Read Online Bad Girls by M. William Phelps - Free Book Online

upset. She was talking to Kathy’s sister on the phone.”
    As Richard Cruz spoke, McAllester got a sense that Richard was confident in what he was saying—that he believed Dorothy. Continuing, Cruz explained, “[Dorothy] said Kathy’s niece shot Bob.”
    “Her name?”
    “Bobbi Jo Smith,” Cruz answered. “She’s nineteen. Bob is an acquaintance of Bobbi Jo’s.”
    “Did she say what happened? Why she shot him?”
    “Dorothy said Bobbi Jo came over to her house and was ‘very upset.’ She said she had shot Bob. . . . I told Dorothy after she told us that maybe it didn’t happen that way because Bobbi Jo likes to exaggerate, especially when she’s on drugs.”
    It was hard to believe that a nineteen-year-old girl the size of little boy, as Cruz described Bobbi, could manage to shoot a much bigger, older, and stronger man like Bob Dow. McAllester thought about the crime scene he had examined and how Bob was lying on his back with some sort of laundry bag over his head. Maybe his killer had surprised him? Maybe Bob Dow’s killer snuck up on him, tossed the laundry bag over his head, and unloaded those rounds into his face without him ever knowing what hit him?
    “What else did Dorothy tell you?”
    “She said, ‘No way.’ Bobbi Jo wasn’t making it up.”
    “How’d she know that?”
    “Dorothy said she spoke to Bobbi Jo’s girlfriend”—who was apparently with Bobbi when she showed up at Dorothy’s, both freaking out, talking about shooting Bob Dow—“Her name is Jennifer . . . and she said, ‘Bobbi Jo shot Bob. . . .’”
    Richard Cruz explained how he’d searched Bobbi’s room inside Dorothy’s house and uncovered a holster with a missing weapon and an unloaded second weapon. Then he told McAllester how he called the MWPD and got Bobbi Jo’s mother on the phone; she helped coach the cop following him toward Bob Dow’s house.
    McAllester knew the rest.
    Obviously, the MWPD needed to corroborate both secondhand and thirdhand statements by finding Bobbi’s girlfriend—this Jennifer—and also getting over to Dorothy’s and obtaining a statement from her. Still, according to these two witnesses, Bobbi Jo had admitted to murder.
    This thing was coming together rather quickly for the MWPD—just as they were accustomed and used to. In this town, when applying effort, the solving of murders seemed easy. But there had to be a catch somewhere. And what about the old woman found nearly unresponsive and literally starving to death inside a second bedroom in the house? How did she play into this scenario? Was she even coherent enough to speak?
     
     
    McAllester cut Richard and Kathy Cruz loose. Then he called Dorothy Smith, who sounded unnerved. McAllester asked about Bobbi Jo Smith. Did Dorothy’s granddaughter admit to shooting Bob Dow in the head?
    “Yes,” Dorothy said, speaking through tears. “Bobbi Jo told me that she shot and killed Bob.”
    “Thank you, ma’am. A detective will stop by tomorrow morning to take your statement. Is that okay?”
    “Yes, I’ll be here. But please . . . please . . . be careful and don’t hurt my granddaughter,” Dorothy insisted. Dorothy pictured some sort of task force out and about, searching for Bobbi Jo. She didn’t want police to manhandle Bobbi and get into some shoot out. Dorothy loved Bobbi, knew she was a good kid, and couldn’t believe what was happening. There had to be more to this. Bobbi Jo had never been in trouble with the law—ever. Maybe it was all some sort of misunderstanding?
    “Okay, ma’am, we understand,” McAllester said. “But if your granddaughter contacts you again, you need to call us right away.”
    “Yes, I understand,” Dorothy answered.
    “Do you know where she is now?”
    “She was here with her girlfriend, Jennifer. She left with Jennifer and at least two other females.”
    Four women, Dorothy explained, all together.
    She was wrong. It was actually five women. All lesbians.
    “Do you know who they are,