back of the suit had the word inmate stamped in blackened block letters.
"I don't want to speak to you without a lawyer present." Grant sat down in the chair.
"Did you happen to catch any catfish on your fishing trip?" Detective Mullen asked.
Winston raised an eyebrow.
"Grant went fishing with Sullivan a few days ago. They drove to Ohio to catch catfish. We had a run-in at the grocery store," Mullen filled him in.
Grant grinned from his chair. "Thanks to your hot dog bait advice, we ended up catching three of them. It's a shame you didn't go along."
"I'm sure Greg and you had a blast. Let's get right into it, shall we?"
Winston cleared his throat, "so you tried to hit Denise Houghton with your car."
"First of all, I didn't try to hit her on purpose. I lost control of the truck. I'm not speaking about this without a lawyer. It's her word against mine. There weren't any witnesses. She's a liar."
"There's a video camera recording the road. It's filming twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week." Winston picked up a pen and started to take notes.
"That camera doesn't work. It's been broken for years," Grant scoffed.
Detective Mullen decided Grant Bowers was two-faced. In the grocery store, Grant had been kind and incredibly considerate. Now that they were questioning him, it's understandable why he was friends with Greg Sullivan.
"Well, I guess it's a good thing I replaced it. I hired someone to fix that camera the first week on the job."
Grant's eyes slightly widened. He could no longer make eye contact with Winston. He dropped his gaze to the floor. "She's still a liar and a murderer."
"You know about the Houghton family murders?" Detective Mullen took over the conversation.
"Everyone knows about Denise Houghton and her family. If only someone would do their job properly and arrest her." The handcuffs around Grant's wrists clinked together as he readjusted his hands.
"So you know about Susan Houghton?"
"Obviously."
"Did you have a personal relationship with Susan Houghton?" Detective Mullen asked. "You didn't happen to be high school sweethearts or anything?"
"I am a married man with a great wife. I have three healthy kids. I would never cheat on my wife."
"I didn't say anything about being in a romantic relationship with her." Winston narrowed his eyes. "Your wife seemed pretty upset earlier. I saw her at the fire station. She was crying and she told me you did something dumb." Sheriff Winston leaned closer toward Grant.
"She'll get over it. They'll set my bail and I'll pay it. I'll be out within a few hours." Grant slouched back in his seat.
"Where were you on August 8th?" Detective Mullen asked.
"That was almost three months ago! How the hell am I supposed to remember? Do you remember where you were three months ago?"
"I spent that week enjoying my time at Lake Michigan. It was a short vacation before I went back to my home state."
"I was taking care of my wife that week because she gave birth."
Something shifted in Grant's demeanor. He sat up a little taller. Both feet planted on the floor firmly beneath him. "How is Emily? I have three of my own kids. It's rough raising a three-month-old."
"She's great. We're both managing Adeline perfectly fine."
"Can I be honest with you guys?"
Sheriff Winston glanced over at Mullen. Mullen returned his look with a shrug. He opened his mouth to speak, but Winston beat him to it.
"You should always be honest with the law."
"Greg Sullivan and I have been watching Denise Houghton."
"How so?" Sheriff Winston folded his arms.
"We think she killed Susan and Jennifer. Sullivan could never prove it due to her alibi. After Sullivan was fired, we've been taking it upon ourselves to prove she is guilty."
"You don't think you should leave this to the professionals?" Mullen butted in.
"Sullivan was a professional until a few months ago. We've been keeping an eye on her. Haven't you read her stories?"
"As a matter of fact, I have," Winston announced.
"We weren't getting anywhere with it. She's a very routine person. This morning was where things became weird."
"Weird?" Mullen echoed.
Grant nodded. "Do you know what happens in her most recent story?"
"The main character is unstable. She wants to be a mother, but she can't have kids. She kidnaps a baby. What does this have to do with anything?"
"But how does she kidnap the baby?" Something gleamed in Grant's eyes.
Sheriff Winston swallowed, "she stops by a mom's house with muffins. They're laced with crushed-up sleeping pills. The mom falls asleep after eating one and the main character takes her baby."
Goosebumps crept up on Mullen's arms. Cold fear trickled down his spine. He hadn't read any of Denise's books. He never thought to look into her stories.
"I saw Denise stop at a house earlier with a basket of muffins in her hand. Of course, it could have been anyone's house, but isn't that a little strange?"
"What did the house look like?" Detective Mullen's voice shook.
Grant leaned back in his chair. "The house was more modern looking. It was white with a black roof. A black mailbox in the front yard. A bunch of rose bushes lined the front door. An older blue jeep sat in the driveway. There was a stick figure family on the back."
Mullen's heart sank.
"Who opened the door?" Sheriff Winston asked. "What did they look like?"
"It was a woman with brown hair. I don't know the specifics. I was too far away. I wasn't trying to be seen."
"Winston, we have to go." Detective Mullen sprung up out of his chair. "We have to go check on them. That's Emily. If something happens to Adeline…" He wasn't about to finish his sentence. It was too painful to say.
"Why did you hit Denise's car?" Winston pushed.
"It was an accident. I lost control of the truck. I didn't mean to hit her." Grant repeated the same story.
Winston stared at him for a few seconds. "I'll be in contact with you soon." Winston grabbed his things and stood up. "This better not be a lie."
"Why would it be a lie?" Grant cocked his head. "You told me it was best to be honest with the law. I'm doing my part as a concerned citizen of Brimington."
Winston shook his head and followed behind Mullen. This case had been the wildest goose chase of his career. Mullen yanked open the door and sped towards the car.
"You're leaving so soon? I figured it'd take a while." The correctional officer walked towards Winston.
"Yeah, something urgent came up. I should be back later. There's a little bit of an emergency going on right now."
"I hope you get it taken care of," the officer sympathized. "I'll see you when you get back."
Winston nodded and hurried towards Mullen. His hands were in fists. They clenched and unclenched every few seconds. Winston's hand found its way to Mullen's shoulder. He squeezed it, "it'll be okay."
"I hope you're right." Mullen was on the verge of tears. He was torn between anger and fear.
"Why don't you give Emily a call? I'll drive you to your place."
Mullen nodded and whipped out his cell phone.
Back inside the visitation room, Grant chuckled to himself.
"What's so funny?" The correctional officer came into the room to take him back to his cell.
"Nothing, just thinking about something my kid told me the other day."
"I didn't know you had a kid."
"I have three kids. There's a lot of things people don't know about me."
"I'm sure there is. Let's go. You still have more paperwork to fill out." The officer stayed behind him as they walked.
Grant kept his head down as he moved forward. He couldn't let the guard see his smirk. It was just like Sullivan said.
The plan was too easy.