Sweet Little Lies

by Bianca Sloane

  “Yeah, I’ve got someone watching her, and I’m working on tracking her cell phone.”

  “Make sure they stay on her. If Kelly Ross is going to anyone, she’s going to Shelia Stevens. She could lead us right to her.”

  They continued in silence, pulling up to the motel moments later. They made their way to the front, where a pretty young girl was standing at the front desk, typing on a computer. Hanson flashed his badge at the girl.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “Are you Julia Martinez?” Didi asked.

  The girl shook her head. “No, she’s in the back. Hang on, and I’ll get her.”

  The girl disappeared into a back room and, within seconds, Julia Martinez walked out.

  “May I help you?”

  “Detective Martin. This is my partner, Detective Hanson. Is there somewhere we can talk privately?”

  “Sure.” Julia gestured to two pink and blue plaid couches in the lobby. The trio sat down, Hanson and Didi on one couch, Julia facing them on another.

  “You said Kelly Ross stayed here last night. How do you know it was her?” Didi asked.

  “Well, I didn’t realize it was her at first. I mean, I thought she looked familiar, but then I was reading the paper on the El on my way to work today and saw her picture.”

  “What time did she check in?” Hanson asked.

  Julia screwed up her face in concentration. “Um, maybe about five-forty-five? Ten to? I know because I got off work at six, and she was the last person to check in on my shift.”

  Hanson licked his lips and leaned closer. “How was she acting?”

  “Um…she seemed dazed. She was very nice though. She made a point of looking at my nametag and calling me by name and saying thank you, which let me tell you, in this place? Not a lot of people do that. Gave me a really nice tip. Although, she had some blood on her shirt and hands. She said she’d dropped a glass and cut herself.”

  Hanson and Didi stole a quick look at each other. Julia Martinez was oblivious as she continued her story, wrapped up in her brush with celebrity.

  “It’s funny because I use her products. I used to have really bad acne, but I started using her stuff and bam! My skin cleared up in two weeks after ten years.”

  Didi and Hanson looked at each other again.

  “We need to see the room where she stayed,” Didi said.

  “Oh, sure. I’ll show you. Wait here a second.”

  Julia bopped over to the front desk to get the key for what had been Kelly Monroe’s room. Didi leaned over to Hanson, dropping her voice. “Perky little thing, isn’t she?”

  “Yeah, well, I’m glad that perky little thing was paying attention and called us.”

  Julia walked back over to the detectives and motioned for them to follow her. They took the elevator up to room four-twelve.

  “Damn it,” he mumbled as he looked around. Clean as a whistle.

  “You didn’t tell us the room had already been cleaned,” Didi said.

  Julia bit her lip. “Sorry, I forgot.”

  “How did she pay?” Didi asked.

  “Oh, uh, cash.” Julia cocked her head to one side. “She said because she only needed the room for one night, she wanted to pay cash.”

  “Any calls made from the room?” Didi asked.

  “Um, probably not. She kind of made a big deal about how she wouldn’t use the phone in the room, because she had a cell phone. I can check the records though just to be sure.”

  Hanson was walking around the room trying to see if perhaps Kelly Ross had left something behind that housekeeping had missed. Nothing. Fuck.

  “Who cleaned this room?” he asked.

  Julia frowned. “Our housekeeping staff,” she responded.

  “I want to talk to the person who cleaned it.”

  “Um, okay. I’ll check the log of who had this floor.”

  “Can we find out now about those phone calls while we’re at it?” Didi asked.

  “Oh, yeah, sure, we can get all that information from downstairs.”

  Julia came back up and reported that Kelly had made no calls. She then located the maid who had cleaned the room, and Hanson and Didi questioned her. She didn’t remember anything unusual about the room, but she hadn’t dumped her trash yet. She handed Hanson the bag containing the trash from the fourth floor. He asked her if she remembered what had been in the trashcan. She did remember a Walgreens bag; the only reason that stuck out was that it was the only room with trash from the drugstore; she didn’t remember anything else. He sifted through the trash, looking for anything that might lead them to Kelly Ross. They found the bag and, crumpled inside it, a receipt from Walgreens for a toothbrush and other toiletries. Hanson called Didi, and they raced across the street to Walgreens and demanded to see the store’s surveillance tapes from the previous night. The manager told them their machine had gone on the fritz last night and was being serviced but mentioned he’d been on duty the night before and, upon being shown her picture, did recall seeing Kelly Ross, because he’d rung her up. Down, but not out, Hanson handed the guy his card and said to call him if he thought of anything else.

