CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
Laura groaned in frustration, leaning her head against the two-way glass that looked into Frank Geharty’s interview room.
“I knew he wasn’t going to make it easy for us,” she grumbled, feeling the cooling influence of the glass on her forehead, soothing some of the irritation away. “I just had that vibe from him right from the beginning.”
Nate chuckled beside her. “Oh, you did, did you?”
“Don’t mock me,” Laura scowled.
Nate sighed, leaning against the glass as well. Despite his attempt at humor, he was clearly as frustrated and weary as she was. That was the effect silent interviews had: you wore yourself out shouting at a brick wall, expecting it to talk back.
But so far, Frank Geharty hadn’t said a single word since the moment they brought him in. Not to confirm his own name at booking. Not to tell them whether he wanted a hot or cold drink. Not to speak up for the interview tape. Not a single word, and every question they asked had gone unanswered.
“He didn’t even flinch when we asked him about the murders,” Laura said. “I can’t work out if it’s because he knows he committed them, or because he’s so shut down he didn’t even hear the question.”
“I know.” Nate shook his head. “Whatever’s going on, there’s something seriously wrong with him. He needs help. I just don’t know whether that equates to him being the killer or not.”
Laura nodded. He was right. As much as she wanted to have the case solved and done with, they couldn’t just make any assumptions. Yes, everything seemed to fit. Yes, his refusal to talk was making the tailor look more and more suspicious. But what did that really mean? All they knew for sure was that he had mental health issues, and if they put away the wrong man, it wasn’t only his life that would be affected.
The real killer would still be out there.
Not only that, but a court would need more evidence. A jury would probably accept their witness testimony of the scene in the basement, look at the evidence photographs taken there, and convict him easily. A judge, however, might not think the case even had enough evidence to get to trial in the first place. And if he was the killer, they needed to make this arrest stick.
“What do we do?” Laura asked Nate, turning to him with her hands on her hips, ready to think. She wasn’t asking him out of desperation. No – her tone was firm, decisive. She was looking for his thoughts to help compose a plan, which would get them moving on the track towards the evidence they needed.
“He has all those mannequins in his basement,” Nate said, slowly. “Of course, with them all being slightly different types, there’s no way to be sure that they aren’t related to the ones left at the crime scenes.”
“The ones in the basement had faces, but the ones at the crime scenes did not,” Laura pointed out, kind of playing devil’s advocate against her own conviction that he was guilty.
“Right, but that could mean that the ones in the basement were special somehow, and the ones he left behind weren’t,” Nate said. “Or maybe he just got rid of the less recognizable ones from his collection first. The ones in the basement were all dressed up, and when we burst in, it sounded like he was giving them all voices. If they’re real characters to him, he wouldn’t want to just abandon them in an alley. Maybe he cares about these ones too much to leave them somewhere.”
Laura nodded, musing over that idea. “So, it could be very possible that it’s still him we’re looking for. How do we verify that? The mannequins at the crime scenes had no markings, so we can’t trace the manufacturer.”
“We go backwards,” Nate said. “He bought them, so there must be a record of that somewhere. Let’s look over his bank records, see what they say.”
Laura nodded. “Good. If we find a supplier, we can call them and ask for his customer record, see how many mannequins he’s registered as buying. We’ll have to make sure that they carry both the types in the basement and the type found at the crime scenes, otherwise there may be more than one supplier.”
“That’s a plan,” Nate said. “Let’s head back to our office and leave him stewing for a bit. I’ll check on the computer whether the bank records have come through yet, and if they haven’t, we can ask them to hurry it up.”
Laura opened the door and walked out into the corridor, feeling better already. She always did when there was a plan in place. It felt less like they were moving aimlessly. Like they were taking control of the situation. That was a good feeling to have.
The walk up the stairs and down the hall was a relatively short one, and once there, Laura was the first to reach the computer and wake up the screen. She scrolled through the recent emails they’d had regarding the case, clicking eagerly on a digital PDF sent by the bank to start going through it.
“Here we are,” she said. “We might have to do a bit of detective work on the names of the businesses.”
“I can’t think of anyone who would be qualified to do that,” Nate said with a sly smile.
Laura resisted the urge to hit him playfully and rolled her eyes instead. “Let’s start searching.”
“No need,” Nate said, pointing at the screen. “Look. There’s your starter.”
Laura’s eyes widened as she read the bank records. Right there, next to a recent purchase – no, not so recent, she realized; it was just that Frank Geharty apparently made very few payments, and the contents of the last three months fit entirely on one screen – was the dead giveaway. The name of the business: MANNEQUINS SUPL. LTD.
“Mannequins…. Supply Limited?” Laura guessed, trying to work out the abbreviation that had been used to make the name fit easily on the statement.
“Looks like it,” Nate replied. He was already typing something into his phone – presumably the name. “Yep, here we are. It’s a local business. Must have been one of the suppliers that Detective Thorson mentioned.”
Laura grabbed the paperwork Thorson had left from the table and scanned it. “Yes, here we are. No reports of recent theft.”