“No,” he said, after assessing me again with those strangely animal eyes. “No, I think we’re done for now, doc. It was my very great pleasure to meet you, however.”
I pursed my lips. “You don’t want to talk to me anymore?” I said.
I want to talk to you so badly I can fucking taste it, that same voice said in my mind, making me jump again, but less violently that time. My breath stopped, locking in my chest as the voice rose even more clearly. But not here, doc. Not here. Patience. And believe me when I say I am speaking to myself in this, even more than I am to you...
I could only sit there, breathing, staring at him.
Those gold eyes never wavered.
When I didn’t move after a few more seconds, or speak, he smiled.
Do they know what you are, doc? Does that handsome cop in the next room have any idea why it is that you are so very, very good at your job? Or how you managed to keep him alive that time in Afghanistan... ?
My chest clenched more.
It hurt now, like a fist had reached inside me, squeezing my heart.
The voice fell silent.
The man in front of me looked at me, his expression close to expectant. Then he gazed pointedly down at my engagement ring.
Does anyone know about you, doc? Anyone at all?
My throat closed as he raised his eyes back to mine.
Those gold flecked irises studied my face, watching my reaction.
I can’t hear you, the voice said next, flickering with a tinge of frustration. I cannot hear you at all... but I know from your face that you hear me, doc. That shield of yours is damned strong. I confess, it’s positively turning me on at this point... but it also makes me very curious. Were you ever ranked, sister? If so, I would love to know at what level...
Another smile ghosted his lips, even as a curl of heat slid through my lower abdomen, one that didn’t feel like it originated from me, at least not entirely.
It made my face flush hot, even as my thighs clenched together in reflex.
I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours... the voice said, softer.
My throat tightened, choking me with a caught swallow.
Still, he didn’t say anything aloud.
We’ll talk more later, doc, I heard in my mind, softer still. I have so many, many questions. So many things I’d like to discuss. But I really do not wish to do any of that here... not with them watching us. They are wondering at this silence as it is. You must try to speak to me again, doc, before your handsome cop decides there is a problem. Before he and his meat-headed partner make an issue of it...
I blinked again, my heart now slamming against my ribs.
But he wasn’t looking at me now.
As I watched, Quentin Rayne Black lapsed back into the bored, stone-faced man I’d glimpsed through the window before I’d entered the room.
I’d finally managed to clear my throat.
Clenching my hands together in my lap, conscious of how clammy they felt, I kept my voice carefully polite.
“Do you want to tell me about the body in the park, Mr. Black?” I said.
Nothing. Silence.
“Mr. Black?” I said, hearing the slight tremble in my voice. “Did you kill that woman? Did you pose her in that wedding dress?”
He didn’t look up from where he stared down between his cuffed hands.
I tried again, asking the same thing a few different ways.
But nothing I said in those next fifteen or so minutes appeared to reach him. I tried being friendly, annoying, disdainful, mocking. I belittled his intellect... even threw out a few offers to deal, along with some not-so-veiled threats. Nothing.
I got nothing.
In fact, I doubt I penetrated the veneer of that thoughtful, somehow puzzle-solving stare he aimed at the empty surface of the metal table.
Clearly, I’d been dismissed.
Three
A GUT FEELING
I RETREATED FROM the room after I’d been inside less than thirty minutes.
I honestly had no idea how to feel about what had just happened.
Fear kind of ran over all of the other reactions I might have had.
Fear for my own sanity. Fear of him... maybe even terror of him.
Fear of what he’d done... what I was having increasing difficulty convincing myself had only been some kind of auditory hallucination. Fear around the sinking feeling I had that Quentin Black’s mention of being locked up in the police station only “temporarily” hadn’t just been idle bragging. I didn’t think his confidence on that point stemmed from normal, sociopathic delusion, either... which is how the cops listening would have heard it.
It’s likely how I would have heard it too, if that’s all I’d heard.
But how could I possibly warn the others?
Quentin Black must have known I wouldn’t be able to warn them.
Despite everything running through my head, some part of me almost forgot that the police watching our interview missed a good portion of my exchange with Black. Therefore, when I knocked on the interrogation room door and it opened to Nick and Glen standing there in the hallway, I was shocked to see the blatant smiles in both of their eyes.
They didn’t say anything aloud until they’d closed the door on Black, of course.
They didn’t even crack real smiles until then.
Once the door had closed, however, Nick grinned openly, slapping me on the back with one hand. “See?” he told Glen in a gloating kind of voice. “What did I tell you?”
I gave him an eye roll, fighting to keep my expression blank as I combed fingers through my hair. Glancing back at the closed door, I tried to shove Mr. Quentin Black out of my mind, at least well enough to act normal for the next few minutes until my heart stopped pounding like a damned jackhammer.
I gratefully accepted a cup of fresh coffee handed to me by Angel Deveraux, another homicide inspector who worked the Northern District. The coffee cup’s paper jacket proclaimed it as being from The Royale Blend, which only sharpened my gratitude.