  Didi and Hanson walked back to their car in silence.

  “Fuck,” Hanson finally muttered to break the quiet.

  Didi shook her head wryly. “I second that emotion.”

  It was right about then Hanson questioned why he’d given up smoking.

  “Alright, what have we got—a famous, exceptionally beautiful woman on the run from the police. She calls her best friend to let her know she’s okay. She spends the night at a motel, hits the Walgreens. She checks out of the motel at the crack of dawn. Where’s she going now?”

  “You tell me, Sherlock.”

  “She owns a bunch of houses, has access to a private jet. What have we got on those?”

  “Not a peep. They found her passport at the house last night, so we know she’s still in the U.S. at least.”

  “And nothing on the cell phone? It’s not pinging off any towers?”

  “Nothing.”

  Hanson licked his lips, getting excited. “Alright. Family? What have we got on the family?”

  “Parents still live in Evanston. I sent a uniform over there earlier. Neighbors said they went out of town for the weekend. Nothing with the sister in New York.”

  “Maybe she’s holed up in the house.”

  Didi allowed for this for a minute. “Maybe, but I doubt it,” she finally answered.

  “Why?”

  Didi scrunched up her face. “Like Shelia Stevens said, this is not a stupid woman. She may be a former supermodel, but you don’t run a multimillion-dollar company by being stupid. She’s not going to her family; she’s not doing anything or going anywhere that she thinks we’re gonna be looking for her.”

  Hanson leaned back against the blue sedan, frustrated. “Shit. You’re right. You’re right.” He pounded the door and chewed his bottom lip. He looked up at the city above them, searching for answers among the majestic skyline.

  “Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, come out, come out wherever you are,” he muttered.

  Happy Wife…

  After driving around with no clear plan, Kelly pulled her car into the parking lot of a strip mall, unable to stop thinking about Geneva and the boy. She looked at her watch. Four. She snorted. Twenty-four hours ago, she’d been packing up her cheating husband’s clothes. In a little over one hour, she would’ve killed her husband, fled the scene, and become a fugitive from justice.

  Kelly shook her head over how surreal it all was. Mark. Married. Mark. A father. She. A murderer.

  She was exhausted and needed to just lie down and close her eyes and process everything she’d learned today. She’d find a cheap motel, get some sleep, and call Sam Gordon. She’d let him handle this whole mess, because she’d had it. She started up the car. Gas…go get gas, find a motel, sleep, call Sam Gordon. She rubbed her eyes and headed out of the parking lot.

  •

  May
be he’d only married her for her money. He’d always talked about how hard his childhood was, how poor the family was and how it felt like all the money in the world would never be enough. Maybe meeting Mark at that party hadn’t been some incredible twist of fate. Maybe he’d been planning to kill her, make it look like an accident. Then he and Geneva would live happily ever after? So, what—he’d married this Geneva woman, and they decided Mark should find someone with lots of money so they could swindle her? Maybe she was supposed to be the first victim, kind of a test case. Maybe they planned for there to be many more rich women that he would marry and kill. It had all seemed so real though, their relationship.

  Was he just that good at faking it?

  She remembered when he’d proposed. They’d been dating about six months, and they both knew it was serious. It was the weekend of her birthday, and he’d told her a few days before that he had an old law school buddy coming into town and he wouldn’t be able to spend it with her, but that he’d make it up to her later. She was living at Water Tower Place, and he was at Lake Point Towers at the time, and that morning, he’d called her and begged her to come over, because he needed her help. She’d thrown on some sweats and a baseball cap and trudged over there. He gave her a sob story about how he had to go to work and his buddy was supposed to stay with him, but the house was a mess and his cleaning lady wasn’t scheduled to come until Tuesday and could she clean up the apartment? She’d been beyond pissed. First, he bails on her birthday, now he wanted her to scrub his fucking toilet?

