He shrugs. “Be my guest.”
I cross into the cubicle and sit in a small chair in the corner. Brillig swivels his chair around to face me. “So, this is about a ticket I issued?”
“Yes, sir.”
Brillig sighs. “Look, son, I’m afraid my hands are tied. Once a ticket is issued, you can contest?—”
I hold up a hand. “I’m not trying to contest it, Officer. The ticket isn’t mine.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Then why are you back here?”
I hold up the copy of the ticket included in the past due notice. “You stopped a friend of mine back in February. It would have been in the early hours of a Monday morning. Does that ring a bell?”
“I had a lot of night shifts last month. You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“You issued the ticket to Maddox Hathaway.”
Brillig widens his eyes. “Oh, yeah. The mayor’s son. I remember that evening. He was acting suspicious as all hell.”
“He was?”
“Yeah. He was with his wife.”
I cock my head. “His wife? Maddox isn’t married.”
“Right.” He scratches his chin. “He kept referring to her as his wife, or his fiancée, or his girlfriend. Couldn’t get the story straight.”
“The woman he was with… Was she a blonde? Fair skin, light-blue eyes?”
Brillig closes his eyes. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”
“And you caught them speeding in the dead of night?”
“Yeah. Very odd. Apparently the wife—or whatever the hell she was—is pregnant, and?—”
I drop my jaw. “She’s pregnant?”
He shrugs. “That’s what they told me. Said she’d been experiencing some morning sickness and that late-night drives helped to settle her stomach.”
This can’t make sense. Maddox and Alissa would have been together for a week. Even if they’d fucked like bunnies the whole time—which, knowing Maddox, I’m pretty sure was the case—she wouldn’t know she was pregnant by that point.
Why would they lie to a cop about Alissa being pregnant?
They must have had some other reason for being out that late.
“Was there anything else that evening that tipped you off that something might have been up?” I ask.
“Let me think back. It was over a month ago.” He closes his eyes and rubs at the sides of his head. “Yes. They had an odd little box in the backseat.”
“A box?”
“Yeah. The kind you’d put a hat in.”
That’s not too strange. Maddox always wears a hat when he’s out and about.
“Was it a men’s hatbox?”
“I don’t think so. It had bright colors and a big ribbon. Definitely meant for a lady.”
