Page 18 of Red Snow
“Yeah,” Patrick answers, staring at the tan carpet on the floor.
“Interesting,” Marcus says. “When we interviewed her, she acted like she didn’t know you very well.”
Patrick doesn’t say anything.
“What exactly did Mrs. Akers tell you?” Marcus continues.
“That she found Brenda’s head on top of a fucking snowman outside the school,” he snips, finally making eye contacting with Marcus. “She told me she drove to school early this morning, and my wife’s head was sitting on top of a snowman. Her fucking head.”
Marcus looks over at me. I can see the confusion on his face, and I feel the exact same way. Patrick Cox is a conundrum.
“Okay. We understand how difficult of a time this must be for you,” Marcus continues.
“Do you?”
“We do, Mr. Cox. It’s obviously our job to track down your wife’s killer, and we want to do that as fast as we can, so we need your help in that regard.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“But I want to be honest with you, Mr. Cox, in order for you to help us, we need to clear you. So, could you just tell us where you were at around eleven o’clock last night?”
Patrick’s eyes slowly fall back down to the carpet. “I was here.”
“Okay, is there any way we can confirm that?” Marcus asks.
Patrick doesn’t answer.
“Mr. Cox?” Marcus says, breaking the silence.
Patrick still doesn’t answer. I can see his breathing starting to become heavy as his white t-shirt rises and falls more and more rapidly.
“Mr. Cox, are you okay?” Marcus asks as he sits up straight, preparing himself for the possibility of Patrick freaking out.
“She was cheating on me,” Patrick finally says. His eyes stay glued to the floor, but they begin to fill with tears again.
“Excuse me?” Marcus says, startled.
“I said she was cheating on me,” Patrick snips, louder this time, his voice heavy with emotion. “She was cheating on me all the time. She thought I didn’t know, but I did. I knew right from the beginning. Nobody has to go the bar that often.Alone. I’m not stupid. She was coming home late, night after night, climbing in bed with me while she still smelled like other guy’s cocks. I’m not even sure she was trying to hide it. Our marriage started crumbling as soon as our last daughter moved out. We were only together because of the kids, so when Amy moved out, that was it. It was like night and day. She was fucking other guys all the time.”
I suddenly feel awkward and on high alert. He’s emotional over her death, and from where I’m sitting, it sounds like Patrick Cox is ready to confess. Marcus looks over at me, but I shake my head at him. Don’t talk, just let this guy hang himself. He’s almost there.
“I got confirmation one night when I found a condom wrapper in her purse,” Patrick continues without us having to ask him to. “A condom wrapper. We haven’t used condoms in years, so I knew it when I saw it. Once I saw that wrapper, I stopped giving a fuck. I stopped caring because it was obvious that she’d stopped caring. So, I said fuck it, and I started cheating on her too. But I wanted it to be personal. I wanted it to hurt her, so I went after someone she worked with.”
It’s like I’m in a movie theater watching a thriller. I’m literally sitting on the edge of the couch, waiting for Patrick to drop a bomb on us.
“The first time I fucked Anita, I felt guilty,” Patrick says, sending Marcus and me reeling. “But only the first time. After that, I started feeling glad about it. I was proud of it. I was fucking the counselor in Brenda’s school, and she didn’t even know. I was fucking Anita almost every day and night. While Brenda was out sucking every cock in the bar, I was here, fucking Anita. So, you want confirmation of my whereabouts from last night, she’s the one you’d get it from. I was here fucking Anita while Brenda was out at the bar doing God knows what with God knows who.”
Well holy fucking shit. Marcus and I sit in silence longer than we should, but it’s hard to form words when someone confesses something like that. It doesn’t mean he didn’t kill his wife, but it will send us looking for answers elsewhere for the time being.
“Umm, okay,” Marcus mutters as he writes on his notepad nervously. “That’s a lot to take in. Umm, do you know which bar your wife went to last night? And what time did she leave the house?”
“She left about nine-thirty, and she went to Chilkoot Charlie’s like she always does on Thursday nights. There’s always a ton of guys there because it’s ladies night on Thursday, and everybody is looking to hook up, even if it’s with a forty-five year-old married woman.”
Patrick looks shaken up, but I still can’t decide if he’s a grieving husband or a lunatic. A tragedy like this can make you look like both. Either way, his story is enough to keep us from charging him with anything right now. We have to checkout his alibi with Anita and his story about Brenda going to Chilkoot Charlie’s. If either one doesn’t checkout, he’s going to have serious problems, and it won’t be Marcus who does all the talking when we come back.
“Alright, Mr. Cox,” Marcus speaks up. “Well, we appreciate you giving us some info. We’re going to let you grieve while we look into this. If anything else comes up, we’ll be back.”
“Whatever,” Patrick says under his breath.