  She turned around to storm out, but he promised her he’d make it up to her like she wouldn’t believe. He handed her a mop and bucket and left. She’d thrown the mop and bucket in the bathroom and walked out the door. She got downstairs and found Mark leaning against a limo, hands full of a dozen long-stemmed roses and a bottle of champagne. He told her not to ask a lot of questions and it would all be worth it.

  They arrived at the airport, and he said they were going away for the weekend and not to worry about clothes; they’d take care of that when they got where they were going. He’d even swiped her passport the last time he’d been over. They boarded a private plane, but Mark still wouldn’t tell her where they were headed. It wasn’t until they touched down in Cabo did Kelly have a clue where they were. They spent the weekend frolicking in the surf, eating exotic foods, drinking gigantic frothy cocktails, and lusting after each other. All they worried about was being in love and making love, whenever and wherever they could.

  In fact, they were in bed when Mark proposed. He asked if she was enjoying her birthday, and she responded it was her best birthday yet. The next thing she knew, he flashed a diamond the size of a doorknob and said he hoped this would always be a birthday to remember and would she marry him. Kelly didn’t exactly remember saying yes but knew she must have judging by Mark’s reaction. Three months later, after pulling a lot of strings for such short notice, they had a small but tasteful wedding at The Drake. It had been an incredible day, and they had settled into a happy life together.

  And now…he’d been laughing at her all these years, plotting to kill her and take her money and live with his real wife.

  Son Of A Bitch…

  It was late Sunday afternoon before Roy Monroe arrived at the Cook County Morgue to meet with Detectives Hanson and Martin. He’d been dreading this trip all morning and had put it off as long as he could before he finally got in the car and made the drive to Chicago. He was sitting stiff-backed in a hard wooden chair, waiting, when a young-looking blond guy came up to him.

  “Roy Monroe? Detective Bill Hanson.”

  “I thought a Detective Martin would be meeting me?”

  “She’s chasing down a few leads right now. Right this way.”

  The guy motioned for Roy to follow him, and he had to walk fast to keep up. It was a long walk to wherever they were going, and with each step, he became more and more apprehensive, and his heart pounded a little louder. Hanson went to open the door when he stopped and turned to Roy.

  “You okay, man?”

  Roy nodded. “Yeah, let’s just get this over with.”

  Hanson looked down and turned the knob, ushering Roy inside. The room was drab and gray. What else could be expected from a room in such close proximity to dead people? He took a seat at the battered grey metal table, his hands clenched in front of him. A tiny TV mounted on the wall next to him flickered in black and white, and as Roy looked closer, he could see it was trained on a massive form was draped in a white sheet. The camera clicked and zoomed towards the face.

  “Are you ready?” Hanson asked.

  Roy just nodded, his eyes affixed to that sheet, half expecting to see a little bubble of breath underneath it, like when he and Mark would play dead as kids, but of course they’d never fooled anybody.

  Well, there was no fooling now; Hanson spoke into a microphone, instructing the M.E. to pull back the sheet to reveal the face. Roy stared, his eyes clouding over. It was his brother. Cold. Pale.

  Dead.

  Roy nodded and pushed back from the table, his head plummeting toward his knees as he fought off the waves of nausea.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Monroe.”

  “Um…could I just get a glass of water or something? I’m really hot all of a sudden.”

  Roy could see Hanson’s feet scoot back from the table and could hear the gulps of the bottled water dispenser across the room.

  “If you want a minute alone, I can come back,” Hanson said, handing him a paper cup of water.

  Roy held up his hand and shook his head before guzzling the water. “Naw, man. It’s alright. You can stay.”

  “Mr. Monroe, I do need to ask you some questions. Let’s go to a different room.”

  Roy rubbed his eyes and nodded, surprised to find them wet once again. He sniffed and followed the guy out to a small box of a room just down the hall. There was a table and two metal chairs, one of which Hanson pulled out himself and indicated Roy should take the other one. Hanson reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out his notebook.

  “How much older than you was Mark?”

  “We were seven years apart.”

  “Were you close?”

