If She Fled

by Blake Pierce

  As Kate led Knudsen into the precinct, it was hard to imagine such a successful life trailing behind this curmudgeonly old man. But she supposed she could identify; she had her own life that had also quickly gotten behind her, a past that even now would not let go of her in the form of a career.

  Bannerman led the way, making silent cues to the officers they passed not to stand and stare. They obeyed for the most part, and Kate could see that Knudsen was starting to look embarrassed. Still, he did not utter a single word as they came to the interrogation room and remained equally silent as Bannerman sat him down in the single chair behind the small table.

  “Mr. Knudsen,” Kate began, “we need to know everything about your relationship with those three women. Every little detail.”

  “I’m sure you do,” he said. “But as you have infringed upon my rights, I’m afraid I won’t say a single word to any of you until I have my lawyer present.”

  “You really want to play it that way?” Bannerman asked. “Makes you look guilty as far as I’m concerned.”

  “I’m no idiot, Sheriff. I know how your corrupted system works in this backwards country. If three women are dead, as you all say they are, and I am the only link between them, the media will make their assumptions and I will be made out to be a villain. Which would be a shame for you, your department, and even the FBI. Because as you will find out soon enough, depending on your level of skill, I’m innocent.”

  “That’s for us to determine,” DeMarco said.

  “And I’ll be happy to help you reach that conclusion…once my lawyer is here.”

  Bannerman looked furious, but clapped his hands firmly to his hips and started pacing back and forth across the room. Kate knew that Knudsen was within his rights to wait on his lawyer and she would typically be fine with that. But she knew Duran would be waiting for her in DC, that he would start to get suspicious if she didn’t show up by noon or so.

  “Sheriff, can I see you outside?” she said.

  He nodded and opened the door with a bit too much force and anger for Kate’s taste. Kate and DeMarco followed him out into the hallway, where he seemed to instantly calm down a bit.

  “First things first,” Kate said. “Get someone to hand Knudsen a phone and let him call his lawyer. Let him feel as if he’s running the show. In the meantime, that piece of cotton we found in his house is bigger trouble for him than he realizes. We have enough speculative evidence to assume that it came from the Hopkins residence.”

  “Not to mention he even admitted to it,” DeMarco said.

  “Right. So that, plus his admitted link to all three victims, gives us more than enough evidence to support a full investigation of his home. Sheriff, if you can get some men on that right now, I’d like to continue trying to press him. If we can get some more evidence together before his lawyer makes it here, his hole gets even deeper.”

  “You’re welcome to try,” Bannerman said, “but it seems to me that he’s made up his mind to be quiet until his lawyer gets here.”

  “Just let me handle that. In the meantime, give him what he wants. Let him call his lawyer.”

  Bannerman nodded and hurried off to set someone to the task. DeMarco gave Kate a skeptical look, one that was punctuated with the thinnest angle of a grin. “You got a plan brewing?”

  “Not really. I just don’t have the time to be yanked around by a lawyer right now.”

  DeMarco looked like she was about to say something but then bit it back. She then sighed and took a step closer to Kate. “Duran called me last night and told me he asked you to step down off of the case. He asked me to make sure to keep him posted if you showed any signs of not following the rules.”

  “I see. So did you call him yet to rat me out?”

  “No. And I’m not going to. So get in there and do whatever it is you have in mind. How long do you think we have until Duran figures out that you went against orders?”

  “Maybe three hours.”

  “You think Knudsen is our guy?”

  Kate thought about it for a moment and then shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. If it weren’t for that damned stalk of cotton, I wouldn’t have even given him a second thought—aside from his being an ass and all.”

  DeMarco nodded. “He does pretty much fit all of the slots we’re trying to fill.”

  Kate nodded and turned back toward the interrogation room door. “Let’s see if we can fill a few more.”

  ***

  Kate had sat silently while Knudsen had called his lawyer. She’d stared at him during the entirety of the conversation, her gaze relaxed and nonchalant. Knudsen eyed her viciously as he spoke, breaking eye contact with her only once he had killed the call and slid the phone back to the officer who had given it to him.

  When the officer left the room, DeMarco came in and took his place. Knudsen looked to her and back to Kate. “What, exactly, are you looking at?”

  “A man who seems to have all the time in the world,” Kate said. “I, on the other hand, have no time to spare. Three women are dead and, if I’m being honest, I have a supervisor that is riding my ass for not having many answers. When did your lawyer say he’d be here?”

  “About an hour and a half. Am I expected to sit here until then?”

  “Yeah. Shame he’s going to take so long. As I said, I don’t have the time to waste either. It might save us both the time and headache if you just tell me everything you can.”

  “I have already told all of you that I will not say another word until my lawyer is here.”

  “Well, here’s the deal. That cotton stalk you took from the Hopkins residence, along with your own verification that you worked with all three of the victims, gives us more than enough cause to search your home, no warrant needed. So right now, as we wait for your slow lawyer, Sheriff Bannerman and a few of his men are headed to your house right now. So between just the three of us right now, can you tell me if they’ll find anything else?”

