The Reveal: A Detectives Seagate and Miner Mystery (Book 6)

by Mike Markel

  Ryan turned suddenly and came back to the couch. He sat down. “Ms. Moranu, you’re aware that Virginia Rinaldi is dead, right?”

  “Saw the television.”

  “Thank you. Now, what were you doing at Virginia Rinaldi’s house Monday night, around eight-thirty?”

  “Guest speaker.”

  He shook his head. “Remember what I just said about lying to us? What were you doing at Virginia Rinaldi’s house Monday night, around eight-thirty?

  “Fight with Virginia, leave the house.”

  “All right, good.” He nodded. “Now, what did you fight about?”

  “Don’t remember.”

  “I thought we’d come to an understanding. I’m going to ask you one more time: What did you fight about?”

  “Still don’t remember.”

  Ryan showed a hint of a smile. I could tell he liked her spirit. She returned the small smile, then raised her chin a bit. She had guessed—correctly—that he didn’t know the answer to this question. She had won the point.

  “What was your relationship with Virginia Rinaldi?”

  “Lawyer.”

  Ryan shook his head sadly. “Ms. Moranu, you’re not under arrest. You don’t ask for a lawyer. We’re just trying to understand what happened at Virginia Rinaldi’s house.”

  Ryan was walking right up to the line. Although he wasn’t exactly saying that she can’t ask for a lawyer because she wasn’t under arrest, he wanted her to interpret it that way. Fact is, you can refuse to talk to a cop whenever you want. You don’t have to be under arrest. And you can talk to an attorney anytime you want. All you have to do is pick up a phone and call one.

  She raised a finger to her mouth and bit at the nail. She seemed to believe Ryan’s line.

  Ryan softened his tone. “We know you didn’t hurt her.”

  She exhaled slowly. Her shoulders appeared to relax.

  “Let me ask that question again. What was your relationship with Virginia Rinaldi?”

  “I don’t understand question.”

  Ryan frowned and shook his head. “You realize we’ve been to her house. We’ve gone over it, room-by-room. You know that, don’t you? If there’s something in her house that we can identify as yours—you know, something with your DNA on it, like a hairbrush or a toothbrush or a strand of hair on a blouse—and we can match it to your DNA, any jury in the state will know what your relationship with Virginia Rinaldi was. You do understand that, don’t you?”

  This definitely wasn’t true. We had her fingerprints from her prostitution arrests, but we didn’t have her DNA because she was never convicted of a felony. And we couldn’t grab her DNA now. But she probably didn’t know this, either.

  Krista turned her head and began to gaze over Ryan’s shoulder again. She had decided she wasn’t going to cooperate anymore.

  “What was your relationship with Virginia Rinaldi?”

  She wouldn’t look at him. “I stayed at her house sometimes.”

  At that moment I knew Krista wasn’t living with Virginia to hide from her pimp, Christopher James Barlow. Maybe he was looking for Virginia Rinaldi, found her, and killed her. Maybe Krista and Barlow killed her together. But the way she said it—“I stayed at her house sometimes”—told me she was living there because she wanted to. She had some kind of intimate relationship with Virginia.

  Krista wasn’t thinking about playing us. And she wasn’t thinking about how we might find some evidence showing she had killed Virginia. She was uncomfortable about her relationship with Virginia. And I knew Ryan’s line of questioning wasn’t going to get us any more information.

  I shifted my position on the couch. It was my signal to Ryan that I wanted to question her. “Elena.” I spoke softly. She turned to me. “I want to talk to you about Christopher James Barlow.”

  She held my gaze but said nothing.

  “Your pimp.”

  “I have no pimp. Only prostitute has pimp.”

  “You’ve been arrested three times in Rawlings for prostitution.”

  “No conviction.”

  “Elena.” I spoke slowly. “I want you to understand what’s happening here. Because I think you might be very close to making a serious mistake. We have fourteen witnesses say you had a fight with Virginia upstairs, then stormed out of the house carrying a backpack. About an hour-and-a-half later, Virginia Rinaldi is lying dead at the bottom of the stairs. She didn’t slip and fall. She was murdered.”