Glad of the distraction if nothing else, I grinned at her. “You’re not fetching coffee for these bozos now, are you?” I asked, taking a sip as I quirked an eyebrow.
Angel Deveraux gave a derisive snort.
A buffed, black, ex-beat cop from one of the roughest parts of the city, Angel had stunning light brown eyes and a prominent jaw on a sharply beautiful face. Angel and I went to the same martial arts classes as Nick, and often got thrust together as sparring partners since we were roughly the same height and weight, even though Angel was a few belts above me. She usually kicked my ass, but I learned a ton from her, so I didn’t really mind.
Angel had known Nick even longer than I had.
They grew up in the same neighborhood near Hunter’s Point.
Maybe because of that, they often bickered more like family members than friends.
“No,” Angel said, giving Nick a pointed look, as if the comment had come from him and not me. “It’s just that some of us have a little thing called manners.” She smiled at me. “Truthfully, I didn’t even know you were here, doc. I called up from the coffee line at Royale, knowing these jokers didn’t get a lot of sleep last night and might be slumped drooling over their desks. Instead I find them up here, giggling like little boys as they watch you make the only progress we’ve had all day with our exciting new serial killer...”
“Technically, he’s not a serial killer yet,” I informed her.
“He’s killed seven now,” she told me, daring me with her eyes to disagree.
“Seven people,” I conceded. “Two incidents. Still only a killer... technically.”
“Technically, my ass,” she snorted. “What about the wedding theme?”
“A weird killer,” I corrected. “Make that an alleged, weird killer... still not a serial killer, or even an alleged serial killer, not until he hits magic number three. You might be able to make a strong argument for a spree killer, though. Depen
ding on motive.”
Angel rolled her eyes, aiming a thumb at me while she shook her head at Nick and Glen.
“Get a load of doc here, all hoity-toity now that she got Mr. Quentin Black to give her a fake name and play his little head games with her for a spell.”
I laughed as I started to follow the three of them back down the florescent-lit corridor with its lime-green tile.
“Fair enough,” I conceded, grinning as I took another sip of the scalding hot coffee. “Still sounds like a solid point for the head-shrinker and a big, fat zero for the fuzz.”
Angel snorted a laugh, shaking her head as she glanced back at me.
“Drink your coffee, doc,” she advised, waving over her shoulder at me with one hand, her tone mocking. “You best keep that smart mouth of yours busy for a little while, or we might have to drum up some charges against you... especially since from what I heard, it sounded like your serial killer...” She emphasized the words. “...Maybe has a bit of a crush on you.”
“Who doesn’t?” Nick said, winking at me.
Glen laughed, giving me an over-the-shoulder smile, too.
I fought to keep the smile on my face, couldn’t that time.
Instead I sipped more coffee to cover it.
By then we were all back inside the glass-enclosed observation room, standing and leaning by the two tables that filled the rectangular space. The room had the dark, bluish cast of an aquarium, with the only window aiming into the interrogation room itself.
I found myself putting my back decisively to the view of Quentin Black.
“Did you just come from the scene?” I asked Angel.
She nodded, hands on her hips. She leaned on the edge of a table shoved up against the back wall. “Yeah,” she said, sighing. “You’re glad you missed that one, doc.”
“Where’s the body now?” I said, looking at Nick and then back to Angel. “Does the coroner’s office have it yet?”
Nick gave me a surprised look. I didn’t usually ask him for details like that. Not when it came to that end of the forensics.
“Yeah,” he said. He had a coffee of his own I noticed. He pulled it off the same low table where I leaned my butt, then sat on one of the two folding chairs, looking up at me. “Why?”
“I thought I might look at it,” I said. “The body. You know. Get an idea of the m.o.”
Angel gave me a look that time, too.
She glanced at Nick and Glen. She didn’t say anything though.
“Sure thing, doc,” Nick said, his shrug a little too studied. “Anything you want.”
“Is it that weird I’d want to see it?” I said, smiling a little.
“It’s a little weird,” Glen volunteered. “You hate blood, doc.”
Grimacing a little, I nodded, then looked back at Nick. “You’re running that name, right?” I pressed. “The Quentin Black one?”
“Sure. I sent it over as soon as he said it,” Nick said. That puzzlement leaked to his voice.
I watched the three of them exchange another look, right as Glen cleared his throat.
“You okay, doc?” Nick said then. “That guy rattle you?”
Looking around at the three of them, I realized they were all watching me now, their cop faces on higher alert. Some of them were doing a better job of hiding it than others. Letting out a sigh, I combed my fingers through my hair again.
“Yeah,” I admitted. “Maybe.”
“You did so well in there,” Nick said. “I would have never known.”
“You were a real pro,” Glen seconded, leaning against the same table as me and folding his massive arms before he gave me a sympathetic smile.
Angel said nothing.
Looking between the three of them again, I exhaled in annoyance. “I’m fine, okay? It’s just... you know. There’s something about him.”
“Yeah,” Nick snorted, anger leaking into his words. “He’s a murdering nutcase.” Looking at me more carefully then, he said, “Well? What kind of nutcase is he, Miri? You going to tell us? Or is it a secret?”