  “That isn’t legal.” Although it was a curt statement, he did not sound so sure.

  “Oh, it is. Just ask your lawyer…when he gets here.”

  Knudsen started to look panicked for the first time. He looked trapped, coming to the realization that no matter how much of an asshole he tried to be, he was no longer in control of this situation—if he ever was.

  “Whatever you have, share it now and it might make it easier on you.”

  Knudsen looked so angry that Kate thought he could probably chew nails in that moment. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

  “Me? Visiting this part of the country to look into why three women were murdered? No…I don’t enjoy it, to be honest.”

  “Mr. Knudsen,” DeMarco said, “if you did not kill those women, then anything else you share with us—anything criminal—is not going to hurt. If anything, some judges may see it as assistance to a case. Do you understand that?”

  “I did not kill them.”

  “Help us believe you, then,” Kate said. “Because if there is anything worth finding, Bannerman and his men will find it.”

  Knudsen looked at both agents and then at the ceiling, casting his eyes anywhere but the accusing eyes in front of him. “The cotton stalk…it was stupid,” he said. His voice was no longer laced with so much anger, but now harbored what sounded like genuine regret and embarrassment. It was one of the quickest switches in emotion Kate had ever seen in an interrogation room, making her wonder if Knudsen’s angry façade was mostly fake—all a show to support the stereotypical introverted lifestyle of a musician.

  “So why’d you take it?” DeMarco asked.

  “I’m sure you know I have a record. Petty theft. Public disturbances and things like that. Nothing serious. But the theft…I’ve been doing it since I was a kid, you know? I never had issues with drinking, drugs, or sex. It was always stealing. But I never stole anything major…just dumb shit here and there.”

  “Like what?” Kate asked.

  “Like Karen’s cotton stalk
. Like a pack of guitar strings when I was touring with a small band in Denmark. A bottle of perfume from an old lover. The most expensive thing I ever stole was an iPod off of someone on a plane back in 2010 or so. It had dropped in the floor and I snatched it up. Serves me right that it was filled with far too much of the garbage that serves as today’s popular music, I suppose.”

  “Did you take things from the homes of the other victims, Marjorie Hix and Meredith Lowell?”

  Knudsen frowned as he nodded. “I’ve taken something from every home I’ve taught a lesson in. I took a few marbles from the Hix home—those decorative kind of flat marbles people use to fill vases, you know?”

  “And the Lowells?” DeMarco asked.

  “She came to me for the lessons, remember? I never once went into her home. Other homes I’ve instructed in, though—I’d take things like magazines, little knickknack type things on their mantels, things like that. Never anything big or worth getting into a fuss about.”

  “Are these things hidden in your home, or sort of out in the open like the cotton stalk?” Kate asked.

  “No, they’re not locked away or anything. Marjorie’s marbles are located on the kitchen counter, next to another client’s small creamer container that I took from her kitchen.”

  Kate relaxed a bit, feeling that his sudden surge of honesty toward these things would have softened him up, making it easier for him to discuss other things.

  “Thanks for that,” Kate said, nodding to DeMarco. DeMarco took the hint and stepped outside, already taking out her phone to call Bannerman and fill him in. When DeMarco was out with the door closed behind her, Kate pressed a bit harder. “All of that information, at first glance, would make most assume that you are indeed the killer. Would you be able to give me alibis for the times in which the women were killed?”

  “Who was the most recent?” Knudsen had resigned himself to defeat. He did not seem interested in his lawyer anymore. He honestly didn’t seem too concerned about much of anything. He looked lost, beaten, and like he just wanted to go back home.

  “Meredith Lowell. She was killed yesterday morning in her home. We don’t have an approximate time, but it appears to have been done between nine and eleven thirty in the morning.”

  “I had three lessons yesterday morning, two at my home and the third out in the city. The first was at six thirty, the second was at eight, and the one out in Chicago was at ten. Following that last lesson, I went to the Dusty Groove, this record store that has a surprisingly impressive collection of classical on vinyl.”

  “Any idea when you got home?”

  “Maybe noon? A little after, perhaps.”

  “Would you be willing to give us the names of the clients you worked with yesterday?”

  Here, Knudsen looked a little more nervous. She thought she saw a twitch of that anger creeping back in. “No, for that I really would prefer for my lawyer to be here.”

  Kate knew not to push again. She’d gotten more than she’d expected from him—perhaps enough to eliminate him altogether, though that might not be the case until they got the names of the clients.

  “Did you buy anything at the record store?”

  “Yes. Two albums.”

  “How did you pay?”

  “Cash. Straight out of one of the one-hundred-dollar bills I’d earned that morning.”

  “I don’t suppose you kept the receipt?”

  “Maybe. If I did, it’s still in the pocket of the pants I wore yesterday.”

  Kate didn’t bother pointing out that the receipt could very well be enough to free him. There might be a time discrepancy—perhaps about half an hour or so for him to have showed up at the Lowells’ before venturing into the city—but she already knew that was a desperate grasp.

  “Did you—”

  “No more until my lawyer gets here.”

