Ray and Tammy were still sitting there motionless when Chip and Sandy entered the café. From the doorway, Sandy saw them and called out, "Hey!" After a second look she quickly put both hands over her mouth and stopped right where she was. "My God, she did confess."
A uniformed officer came in behind them and told Chip the videotaping was successful: they got the whole confession. Chip told him, "Good, Mirandize her and put her in my unit. You know who she is, don't you? She's a friend. Take it slow and go easy with the cuffs. Stay with her and don't let anyone bother her. I'll be out in a minute."
Ray gave Tammy an awkward goodbye and walked over to Sandy and Chip. "I was on the wrong track. I believed it was Loraine right up until we all met last night. You were correct Sandy. When I confronted her with everything we discussed, she confessed. How did you zero in on Tammy?"
"It bothered me when she told me that she thought Loraine was the killer, while at the same time was telling Chip you were guilty. Then I became suspicious, when she told me that it was a shame for a great life to be snuffed out with a couple of bullets. The irony of two little bullets wiping out years of accomplishments. The way she said it I knew she didn't realize he was killed with only one bullet. She believed it was two because she knew she had fired two. She didn't know one missed and was found in the wall."
"We didn't release that detail," Chip said.
"But that wasn't conclusive. In my mind, she gave herself away when she first met you in the restaurant," Sandy continued. "One minute she's threatening to sue you, if you go to the police, and then she unexpectedly stopped being hostile. That's when she realized you fit perfectly into the murder plan that had been on her mind."
"First, she screamed don't go to the police, then a minute later, she said it was okay, just wait a few hours. She needed me out running around at the time of the murder."
"Right. No reason for her to abruptly be friendly other than to give herself time to shoot Towson and get back to her office. You also caught her in a couple of slip-ups like when she claimed she hadn't talked with Towson. All that plus the lies and inconsistencies we discussed last night. Those things were just hints not proof, but they tipped me off. Now it's up to Chip to nail down the proof."