Jake shook his head. “No, nothing like that. The weird thing that night was that Cyrus was home at all.”
“What do you mean?” Jude asked. This could be the break they were looking for.
“Cyrus walked into the office around half past ten that night. Usually, he was out until two or three in the morning. He’d come back when the bars and clubs shut down for the night. It was definitely a surprise to see him back here five hours before last call.”
“What did he want when he came to see you?” Fitzgibbon asked.
“Pills. Xanax. Ativan. Valium. Anything that would chill him out.” Powell nibbled his bottom lip. “Are you sure you won’t arrest me if I tell you what happened next?” He looked nervously between the three detectives.
“We have no jurisdiction in the state of Maine,” Ronan said. “Tell us what happened.”
“I had some Xanax on me, which I sold him.” Powell paused, as if he was waiting for one of them to slap on the cuffs and read him his rights. When that didn’t happen, he continued. “I asked him what he needed the pills for. Usually, he wanted things that would make him fly, not bring him down.”
“What did he tell you?” Jude asked, his heart beating faster. There had been no trace of sedatives in Cyrus’s toxicology report, and the pills had not been found in the room when it was searched after the body was discovered.
“Just that he was going to need to chill his ass out. Again, this was out of the ordinary for him. I tried to ask him what was going on, but he wouldn’t answer. I assumed there had been some sort of dustup at the strip club. More drama happened there than anywhere else in town. There were men and sometimes women who wouldn’t take no for an answer, especially when they found out who Cyrus was and how much money he had. When people he didn’t want to see showed up on his doorstep, he’d call me and ask me to get rid of them. I only had to call the police once, but that was a few years before the murder. Some farm girl from Iowa or Idaho was trying to get her hooks into him. She said she was pregnant with his baby, but none of us believed her. The police escorted her from the property, and I never heard anything about her again.”
“Back to the night of the murder. Did Cyrus call to ask you to get rid of anyone?” Fitzgibbon asked.
“No, I never heard a peep from him for the rest of the night. There were no neighbor complaints either.” Powell shook his head. “It’s still a complete mystery how no one heard Cyrus being murdered.”
Jude had to admit he was puzzled by that fact as well. Not only had he heard Ten and Ronan getting it on, but he’d been able tohear the low hum of regular conversation. Not enough to make out words, but any conversation held at anything louder than a whisper would have been heard by the neighbors. “There’s one more mystery maybe you can solve for us.”
“Sure thing.” Powell appeared more relaxed than he had a few minutes ago.
“What happened to the pills?” Ronan and Jude asked at the same time.
“What?” Powell’s eyes widened.
“You said you sold Cyrus Xanax. There were no traces of it in his blood during the autopsy, and there’s no record of the pills being found when the police and crime scene unit searched the room.”
Powell eyed the office door.
Jude couldn’t help but think the man was trying to figure out if he was fast enough to get out of the room before one of them could catch him. Jude shook his head no. “Tell us, Powell. If you don’t, our next call is to the Old Orchard Beach Police. You can explain it to them.” It struck Jude that the police work on this case had been shoddy from the beginning.
“Okay, fine.” Powell sighed, as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders. “When Aida found the body the next morning, her first call was to me, not to 911.”
“This just keeps getting better,” Ronan muttered. “What did she tell you?”
“That Cyrus was dead in a pool of blood.” Powell paused for a brief moment. “I went into the room and saw the body for myself. He was definitely dead.”
“What did you take from the room?” Jude asked, his thoughts turning to the missing satchel and the cash inside it.
“The pills. They were sitting on the table near the sofa. There were five in the bag, and that’s how many I’d sold him,” Powell said, his head bent low. “I looked for the money, but it was gone. There was also a bag of weed and rolling papers. I took those things too.”
Ronan grabbed Fitzgibbon’s arm and pulled him across the room. Jude was behind them. “Do you believe him?”
“I do,” Fitzgibbon said. “He was obviously looking to save his own ass.”
“What about you?” Ronan asked Jude.
“I do, if only for the reason that Alexandria Longfellow was still in touch with Jake Powell. If she thought he’d had anything to do with her son’s murder, she would have made sure he was investigated and wouldn’t still be sending him Christmas cards.”
“Good point,” Fitzgibbon muttered, walking back to the front desk. “Were there any rumors about the murder after it happened?”
“Just the usual bullshit that it was a mafia hit or that Cyrus owed money to a loan shark.”
It was more likely a spurned lover than either of the things Powell mentioned, but with no proof, Jude was at another dead end. “Who do you think killed him?”
