Tanya Nelson opened the door, seeing the two detectives. She sighed. "Detectives," she said, "how can I help you?"
"Yes, is Raymond here?" Walter asked. Tanya nodded, opening the door a little wider as she jerked a thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the stairs.
"In the guest bedroom, last door to your right. I must warn you though, he's drunk at the moment. He's not really up for talking to anyone at the moment."
Seth nodded and thanked Tanya. He looked over at his partner who was already making his way up the stairs. He sighed and followed after him. The house seemed dull. Even though it wasn't the same house that Emily was murdered in, it still felt upsetting and lifeless. Walter gently knocked on the door. He could hear a low groan before Raymond's voice followed right after, telling whoever it was to just go away.
"Mister Hunter, we'd like to speak with you if thats ok."
Raymond groaned again.
"Lets just go it," Walter whispered as he twisted the door handle and pushing the door open. The two men looked inside to see Raymond curled up in a ball on the bed. Next to the bed was the nightstand that had three empty beer bottles on top of them.
"Go away," The lonely man muttered.
"We need to ask you a couple of questions." Seth pulled slid his hands into the pockets of his suit pants. Raymond sighed and shrugged one should as a sign for them to go ahead. "We interviewed Mike Fisher."
"Ok. You act like I know who that is."
Seth raised a brow. "He was harassing your wife. Ring a bell?"
Raymond immediately sat up, wiping away the drool on his lip and he stared at Seth, confused. "Harassing? Some bastard was harassing my wife and she never told me?"
"Yes. But he told us some things that we would like to follow up with," Seth cleared his throat. "Is it true that you hit your wife?"
Raymond stared up at the two as he suddenly became furious for the outlandish accusation. "What kind of bullshit is this? I would never dare to hit the woman I love!"
"We ask because she'd sometimes show up to work with bruises and such," Seth said, "like on her neck and wrists. Care to explain that?"
The room became silent and Raymond blushed a little. He looked down at his lap, sighing. "Rough sex. And no, I never raped her if thats what your next question is!" He rubbed the back of his head, frowning.
"Why should we believe you?" Walter asked suddenly. Raymond rolled his eyes as he then pulled up his t-shirt to reveal deep scratch marks on his chest. Walter felt like smirking.
"Make me believe that those weren't from an aggressive argument and that it was in fact from rough sex."
Raymond pulled down his t-shirt as he awkwardly stared at the man. "I don't know how to convince you. From the looks of it, it seems like you want me to be the killer of my wife." He sat on the edge of the bed, eyeing the shorter man. "Do whatever you need to do. Question me, take my DNA, have me take a lie detector test. But you'll look foolish when you find out that I had nothing to do with my wife's murder. And I never laid a hand on my wife with the intention of harming her. Now then," Raymond stood up and walked to the door, opening it further, "if that is all you had to ask, get the fuck out and don't come back until you have something useful towards helping solve her murder."
Seth looked at his partner and gave him an angry look as if to say that it was his fault. Walter shrugged and the two walked out of the room, followed by Raymond slamming the door shut.
"You just had to be cocky."
Walter shrugged.
-x-
Seth stared at the piece of paper with a list of names of guys that Walter managed to dig up. All of them had some sort of connection with Emily. Seth moved the tip of the pen across Mike Fishers name. He was at the bar during the evening of Emily LaBelle's murder.
The bartender looked at the two detectives, raising a brow and sighing. He picked up a glass, cleaning it with a piece of cloth he used for cleaning the glasses. "How can I help the NYPD?" He asked with a sarcastic tone. It was obvious the young man didn't like the police. He didn't like the fact that they had authority over everyone else and often abused that power.
"We just have a couple questions for you," Seth said as he pulled out a picture of Mike Fisher. "this guy."
"Yea. one of my regulars. What about him?"
"Was he here on Thursday, July thirtieth?"
The bartender nodded. "Yea. Like around one forty-five to two twenty. I remember cause he got in a fight with some guy. I swear this job pays so little for the amount of bullshit I gotta go through."
"What was the fight about?" Seth asked.
"This dude accidentally bumped into Mike and spilled his drink all over him. He apologized several times but Mike was too drunk to even think about his actions and just punched the guy. It was wild." He set the glass down on the shelf behind him before turning around to face the detectives again.
"Did you see anyone else acting off? Maybe they said something or acted in a way that seemed weird?" Walter asked.
The bartender shrugged. "Weird people come here all the time."
The next person on their list was a co-worker of hers. Jermey Brown. Seth looked over the bulletin wall that had pictures of him and his family all over it. Walter's side however was very plain. No pictures or anything of sorts.
