“Don’t start that video without me.” Lance placed the order and requested delivery.

Morgan wrote on her legal pad. “The sheriff began questioning her at 1:53 p.m. The forensics team had taken her fingerprints and swabbed her cheek for DNA at the scene. They also sampled the dried blood on her body from multiple locations and scraped under her nails. I’m surprised they didn’t request her dress as evidence.”

Lance rounded Morgan’s desk and perched on her credenza to watch the computer screen over her shoulder. The video was frozen on the first frame. Haley huddled in the metal chair in the sheriff’s station interview room. The sheriff and a young deputy sat on the other side of the table. Haley was no longer handcuffed, and she clutched a blanket around her shoulders. Her face was smeared with makeup.

“The dress is tight and skimpy,” Lance said. “She looks uncomfortable in it. I suspect the sheriff wanted her to remain that way. Besides, the dress wasn’t going anywhere. It’s not torn or damaged. She had no way to dispose of it. She’s already complied with their requests for physical evidence, and she wasn’t claiming to have been raped. Plus, he’d have to find something for her to wear or let her use the phone to make a call. If he offered her the phone, she might have called an attorney. Once suspects lawyer up, they stop talking.”

“She’s clearly not trying to hide anything,” Morgan noted.

“No. She doesn’t look like she’s formulating any grand plan to exonerate herself, but she isn’t answering questions either.”

“She looks traumatized.” Morgan drew more overlapping circles on the yellow notepad.

“But from what?” Lance reached forward and clicked the “Play” button to start the video.

On the screen, Sheriff Colgate identified himself, Deputy York, and Haley. He noted her address for the official record. Then Colgate read Haley her Miranda rights, slid a paper and a pen across the desk, and asked her to sign to acknowledge that she understood her rights. She ignored his request. Colgate didn’t press the issue. Instead, he spoke to the camera in the corner of the ceiling. “Let the record show that Ms. Powell has been verbally apprised of her rights.”

Haley blinked, her gaze resting on the sheriff for a few seconds, then drifting away.

Colgate’s shoulders were planted against the back of the chair. He was giving her space, feeling her out at this early stage of the interview. “Ms. Powell, how did you come to be at the residence of Noah Carter this morning?”

Haley’s breath hitched, and one shoulder lifted and dropped, the movement almost imperceptible.

“You were at the nightclub Beats last night.” The sheriff shifted forward slightly, resting his forearms on the edge of the table. “What time did you leave the club?”

“I don’t know,” Haley mumbled and stared down at her fists, which were clenching the blanket edges together in front of her belly.

“You were covered in blood this morning.” The sheriff’s tone was firm but gentle, as if he were talking to a teenager who’d wrecked her dad’s car. “How did that happen?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you go home with Noah last night?”

“I don’t know.” Haley’s voice rose both in volume and pitch, then dropped to a whisper. “I want to call my mother.”

The sheriff stood, walked around the table, and perched on the corner next to her. He was getting in her personal space now, applying pressure through body language. “Did you kill Noah Carter?”

“I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know.” Haley’s words ran into one sentence. She stifled a sob. A tear rolled down her cheek. She folded her arms on the table, laid her head down, and wept. The sound of her sobbing ripped at Lance’s heart.

On the video, compassion flickered briefly over the sheriff’s face.

For the next fifteen minutes, the sheriff asked her multiple times and in multiple ways if she had killed Noah Carter. But Haley had shut down. She wouldn’t even lift her head. A knock sounded on the door. A deputy stuck his head in and waved frantically for the sheriff.

“The first interview ended at 2:12 p.m. Saturday,” Morgan said.

“That’s right about the time Shannon Yates’s car was found.”

Morgan sat back in her chair, twirling her pen in her fingertips. “Haley sat in the holding cell until Monday morning, when the sheriff realized he was running out of time and needed to either charge her or let her go.”

“But they weren’t entirely ignoring the case. In the meantime, they matched her fingerprints with those found on the weapon and expedited a DNA test of the blood that was all over Haley, confirming that it was Noah’s.” Lance thought the sheriff had handled the situation well, except for not taking Haley to the ER. “Haley never specifically told the sheriff that she didn’t remember the night before.”

“She wasn’t thinking straight.” Morgan tipped her head back and closed her eyes. “She was clearly confused, or ‘out of it,’ as the responding officer noted.”

“The prosecutor will spin it that she was merely avoiding questions and took that time to come up with a story.”

“Or that I suggested it when I met with her on Monday morning.” Morgan sighed. “That’s exactly how I would have spun it when I was an ADA.” She leaned forward and wrote on her legal pad. “I’ll prepare a motion to get her initial statements to the sheriff’s department disqualified due to her confused mental state brought about by her untreated Addison’s disease. I’ll need to get Haley’s doctor to testify that her medical condition made her disoriented and confused.”

The doorbell chimed.

“That’ll be the pizza.” Lance went to the front door, handed the delivery kid some cash, and brought the pizza back to Morgan’s office. He opened it on her desk. She ripped her attention from her notes long enough to inhale two slices. Lance ate four, then stowed the rest of the pizza in the refrigerator in the kitchen.

He returned to Morgan’s office. They watched the second video. Colgate read Haley’s Miranda rights a second time. Then he confronted her with the results of the DNA test and the fingerprint analysis.

Haley’s eyes were sunken, her posture exhausted, and her skin paler. She replied to every question with a small voice. “I want to call my mother.”

“I’ll arrange it.” Colgate gave up, and the video ended.

Morgan stood, crossed the room, and brewed a cup of coffee. When she turned around, a deep-in-thought line divided her eyebrows. “We need to start interviewing people.”

“It’s three o’clock.” Lance returned to his place in front of the whiteboard. He studied the list of names.

Morgan went back to her desk, sipped her coffee, and tapped on her keyboard. “Let’s start with Haley’s girlfriend Piper. She’ll be the least hostile. We can go to Beats tonight and interview employees, but the club doesn’t open until later. We also have to talk to Noah’s three friends: Isaac McGee, Chase Baker, and Justin O’Brien.”

The police reports included driver’s license photos of all the witnesses. Morgan printed them out, including pictures of Noah and Haley. She made multiple copies of each, one for the whiteboard and another for her own file. She also liked to have pictures on hand when doing interviews. A photo could jog the memory of a waitress or bartender.

“We’ll walk the crime scene tomorrow,” Lance added.

“I’ll email the prosecutor’s office now and request entry to Noah’s house. Then I’ll call Piper and see when she’ll be available.” Morgan typed a quick email. She pressed the “Enter” key and froze.

“What is it?” Lance asked.

“An email.” She turned the computer, so he could read the screen.

Counselor Dane,

Haley Powell brutally murdered Noah Carter. If you continue to represent her, you will be complicit in her crime, and you will be punished for your wickedness. Consider this your only warning.

“You’ve been carrying your handgun, right?” Lance asked.