“Hurry, Gage.” She sniffles. “I’ve always hated being locked up.”
That’s a strange way of putting it, but I get what she means. “I’ll be back.”
“Okay.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Gage
“We’ve got him at the scene at the time of the murder. We’ve got a motive—Kara’s blackmail scheme,” Captain Billings notes.
“He must be the dude who had ‘bank,’ according to Dylan Forrester.”
“Agree,” I say as I write down the captain’s summary. “When we went back in to speak to him, to tell him Daisy denied his claim that she’d asked him to visit, he then claimed to have seen someone else in the hallway outside of Kara’s apartment as he was leaving.”
“Right,” Finch grumbles. “We’ve identified every person who came and went from the front and back entrances of Becker’s building. Besides residents, there’s been no others who left around that time.”
I shrug. “It could have been a resident. You know, walking by her door.”
“He said the guy wasknockingon her door.”
The captain stands and paces in front of the small conference room. “Let’s show the professor a picture lineup. Include all of the players and see if he picks someone we’ve already vetted.”
Finch gets the task of creating the photo lineup. He’s including Dylan Forrester, Luke Green, Bryant Falco, and seven others, some of whom came from Kara Becker’s social media accounts. Once it’s prepared, Finch is given the pleasure of placing the lineup in front of Dr. Buchanan while we watch from the booth.
“Please look at all ten photos and point to the person you believe you saw in the hallway outside of Kara Becker’s apartment.”
We watch as Dorian scoots his chair closer to the table. He leans down over the pictures. His head moves from my right to left and back again.
“Doubt he points to anyone,” mumbles the captain.
I’m not so sure. He’s gone back to the same part of the page several times. When he raises his hand, first finger extended, I hold my breath. Almost in slow motion, Buchanan moves his finger down, pressing on one image. “Thatone.”
“That one?” Finch asks, looking perplexed.
“Yeah. He was outside her door. Knocking.”
Finch says aloud, “Let the recording show that Dr. Dorian Buchanan picked number seven from the photo lineup.”
I look down at the photocopy and blink. Buchanan just fingered, Bryant Falco.What the ever-loving hell?
Finch steps back into the booth looking perplexed. “I questioned his roommates; they all corroborated his story. He was back home that night.”
“He could still have made the drive back, the little bastard,” the captain growls. “It’s forty minutes tops from his parents’ home to Kara’s.”
“Buchanan could be lying.” Finch makes a good point.
Captain Billings stands up, handing Finch his copy of the lineup. “I’m starting to thinkeveryone’s lying.”
He’s not the only one.
“Go on in there, Golden. Follow up with his claim that he was there to visit Daisy.”
“Yeah.” I nod. “Okay.”
* * *
Finch staysin the booth just as Dan returns from Buchanan’s house after sending the pink envelope off to be fingerprinted. Meanwhile, I step into the interrogation room to speak with Dorian. “I talked to Daisy.”