  I paused. Krista was looking at me intently, trying not to show her pain. But her eyes were glistening with tears, and her lower lip was trembling a little.

  Homicide detectives see that a lot, from people who loved the victims—and sometimes from people who killed them. It can be really hard to tell the two apart.

  “We know that the most likely killer was an associate. A family member, a friend, a lover. So here’s where we are. You’re uncomfortable talking about your relationship with Virginia. I get that. But it’s obvious you cared about her. I can see that. Detective Miner can see that. We need to figure out what happened after you left that night. It’s one of two things: Either you came back to the house, and there was a fight, a physical confrontation between you and Virginia, or someone else went over to her house and killed her.

  “You can refuse to talk to us, tell us you want a lawyer, tell us you’re not a prostitute—you can say whatever you want. But all that’s gonna do is confirm it was you killed her. Or … you can help us figure out who did kill her.”

  I paused. A tear slid down her cheek. She brushed it away quickly with a finger.

  “Now, Elena, are you going to talk to us about Christopher James Barlow?”

  “Why you think it was him?”

  This caught me a little off guard. I expected her to want to shift in that direction, not get defensive on his behalf. “We need to talk to him. He’s a violent guy. He’s served a couple of stretches in prison—not just for running girls like you. He has a history of violence. We think it’s a good chance he did it or arranged to have it done.”

  “Maybe one of the students.”

  “Listen, Elena, whatever happened that night, whatever Barlow said to you … if he threatened you, we can protect you. Did he do this to Virginia to send you a message?”

  “No message. It wasn’t Mr. Barlow.”

  “Explain it to us, Elena. Tell us what happened. Tell us how you know it wasn’t Mr. Barlow.” I sat there, leaning toward her, my palms outstretched. “You owe it to Virginia to help us find whoever killed her. How do you know it wasn’t Mr. Barlow? Who was it?”

  She put her hands up over her face and lowered her head. She began to cry. After a half-minute, she sat up. “No more talking to you.”

  “Don’t do this, Elena. Come down to headquarters with us, tell us what happened. If it was a fight with Virginia and she fell by accident … I don’t know. You two were upstairs, in the hall. Maybe she pushed you, you pushed her back. It was an accident. There wouldn’t be any charges against you. It was an accident. These things happen all the time. But your best move is to tell us about it now.”

  She picked at a fingernail and shook her head no.

  “Elena, if it was Mr. Barlow … listen, we understand why you’re afraid of him. If you tell us you saw him do it, we can pick him up, have him in jail within the hour. He won’t be able to hurt you. But if you won’t work with us, we need to tell our boss you’re uncooperative and you have no alibi.” I stopped. “Tell us what it’s gonna be, Elena.”

  “No more talking.”

  “Elena Moranu, where did you go after you left Virginia Rinaldi’s house Monday night around eight-thirty?”

  She shook her head and studied her cuticle.

  “Can anybody vouch for you—where you were that evening after eight-thirty? Did you meet up with a john, Elena?”

  She did not speak. She did not raise her head.

  “Elena Moranu, did you kill Virginia Rinaldi?

  This time, she lifted her e
yes. She shook her head, just a little bit, then held my gaze. She wasn’t just telling me she didn’t kill Virginia. She was telling me it was a stupid question, that it was obvious she couldn’t have killed Virginia.

  I waited a few beats, then looked at Ryan. I stood up and turned toward the door. Ryan and I walked out of the apartment. A minute later, we were at the cruiser.

  “Shit.” I opened the door to the Charger. “I thought she was gonna cooperate.”

  “We gave her every opportunity. I think she’s just too scared.”

  “Of her pimp?”

  “That’s right.” Ryan doesn’t get frustrated when interviews don’t break the right way. To him, it’s all a part of the puzzle. He tries to figure out what happened—and how to come at the suspect again.