He had his cop voice on again.
I realized he was right.
We hadn’t gone through the whole “brain-picking” part of this exercise, where they asked me questions about what I thought of the suspect and what he might do.
I wished I could just skip it for this one.
I really didn’t want to do a psychological profile on Quentin Black. Not until I had a much better idea of what the hell just happened in there. Truthfully, I felt like I’d just be throwing darts at this point. Or lying to them in a sense, giving them the book stuff when I wasn’t sure I believed it. But I also knew Nick wouldn’t let me off the hook so easily.
It was, after all, why he’d brought me here.
Glancing over my shoulder in spite of myself, I gazed through the window at the man sitting inside the interrogation room.
I flinched a little when I saw him staring back at me through the one-way glass.
Once again, I could almost imagine him seeing me in here.
“Okay,” I said, exhaling in an irritated-sounding sigh. I looked away from the window, folding my arms. “But not here. We should go somewhere else.”
Nick’s eyes flickered in surprise, right before he glanced at the one-way mirror himself. I practically felt the question on him as he frowned in the direction of Quentin Black. Despite his cautioning me earlier, I’d never reacted to a suspect like this.
Nick knew that, as well as I did.
“Why?” he said finally, his voice openly wary as he looked back at me. Seeing my arched eyebrow, he frowned. “We always debrief in here.”
He was right of course. We did always debrief in here.
Still, the feeling that we’d be overheard if we stayed here––or, more specifically, that the three cops would be overheard––persisted.
The feeling was strong enough that I dug in my heels.
“We should go downstairs, Nick,” I said, my voice firm. “I think better in natural light. And I need more sugar for my coffee anyway,” I lied. “Besides, I don’t think we’re going to learn any more by taking turns staring at Mr. Black.”
Angel laughed at my words. Glen smiled, too.
Nick didn’t.
I also didn’t miss the questioning glances I got from all three of them, although Angel did better with hiding hers than the other two.
I didn’t take sugar in my coffee.
Angel and Nick knew that, at least. I had no idea if Glen knew my coffee quirks or not.
Even so, when I motioned towards the door a second time, they all rose to their feet and shuffled out, walking in the direction of the elevators along with me.
I couldn’t help wondering if Quentin R. Black felt us go.
I DIDN’T END up telling them much.
I knew it frustrated Nick especially, probably more so that I made them change venues just to tell them jack squat. It frustrated him enough that he offered to go with me to the morgue, likely to see if he could pull more details out of me while I looked over the body.
I knew he was still puzzled by the morgue request too.
Usually I only looked at the body if they hadn’t caught the perp yet. Meaning, if I was trying to give them a profile based on the crime scene versus having a real-life human being to assess. When they had an actual suspect in custody, I often just looked over the paper. They were pretty thorough with the documentation these days and I wasn’t a medical examiner, so seeing the forensics assessments was more valuable for me anyway.
Most of the time, seeing the body in person wasn’t going to help me do my job.
Nick had me go with him to the coroner a few times in cases like this anyway, when he thought it might help me get a better handle on a suspect or victim. But it usually caused a fair bit of groaning on my part, and I don’t think I’d ever asked to go before.
Part of that was the war, I knew.
A probably bigger part of it was, I still couldn’t help asso
ciating the morgue with Zoe, even after all these years. The first time I’d ever been inside one of these cold, chemical-smelling rooms was when I got called in to ID my sixteen-year-old sister.
By then, our parents were already dead, so I was the only one left to do it.
I’d been eighteen. Just old enough to make the cut.
Not long after that, maybe only a few months later, I joined the military. The military paid for my undergraduate degree. Scholarships and loans paid for the rest. And before I got my degree, while I was in the Middle East, I met Nick.
My life kind of went where it went after that.
No regrets. No looking back.
Even so, I’d never really recovered from Zoe’s death. It hit me harder than the death of my parents somehow, although I couldn’t have said why exactly. Truthfully, I think I was pretty numb for the first few years after I saw her lying on a slab in a room a lot like this one.
I couldn’t help flashing to that experience now, as I stood over a different stainless steel table with yet another young girl lying dead and naked on top of it.
This time, it was easier to keep that professional veneer, if only because I could feel Nick’s eyes watching me every second we spent in that windowless room.
Nick knew I hated this stuff. He’d joked that it was funny I never got squeamish during the war but put the body in a sterile room and cover it with a sheet and I acted like I was afraid the damned thing might rise from the dead and try to kill me.
He was right. I hated these cold, dead-feeling rooms.
I’d never liked gore in wartime either, although he was right––I could push past it to do the job. It just wasn’t my thing, to rubber-neck any part of the more violent aspects of life. To me there’s something deeply disrespectful about looking for any reason other than an absolute necessity to do my work. But now I stood over a strange young woman’s body while the coroner explained to me and Nick how she’d been murdered.
“So these cuts that were done for purely cosmetic purposes,” I said, interrupting him again. “...You’re sure they had nothing to do with either killing her, or anything that could be construed as part of a struggle?”
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