Spare Change (Wyattsville #1)(89)

Sergeant Gomez gave her a deadpan look and didn’t answer.

The detective was wearing an expression that concerned Olivia; his mouth was stretched straight across and eyes narrowed. She began to worry that he might have seen some incriminating bit of evidence she’d missed; or maybe she’d said something that gave him doubt as to the truth of her story. “He was nine times my size,” she blurted out nervously, “if I hadn’t shot him, he would have killed me—me and my grandson both! If it were you, would you stand there and let an intruder murder your family?”

“So you thought he was an intruder?” Gomez asked.

“Absolutely; just by the way he charged at me, I knew he was here to do us harm. Look at this,” Olivia slid back the shoulder of her blouse to show the mark of Scooter’s hand, which was already turning purple. “I had to protect Ethan Allen. He’s already lost his parents; I’m all he’s got.”

Gomez glanced over at the huge body, then back to Olivia. “How could you get to the shotgun and take aim with him standing so close?”

This was the question she’d been dreading, the make or break believing of her story. Olivia knew she had to watch every word. A line of perspiration was already rising up along her forehead, but her hands were colder than a chunk of ice. “It happened so quickly,” she said. “I can’t swear to the exact order of things; all I remember is that I reached for the shotgun the minute I saw him, then he grabbed me by the shoulder…”

“Where was the gun?”

“On the hallway table.”

“Isn’t it a bit unusual to have a shotgun on the hallway table?”

“I wanted it there for our protection. Ethan Allen had been attacked once by this man’s son and I was afraid he’d come back here and—”

“Okay, okay. Then what happened?”

“I tried to get loose; but my shoe got caught in the carpet and I tripped. As I was falling down, I squeezed the trigger as hard as possible and the gun went off.”

“Let’s see if I got this right,” Gomez said, a considerable amount of doubt mingled in with the words. “While you were falling, you were able to fire both barrels?”

“Yes,” she answered. “You see, I didn’t fall straight back, I sort of stumbled, then fell; so the first time I pulled the trigger I was still in the process of stumbling.”

“Well now,” Gomez said shaking his head as if he’d heard something beyond believing, “that’s truly amazing. You were off-balance and unfamiliar with the gun, yet you were able to pump two shotgun shells into your assailant.”

“God must’ve been on my side,” Olivia replied, figuring a mention of the Almighty would make her seem a bit less culpable.

“Where was the boy when all of this was happening?”

“In bed; sound asleep.”

“The commotion didn’t wake him?”

“The sound of the shots did. When he came to see what was going on, he told me this man was Scooter Cobb.”

“Hmm,” Gomez fingered his chin pensively, “And, you say you’ve never before handled a shotgun…no target practice? No other shooting experience?”

“Not really,” Olivia sighed, “but the Good Lord—”

“I know, was on your side,” Gomez reiterated. “Well, what about the boy? Does he know how to use a gun? Has he maybe done some hunting?”

“He’s eleven! An eleven year old boy has no business with a gun!”

“Maybe not in town, but on a farm—”

“The boy had nothing to do with this. It was me. I shot Scooter Cobb. Shot him because he was breaking into my house; that’s all there is to it.”

“Would you be willing to take a lie detector test?”

“I most certainly will not,” she answered. “You have no right—”

“Whoa,” Gomez said, “it was just a question. With a shooting like this, it’s routine. It just helps us to determine the truth, right off.”

“I’ve already told you the truth!”

“The lie detector is just to confirm—”

“No!”

After he’d finished with Olivia, Sergeant Gomez questioned Ethan, but the boy did just as he’d been instructed; he swore he was sound asleep and didn’t hear a thing. “No doorbell ringing? No shouting? Arguing maybe, you hear any of that?” Gomez asked, but Ethan shook his head repeatedly. The few things Ethan did make mention of matched what Olivia said, word for word.

The rookie returned long about the time Gomez gave up on questioning Olivia and Ethan Allen. “A few of the neighbors claim they heard gunshots,” he said, “but nobody saw anything. Fred McGinty, the man who lives directly beneath this apartment, he’s the one who called the police. He claims he heard a commotion coming from this apartment, then gunshots, that’s when he called it in.”

“So nobody knows nothing,” Gomez said, shaking his head in disgust.

The crime scene investigation detectives had all but finished by the time Jack Mahoney arrived. “What have we got?” he asked Gomez.

The detective shrugged, “A questionable self-defense shooting.”

“Questionable?”