  “Okay.”

  She got up and started for the door and was surprised when Knudsen spoke up before she could so much as reach for the handle.

  “I could have handled it better,” he said. “You two, arresting me. I sort of backed up…panicked. I knew the theft was dumb and…I don’t know. I’ve never been able to beat it. It’s fucking embarrassing. It’s…”

  He stopped here and waved her away dismissively. Kate finally made it out the door, stepping out into the hallway where DeMarco was giving Bannerman the specifics. Kate sighed and gave her a quick shake of the head. DeMarco wrapped up the call quickly, the frown on her face an indication that she understood what Kate’s shake of the head meant.

  “What did you get?”

  “Enough to know he’s not the killer. A bit of a bipolar asshole, sure. But not the killer. I imagine Bannerman and his men will have enough to back that up by the end of the day. Do you mind calling him back and asking him to check the dirty clothes? Look for a pair of jeans. Check the front pockets for a receipt from a record store yesterday.”

  With that instruction, DeMarco’s face fell slightly as she understood that they would soon be back to ground zero, with no clues or worthwhile leads. Kate realized it, too. She now had a little less than three hours before Duran would be on to her and, she feared, this little experiment with a resurrected career would be over.

  “You know,” DeMarco said as the phone rang in her ear, “as far as I’m concerned, he’s our guy. Until some damning piece of evidence comes forward…”

  She stopped here as Bannerman answered the call on the other end. Kate understood her optimism and wished she felt the same. But as it stood, she felt certain Knudsen was not their man. Still, she could not help but think of those three pianos, parked in each house like hidden giants, out in the open yet overlooked, quiet but with a story to tell.

  Slowly, she started down the hallway toward the exit. She waved DeMarco along with her and her partner reluctantly followed. She was growing irritated now, and not doing much to hide the fact.

  Kate didn’t blame her. Duran basically had DeMarco babysitting her and she was trying to be a friend by doing a lousy job. So far, Kate had been doing nothing but making her regret that.

  When they had reached the parking lot and headed for the car, DeMarco’s second call with Bannerman was over. “Where are we going?” DeMarco asked.

  “To check on a hunch.”

  “You sure it’s not just grasping at invisible straws so you don’t get reamed out in three hours?”

  The comment stung but Kate figured she deserved it. “No,” she said, shrugging the sting away. “Can I ask you to just trust me on something?”

  “On what? Kate, where the hell are we going?”

  “To look at some pianos.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  When Kate knocked on the door of the Hopkins home fifteen minutes later, she did not expect an answer, and she did not get one. There were no vehicles in the driveway and the place had the same feel she had gotten from the Lowell house yesterday—the feeling of sorrow and abandonment.

  She had held on to the key Bannerman had given them when they had first met. It was hard to think that it had only been a few days ago. When she unlocked the door and stepped inside, she gave a cautionary “Hello” to anyone who might be inside. The only thing that came back to her was a hollow noise that was not quite her echo.

  “Even if Knudsen turns out not to be the killer,” Kate said, “the fact remains that there was a piano in each home. It may seem like a small detail at first but, really, what is the percentage of homes you visit that have a piano?”

  “I don’t know,” DeMarco said. “I’ve never really thought of it. Far less than half, for sure.”

  They stepped into the den and strode over to the piano. As Kate stood beside it, she peered into the room directly attached to the den—the room that had once been an office for Karen Hopkins. From where she stood, she could see the vase containing the cotton stalks in the corner, a few of the stalks broken off.

  “You know much about pianos?” Kate asked DeMarco.

  “Virtu
ally nothing. Not even Chopsticks.”

  “I tinkered with it for a while when I was a kid,” Kate said. She started to circle the piano, a little disappointed in herself that she had nearly overlooked the damned thing the first time they had visited. She did remember being a bit awestruck by the piano in the Hix home—a baby grand Steinway.

  “Is this a nice one?” DeMarco asked.

  Kate sat down at the bench behind the keys. The cover was raised, the keys exposed and inviting. “I’m not too sure. It looks to be of a good quality. I’d hate to guess on the price, though.”

  “What are we looking for?” DeMarco asked. “Or was I right? Are you just…grasping?”

  “There might be some grasping,” Kate admitted.

  She sighed and rested her fingers on the keys. The feel of it brought a smile to her face. She had not even attempted to play in over ten years. Lazily, almost as if mocking her younger self, she slowly started to plink away at the first few notes of Beethoven’s “Fur Elise.” Her smile widened as the notes came out. She played slowly, messing up a few notes almost right away. It was not at all like riding a bicycle; apparently, you did not retain much, especially over the span of thirty-five years or so.

  She played no more than ten seconds of the song before she gave up. Just as she did, though, she hit a key that did not make a sound. It was almost as if her finger had skipped over it. She hit the key again and got the same thing.

  A dead note. Maybe she was grasping. Maybe she was…

  She looked back down at the keys. She reached back down and hit the key in question for a third time, middle C. It was indeed dead—not making the slightest sound other than some sad little thump inside the body.