The sergeant storms back into the room, the door slamming against the wall behind her. With heavy footsteps hammering across the floor, she closes the distance between them briskly with an implied threat. She throws the vanilla folder on the table with such force that it echoes across the room. She then plops down in her seat with a thud. They're all intimidation tactics learned long ago and perfected through the years.
Opening the file, she raises her gaze, pinning Jake with a chilling stare, "So tell me, Jake, why did you withdraw money from Millie's account?"
"She asked me too." His voice quivers as he nervously shifts in his seat. "Claims she needed it to pay the plumber the following day." He nervously fidgets in his chair.
"Why didn't she just pay him with her card?"
He shrugs. "The plumber may not have one of those credit card machines. I don't know." Seeing her skepticism, he quickly adds. "I didn't think it was my place to ask."
A small crease forms in her brow as she contemplates his theory. "Did she say who it was?"
"No." He anxiously adjusts his position again. "I figured she could do what she wants with her money."
The sergeant closes the file with a snap. "Just so you're aware, the blood found in your trunk was a combination of canine and human remains."
Scooting back her chair, Rachel stands.
The information takes Jake aback. Jake then recalls how the mannequin managed to slip out of the oversized trash bag. His pale face drains of all color, making him look like someone on death's door. His accelerating heartbeat speeds up to a frantic pace, thudding violently against his chest wall like it's trying to escape. "I—I can explain," he stammers, not confident that he could.
"I'm listening," Rachel says in a flat tone. With her patients getting thin, she impatiently taps her foot against the cold concrete floor, certain he was going to tell another lie.
Jake swallows the bile collecting in his throat before he begins. "See, Millie came home to find this dummy covered in blood in her bed. At first, she thought it was a real person but then realized it was a mannequin. When she went to inspect it, she realized that the blood covering the dummy wasn't fake.
Rachel raises her brows. "How did she know that?"
"She's a nurse sergeant; she's around human blood all the time with injuries, blood draws, and that."
Rachel folds her arms across her chest. "So how did the blood get in your trunk?"
In a soft, childlike voice Jake says, "She asked me to help her get rid of it."
The sergeant leans in closer to where they are face-to-face; squaring her jaw, she says, "That's tampering with evidence, which is a felony. You know that, right?"
Jake turns away from her unnerving gaze, a look of fear on his face, tears swelling in his eyes. He runs down his cheek when he nods. "I know I shouldn't have helped her, but I didn't know what else to do."
"Call the police," Rachel suggests with a lift of her brow.
"So, you can frame her for that too?"
Patients becoming mute, Rachel exhales heavily, "We're not trying to fool anyone; we're only trying to get to the truth."
"By only focusing on Millie?"
"We go where the evidence leads, and right now it seems to point to you and her."
Slamming his hands on the table, through clenched teeth, he says, "Well, your so-called evidence is a bunch of horse shit."
His dad's ghostly warning echoes in his head. "Easy there, son." He'd say when Jake's temper flares.
Taking a deep breath, he begins again. "What I mean to say is that it's all circumstantial.
Rachel's eyebrows raise. "Really now?" Sliding the folder across the table, she pulls out a picture, slides the glossy photo in front of him, and asks, "So why did we find the murder weapon in Millie's desk drawer?"
"It could've been planted like she claims."
Rachel removes a grainy close-up of Millie and the unidentified man from the stack and slams it down in front of him. "If she's innocent like you claim, then why was she caught on camera shooting an EMT?"
Jake glances down at the picture, looks up, and says, "That can't be Millie; it just can't be. She was at…"
"She was where, Jake?" Rachel's voice is now razor sharp.
"At her home with me last Saturday night." Jake blurts out.
"How can you conclude that when I didn't give you the time when the crime occurred?"
"I, ah, saw it in your notes."
Rachel's eyes flicker down and find pictures of Millie covering her writings. Could he have seen it when I was in here before? She tries to replay the interrogation in her mind but doesn't recall if the folder was open or closed. The video will tell me, she thinks.
"Facial rec confirmed it was her." She points to the man in the picture. "And I believe this is you."
The team ruled him out as a suspect because of his slim build, but adding a few layers of clothes could bulk a man up. Make him seem larger than he is.
With a hardened expression on her face, she continues, "So the way I see it, you two conspired this together."
Jake's voice cracks when he says, "But it wasn't either of us, sergeant, I swear."
Pulling the handcuffs from her belt, she motions him to stand. "You are under arrest for conspiring to commit murder and evidence tampering."
Panic floods his face when he exclaims, "But I didn't do anything."