"Jermey brown," Seth said. "Mind getting some information from him?"
Walter nodded. "Already on it." He began to type on his old Windows computer to search for the next person. Records, previous jobs, he had to get it all. The internet was fairly slow. It was '98 to begin with. A time when the people were barley getting used to technology.
Seth gently tapped the side of his monitor, hoping it would help to speed up the pace at which the computer was going at. He always wished that in the future, technology would get faster and better.
"I got something," Walter announced, "he was arrested in '92 for the murder of his then girlfriend, Lauren Tredway. However, the charges were dropped because of his lawyer who presented evidence that destroyed the entire case."
"What was it?"
Walter looked closely at the monitor. He furrowed his brow. "A bloody hammer that was found at the crime scene later on. It was determined to be the murder weapon. His lawyer presented it as... falsified evidence."
Seth stood up to walk over to Walters side, looking at the computer monitor. He read the remaining sentences in his head. "So they said that the hammer was from Jermey's tool box he kept in his basement and it was enough to arrest him for the murder. But then the lawyer decided to have the coroner take a closer look."
"Right. The way that the hammer hit Lauren was a major point brought up in court. They said that Lauren was nearly the same height as Jermey. But the blunt force trauma on her head suggest that the killer was much more taller than her. Overall, she was hit seven times. Some money was missing from her wallet which suggested a robbery. At least thats what they initially thought." Walter pointed to a sentence in the report and read it out loud. "The few framed pictures of Lauren Tredway and her boyfriend, Jermey Brown, were faced down in her home. When examined, Jeremy's face was scribbled out with a permeant black marker. The black marker was found at the scene and was tested which showed to have DNA on it that did not match Jeremy Brown. Instead, it matched to Detective Garry Brown–the brother of Jermey Brown–who was working on the case."
Seth stood up straight, crossing his arms. "So his brother killed his girlfriend? But why?"
"Well, apparently Jermey and his brother had a bit of a fallout. Their father died a couple months before Lauren's murder. Their father left behind a shit ton of money and planned on giving it to Jermey since he trusted him more. Of course, Garry was angry so he wanted his brother to 'get in trouble'." Walter said, making quotation marks with his fingers in the air. "So he went to his girlfriends house and killed her. But the murder weapon wasn't the hammer."
Confusion crossed Seth's face. "But you said earlier that the murder weapon was the hammer. It belonged to Jermey."
"Yes, but that was placed later on. The true murder weapon was soon revealed to be a two pound green dumbbell which was determined to belong to her since she owned a couple of dumbbells. They saw that one of her green dumbbells was missing. They soon found it in Garry's car, which was tested to have Lauren's blood on it. He planted the hammer at the crime scene."
Seth scoffed and shook his head. "So the man was working his own murder. He planted evidence and tired to frame his brother. Wow." He placed a hand flat on Walter's desk. "Thats interesting, but anything else that can show Jermey as a potential suspect?"
Walter scrolled down on Jermey's list of information. "Hm. No. Nothing else. Other than that, he has a fairly clean record. Not even a parking ticket."
A pair of heels clicked against the floor, coming towards the two men. Sergeant Wanda Powell made her way towards the two men with her arms crossed. "Detectives,"
Seth and Walter both turned their heads to look at Sergeant Powell.
"Yea?" Walter was the first to speak up.
"Raymond Hunter has just been admitted to Silver Oak Hospital."
Seth stood frozen. "Wait why?"
"He tried slitting his wrists." She sighed and moved her hands on her hips. "I just thought you should know. I overheard you two talking about Jermey Brown. So I thought I would give you guys an opportunity to go to Silver Oak Hospital. Maybe interview him."
Walter stared at Wanda's full face of makeup, tilting his head to the side. "You stood around us that whole time?"
Avoiding the question, she gave Seth a pat on the shoulder. "Its likely that Jermey Brown had nothing to do with Emily's murder, but we gotta rule out everyone. After all, he fits the description of the killer. Foot size and height. Not much but its something." She let her hand fall down to her side. "Now go. And bring me a cup of coffee, extra sugar." She walked away from the two, her heels clicking against the floor until she reached her office and closed the door behind her.
Seth moved his head to look at Walter. "So?"
"I'll drive." Walter muttered.
(A/N) Eh so the WiFi still kinda sucks. I'm using my personal hotspot from my phone but it sucks also. like one minute it'll be working fine then the next it decided to be a bitch and not work. SIGHHHH reasons why I hate the snow...