  Roy chuckled and shook his head. “Man, you didn’t get no closer than me and Mark. After Daddy died, it was just us—and Mama of course.”

  “When did your mother die?”

  “About a week after Mark graduated from college. It’s like she was willing herself to live to see that day. I was in high school.”

  “So what happened between you two?”

  Roy hung his head for a moment before he looked back up and let his gaze settle on Hanson. “It was really hard on Mark when Daddy died. There wasn’t any money left after the funeral—barely any before, really—and Mark worked two jobs from the time he was thirteen all the way through high school. Paper routes, mowing lawns, that kinda thing. Mama cleaned houses, took in laundry. All she ever wanted for either of us was to get a good education and make somethin’ of ourselves. She didn’t want us to struggle the way she and Daddy had.” Roy stopped and swallowed before he continued. “Besides trying to put himself through school and take care of Mama, he was putting a little bit of money aside to send me to school when it was time. Well, after Mama died, Mark was going to law school and I moved in with a neighbor. It was my junior year of high school, and I got my girlfriend pregnant. I had to drop out of school and get a job—I got married. Mark…he was so mad at me. Told me I was throwing my life away and didn’t I appreciate the sacrifices he and Mama had made for me. But you know how it is man…I was seventeen, in love.

  “Well, the marriage didn’t work out, and I never went to college. I wandered around for a few years, drinkin’, partyin’, moving here, moving there, trying to get my head together, before I got this job at the factory. I for sure don’t pull down the kind of money my brother does—did…damn…but I do alright. Just made supervisor. My little girl is taken care of, and I’m engaged to get married ne
xt year to a great lady. Mark and I…well, we were starting to mend the fence a little, but…we had a ways to go.”

  “Did you ever meet his wife?”

  Roy shook his head before letting it drop to his chest. “No. I couldn’t make the wedding cause I was laid up in the hospital with a broken leg,” he mumbled, his voice cracking. “We was working our way back together. Even talked about him coming for a visit, me coming up here one day soon. Reconnect.”

  “Was your brother the type to play the field?”

  “Mark? Um, well…damn. I’m not even gonna front, he definitely got around, but…I mean, when they got married, I got the impression all of that stopped.”

  Hanson stared at Roy briefly before he continued. “What had he told you about his wife?”

  Roy gave a non-committal shrug. “Not much. He said she was a really nice lady and that she made him happy. He liked her family. I mean from everything I could tell, he was set.” Roy stopped. “Did she really kill him?”

  Hanson rubbed the side of his face. “Well, we’re still waiting for the autopsy results, but it looks like she was responsible. He was stepping out, and she found out about it.”

  “Are you sure? I mean, there ain’t no mistake?”

  Hanson nodded. “Yeah. We found evidence that supports it.”

  Roy leaned against the metal back of the chair and exhaled the air he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Son of a bitch.”

  Monday Morning…

  Portia Walker was an extremely meticulous person, both in her personal and professional lives. Her closet was color-coordinated, she knew exactly how many number ten envelopes she kept in her desk, and balanced her checkbook to the penny each and every time she used it. Nothing got past her, which was why she was so good at her job. Mr. Monroe was always telling her what an asset she was. Pleasing him pleased her.

  If only…

  Portia was so jealous of her boss’ wife. She was so beautiful, and people just naturally liked her. Not like Portia, who made people uncomfortable with her shyness, awkwardness, and sometimes condescending demeanor. What Portia really hated was how nice Mrs. Monroe was. As long as Portia had been Mr. Monroe’s administrative assistant, Mrs. Monroe always sent her the most beautiful and thoughtful birthday, Christmas, and Secretary Day’s gifts. A spa day at Kiva, five thousand dollar gift certificates to Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, or Saks, tickets to shows. That’s what made it so hard to hate her, but Portia did. She had loved Mark Monroe the minute she’d been assigned to work for him. So handsome and so nice. She often fantasized about what it would be like to be his wife, to go home to him every night, have dinner together, have little jokes between them…make love to each other. She hadn’t stopped crying since she heard he’d been murdered. How could Mrs. Monroe do that to that wonderful man? She had never deserved him or his love.