Chapter Five

The officer who had been asking her questions all night came in, this time with another officer. They whispered a few things between them and then proceeded to what they had come in for.

"Miss Dukehead, for how long have you known Officer Liam Handel?" The interrogating officer asked her. She sighed it was the same question only put in a different way. They used his title and his name, at least it sounded different, she thought.

"Like I said before I've known him and his friends for about a year. They are regulars at the bar and most times I serve them myself."

"Did you have any fallouts with Officer Liam during that period?"

She shook her head and bit down on her lips. "No, in fact it was Gerald that caused most of the troubles. Liam was more like all laugh and talk, same with Tony. But last night, he wasn't quite himself"

"What do you mean by that?"

"Liam was kind of shy around me and never really looked me in the eyes. But last night, he stood up and stood so close to me, he was staring right down at me. He even hurt me when he grabbed my wrist. It was almost as if he was angry about something and was just trying to drink his worries away and I was getting in his way of doing just that or something else. I can't quite say."

"You do that yourself?" The officer pointed at the bandage around her wrist.

"No. Some guy helped me get it done."

"Okay, Miss Dukehead. A lot of people we could pick up, your employees, some police officers here and some of your customers, were able to testify that you have been so kind to almost everyone around you. Your records are even clean as it is. But the lab reports just came in and there were some spices or rather herbs that shouldn't be in his system as well as some drug. Would you mind telling me what lemon grass, beetroot, ginger and dune, let's not forget opioid was doing in the system of a man who was at a bar drinking all night?"

"Opioid? I've never touched that in my life neither will I give it to any human for recreational purposes. As for the herbs, I found a way to mix them just right, keep it simple- a little trigger and a calming effect when you add just around the right ice."

"Well, we just had your place searched and we found this." He placed a bottle opioid on the desk. "In your kitchen drawer."

"You searched my house? What about my rabbit? Is he okay?"

"He was sleeping in his cage when we found him. You're being charged for murder and you're worried about your rabbit. How intriguing."

"Because Axel doesn't have a cage. Never bought one for him and he doesn't sleep by this time of the day. He's been drugged and the only way I can prove this is if you let me have access to my surveillance feed."

"Yeah, we already checked it. It's been wiped as if nothing had ever happened."

"Let me see it. I'm the only one that has access to this." She requested and they brought it up for her. "I must say this bastard is good. Lucky enough and unfortunately for him, everything that happens in the bar is live on the dark web. Please give me a laptop, will you?"

They let her have one and within a matter of minutes, they had the deleted part right in front of them. The video showed that she had served them their last drink and told them that after that one they would have to leave the bar since it was almost closing time. Five seconds after she had left their table, someone came and spoke to them. Liam was dead ass drunk but still drinking when the person put something in between his lips, probably told him he would feel better and let him chug it down with the remnant of the special. Gerald and Tony asked the guy to give him some pills too but the guy said he had only one, then one of the workers came and asked them to leave. They left Liam after they had tried to get him to stand up and wouldn't. Poor guy was already dead.

"Get someone to run a face match on the face, will you? And call in this worker ask him to give you a description of the guy in full. As for you, Miss Dukehead, I must apologize if in any way I caused you harm and about your rabbit, I'm terribly sorry. My daughter has one too and she's so attached too. We'll have one of the police cars take you home and thank you once again, for giving us a chance to catch this evil perpetrator."

"There's no need for the apologies, Officer. You were only doing your job. I just hope you catch whoever did this before it's too late. Liam was a good guy and he didn't deserve to die the way he did."

"Well, I'm glad that's over now and there's no need to get her home in a police car. Ill drop her off myself." A familiar voice said.

"Sir, you're not supposed to be in here." The officer objected.

"It's alright, Shawn. He's FBI and they've taken over the case too. Let's just get ready for Liam's burial."

"You're FBI? Seriously?" Jade asked bewildered. Navy pulled his suit and put it over her shoulders. She was still wearing her tank top from last night, along with the animal skin flare skirt, only different thing was that her hair was let down, probably from all the stress.

"I guess that beats whatever you thought me to be hands down." He smirked as he escorted her out of the precinct, deliberating if to take her home or to the office.