The troubling thought that he might have wanted to go into the water to erase the evidence had crossed her mind, but that was something they would have to deal with. There had been no question of simply letting him get away. If he’d managed to escape, he would have destroyed any evidence he could get his hands on anyway.
“You haven’t spoken to him yet?” Nate asked.
“Of course not,” Laura said. “I was waiting for you. What do you take me for?”
Nate grinned. “I take you for a great partner,” he said, holding out a fist for her to bump.
Laura chuckled and did it, then beckoned him. “We’d better go in and get started. No point in wasting time.”
“Is that what I’ve been doing?” Nate complained, tugging at his new white shirt as if to indicate that he’d been doing something very important.
Laura laughed. “No, so let’s not start now.”
She led the way into the interview room, glad Nate was in good spirits. She wasn’t sure she was as happy as he was—sometimes, she felt like there was always a cloud of doubt hanging over everything. Maybe it was the trouble she was having in her home life and with her visions, or maybe it was just experience telling her not to count her chickens before they hatched. Whatever it was, she knew now not to get too excited about arresting a suspect.
Because even if he’d done it, there was still a chance that he would manage to weasel his way out of it, somehow, and give them more work to do.
“Alright,” Laura said, starting as soon as she opened the door. Wendell reacted immediately, unfolding his arms from over his chest and hanging onto the sides of the table as if bracing himself. That was interesting. Laura wondered whether he was taking a strong position, or whether he was thinking he could get up and go soon. “Matthew Wendell. You’re the owner and operator of Captain Matt’s Pirate Tours, correct?”
“That’s right,” he said, his hands relaxing a little. So, he’d been thinking he would be able to leave. That was good to know. “I don’t know what’s happening. You said I was arrested for murder.”
“Correct,” Laura said, as she and Nate took their seats opposite him. “What part of that is confusing to you?”
“The part where I didn’t kill anybody,” Wendell growled.
Laura took the opportunity to get a good look at him, studying him. Staring at people made them feel uncomfortable, and she wasn’t against trying that to get him to talk. Besides, he looked different now that he was out of his pirate gear.
He was perhaps in his late thirties or his forties, a little younger than Elias Makks had been. There was no wedding ring on his finger, which fit with the story his record had told: an unattached man who had come here to start his life again after getting out of prison. There was a tattoo half-hidden at his collar, faded and old. His hair, having been washed out of its previous style under the water, had dried half-curly, fanning out around his face.
He didn’t look like a hardened criminal. More like a man who spent his life on the sea. Then again, Laura had read his file.
“Let’s talk about what you have done, shall we?” she asked, raising a file and opening it. “Let’s see. We have a conviction for violent assault. Several cautions for small quantities of drugs that you alleged were for personal use, and one larger quantity which appears to have been thrown out of court on a technicality. And a few arrests for assault before the big one too.”
“Those are all in the past,” Wendell said. One of his hands scratched the other, as if talking about it made him itchy. “That’s not who I am today.”
“Changed, have you?” Nate asked, leaning back in his chair. Laura knew he was setting him up, and she enjoyed the show.
“Yes,” Wendell insisted. “When I was in prison, I got clean. I decided to turn my life around. As soon as I got out, I left and came out here, far away from the people I used to hang around, so I could get out of that lifestyle.”
“You got clean in prison?” Nate lifted a brow. “Isn’t that normally the opposite of how it works?”
“They had a good education program in the place I did time,” Wendell insisted. “I got some practical qualifications, learned how to do stuff I couldn’t do before. I taught myself all about boats so I could come out here. I wanted to turn my life around, so I did.”
“You changed and turned your life around,” Nate repeated, as if considering the concepts in his head. “Well, I guess I would agree it’s a big change. Going from minor assault and drug use to murder is a huge step.”
Wendell’s eyes almost bugged out of his head. “I haven’t murdered anyone!”
“Okay,” Nate said, leaning back in his chair again casually, crossing one leg over the other knee. “So why did you run?”
Wendell opened his mouth to answer, then closed it. He was evidently wrestling with something internally. After a moment, before either Laura or Nate could press him again, he finally spoke. “Because I know I have a warrant out for my arrest.”
Laura cocked her head to one side. “For what?”
Wendell scrubbed his hand over his face. “For theft,” he admitted. “Back in New York. I thought, with you two being Feds…”
“You assumed that we were here for a theft charge and not a murder?” Laura asked. She was mentally kicking herself for not doing a more localized search of his name with different police departments in the states he had lived. “Just how big is this charge, then?”
“It’s not that big,” Wendell shrugged. He looked ashamed and kind of resigned. Now that he had admitted it, he must have known they would be calling the right authorities to get him sent back over there. “I just…I didn’t have anything when I got out of prison. I thought, just one more thing to get me started. But I was rusty, and they got me on camera. That was when I ran.”