Jamie swallowed down her disgust and finally sat on the stained brown sofa, choosing the end that wasn’t covered with wet newspapers and an empty carton of beer bottles.
“Do you mind if I record this?” she asked pleasantly, already pulling out the mini recorder from her purse.
Suspicion clouded his eyes. “Why?”
“Just so I make sure to get everything right when I type up your statement.”
“Fine,” he grumbled.
Jamie turned on the recorder and placed it on the stained coffee table. “All right, Mr. Gideon, why don’t we start with what you did the morning of July 15.”
As the man recited everything he’d done, throwing the phrase “Had a cold one” after each task he outlined, Jamie finally had to cut him off. “Why don’t you just give me a ballpark amount of the drinks you had?”
“Ten, fifteen.” He shrugged. “I have a high tolerance for the stuff.”
Congratulations, she almost bit out.
“Okay, so after you finished the construction job—”
“Carpentry,” he interrupted impatiently. “I was helping a buddy of mine sand some chairs.”
She fought a wave of impatience of her own. “After you finished that, you came straight home?”
“Sure did.”
“And you were here for the rest of the evening. Didn’t leave the house until the next morning?”
“Didn’t go nowhere,” he muttered.
“So you didn’t run into Cole Donovan about a half a mile from here at around two in the morning?”
“I already said I didn’t go nowhere!”
He was lying. One look at his defensive brown eyes and the now even redder cheeks, and Jamie knew that Gideon was hiding something. She wondered why Finn hadn’t seen it when he’d interviewed the man.
“Why would Mr. Donovan say he saw you?” Jamie asked in a matter-of-fact tone.
Gideon rolled his eyes. “Because he’s a killer, and he needs an alibi.”
“You believe he killed his ex-wife then?”
“Of course he did.”
“Do you have any proof of that, or is it just your own personal belief?”
His brown eyes flashed. “No, I don’t got no proof. But everyone knows he did it. He attacked her outside Sully’s, then followed her home to finish the job.”
Jamie put on an unaffected mask, all the while marveling over how facts could get so distorted in the small-town grapevine. Eyewitnesses had grudgingly admitted to seeing Teresa attack Cole. Now it was the other way around, apparently.
The distrust coursing through her blood made it difficult to keep a professional distance. Gideon was lying—either about his claim that he hadn’t seen Cole that night, or about something else entirely. Either way, the man wasn’t telling her the whole truth.
Don’t push him.
She heeded the advice, relying on the instincts she’d learned to trust after ten years in law enforcement. Gideon wasn’t budging on his story, not today, anyway, and forcing the subject right now would only cause him to clam up. So despite the reluctance seizing her body, she pasted a smile on her face and leaned forward to shut off the tape recorder.
“Okay, then. Thanks for your time, Mr. Gideon.” Rising from the sofa, she extended a hand, trying not to cringe when Gideon’s beefy hand gripped hers, his dirty fingernails digging into her palm.
“So you’re sending the bastard to jail, right?” Gideon muttered as he walked her to the front door.
“We’re still investigating,” she corrected. “And I may want to speak with you again, if that’s all right with you.”
His shoulders stiffened. “Why?”
“Just in case I need some more details, you know, about Mr. Donovan’s reputation around town, or to answer any other questions that arise.”
“I’d be happy to help,” Gideon said.
A satisfied gleam entered his eyes, and she knew she’d played her cards right. She had to make him think she needed his help to railroad Cole, which Gideon seemed intent on doing. But the defensive flicker of mistruth she’d glimpsed on his face during the interview refused to leave her mind. He’d lied to her about something.
And she was determined to find out what he was hiding.
Chapter 4
As Jamie drove away from Gideon’s property, she switched on the Bluetooth nestled in her ear and instructed it to call Finn. He came on the line a second later, with an eager “Well?”
She steered the car onto the road that led back to town and said, “He didn’t budge.”
Finn sounded oddly triumphant. “I told you he wouldn’t change his story. I guess Donovan made it all up then.”
Her lips tightened. “I said Gideon didn’t budge, not that he was telling the truth.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means he’s lying,” she said with a sigh. “I think he saw Cole that night, and he’s lying about it because he believes this will give him some misguided revenge. He really hates Cole.”