Cassie’s stomach churned with nausea from all that she was hearing. Not only was Eddie claiming Lori and Russ had been having an affair, but he was blamingherfor it?
“What was your plan, Eddie?” Detective Brandt asked. “I mean, I could understand you wanting to get rid of Russ. But Cassie?” She shook her pretty head. “That’s where I’m lost. You kill her, what’s to stop Russ from going all-in with your wife? And also, Russ is dead, so he’s no longer in the running for your wife’s attention. So why go after Cassie, now? Today? And why the rope?”
“Like I said. She ruined everything.”
“Come on, Eddie. If you want me to tell the D.A. you were fully cooperative, you’re gonna have to give me a little more than that.”
“I didn’t mean to kill Russ.” Eddie admitted. “It wasn’t supposed to be him. It should have been her.”
It should have been you.
“Interesting choice of words. Pretty close, in fact, to words that were painted on Cassie’s house while she was at her husband’s funeral yesterday.” Another photo revealed. “But you attended that funeral, right? So how did you manage to vandalize Cassie’s house and be at a funeral at the same time?”
“I was late.”
“I’m sorry?”
“To the funeral.” Eddie was beginning to sounded agitated. “I was late because I was at Cassie’s house doingthat.” He pointed to the picture Cassie couldn’t see.
Cassie remembered seeing Eddie slip in through the church’s side door after the services had started, but she’d just assumed he’d gotten hung up with work or trying to find a parking spot or something.
“Jesus. I never knew him at all,” she whispered.
Archer gave her a little squeeze. “At least we finally have the truth about what really happened.”
A small comfort given the fact that her best friend had betrayed her in the worst of ways, and her other friend had literally tried to freakingmurderher.
“So even though Russ was dead, you still felt angry toward Cassie,” Brandt commented. “But angry enough to kill her? Or was this more about getting your two business partners out of the way so you could have the law firm all to yourself?”
“What? No.” Eddie shook his head with a frown. “I wanted Cassie dead, but when Russ drank the wine instead, and she was blamed for his death, our clients started dropping like flies.”
“I see. So you’re already pissed enough to kill her over the affair, and then when that plan went sideways, you decided to get rid of her because the news of her arrest was ruining your business. That sound about right?”
He started to nod but then corrected the response with a verbal, “Yes. That’s right.”
“So why the rope this time? Why not go with the tried and true cherry pits?”
“I was going to make it look like a suicide,” Eddie revealed. “I was going to strangle her and then make it look like she’d hung herself.”
“And the cherry pits in your trunk? What were your plans for those?”
“I was going to plant them in her home. Someplace the cops hadn’t looked during their previous search. But I…” Embarrassment filled the man’s cheeks. “I forgot to grab them when I got out of the car.”
“What a dumbass.” Knox snorted from Archer’s other side.
“So Russ is out of the way; you’re thinking you’ll play off Cassie’s murder as a suicide…what about Archer Nash?”
“Who?”
“The man you hit over the head with the chunk of concrete we found near the sidewalk.”
“Oh. He, uh…he doesn’t fit in anywhere. He was just…”
“In your way?”
Eddie nodded. “I overheard Lori on the phone with Cassie an hour earlier. I heard her say Cassie was at the firm. I knew the place would be closed, so I made an excuse to go out, and I changed my clothes and waited. When I saw the kid pull up with the pizza, I paid him extra to leave the food with me.”
“Why would he do that?”