  “So, we know she was in a sexual relationship with the victim.”

  “Yes, we know that,” he said. “But we don’t know anything else. The death could have been an accident. Or Elena killed her. Or Elena and the pimp. Or just the pimp.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Until we figure out the relationship between the two women, we’re spinning our wheels.”

  “Problem is,” I said, “Virginia can’t tell us, and Elena won’t.”

  “Which gives us two options: we force Elena to tell us or we get someone else to tell us.”

  “Time to interview Christopher James Barlow?”

  “I think it is,” Ryan said.

  Chapter 13

  We drove out toward the address we had for Christopher James Barlow, Elena Moranu’s pimp. He lived inside The Pines, a gated community.

  I punched in the year plus pound, which is the generic code for all the gated communities in town. The bronze gate swung open smoothly and almost silently. “You think the other residents are okay with their neighbor being a pimp?”

  Ryan smiled. “Not sure he introduces himself that way at cocktail parties.”

  A thirty-foot ribbon of uncut plains grasses bordered the main street on both sides as it wound its way past the pool and tennis courts into the upscale residential area. Tall pines threw shade on the black road, which looked recently resurfaced. The annoying whine of lawn equipment told me we were coming up to the million-dollar homes. I counted four lawn-care trucks with their utility trailers crammed full of riding mowers, push mowers, blowers, edgers, and all sizes and shapes of rakes. Blue plastic tarps dotted the lush green lawns and ornate gardens. The place was crawling with Hispanic guys wearing long-sleeved shirts and wide-brimmed hats, guys who were welcome once a week inside the gates, as long as they used the portable toilets on the flatbed trailers.

  We parked on the street at 24 Elsmore, a stone and stucco place with a brick semicircular drive leading to a three-car garage and a double-door entryway to the main house. “Pimps make more than we do,” I said as we walked up the herringbone-patterned brick pathway to the front door.

  Ryan knocked. “A lot of people make more than we do.”

  Through the frosted glass on the side of the door I saw a figure approach the foyer. It was a woman. There was a pause, while she presumably looked us over through the peephole.

  The door opened. She was about thirty-five, tall, with brunette hair and gold loop earrings framing a long, thin face. Her skin was pale, with hints of freckles. “Can I help you?” She offered us a polite smile.

  “Good morning.” I returned the smile and introduced me and Ryan. Her smile disappeared. Most people do some serious brick shitting when cops stop by unannounced. They want to know if their daughter is all right—that kind of thing. Not this woman. Over the years, she had probably learned cops wanted to chat with Christopher James Barlow or take him for a ride in the cruiser. I asked if he was in.

  “This way.” Without introducing herself, she turned and led us into a living room full of high-end leather and cloth furniture, matching oak end tables, brass lamps, all sitting on gleaming wood floors and brightly patterned modern throw rugs. We walked past a ten-foot long gas fireplace built into what looked like a marble wall. A TV set, almost as wide, was mounted above the fireplace.

  She led us to a set of French doors and knocked. A man’s voice inside the room said, “Come in.” The woman opened the door, stepped back, and left.

  The room was designed to look like a library in an old movie. Off to one side sat a couple of wingback chairs and a loveseat with nailhead accents. Two walls were covered with dark-wood bookshelves that extended all the way to the ceiling, complete with ladders on tracks. In the center of the room was a heavy mahogany desk. Off to the side of the desk, at a right angle, was a more modern table with a computer, twin screens, and a printer.

  A man of about forty stood up from a leather chair at the big desk. He had a sturdy build, a little under six feet but a good two-hundred pounds. His dark sandy hair was starting to go grey at the temples. Wire-rimmed glasses sat on his long nose. He was dressed Friday casual, with a crisply pressed cotton shirt, blue and white stripes, over navy gabardine slacks.

  His smile showed a good set of teeth, a couple shades too white for his age. “Chris Barlow.” He extended his hand.

  “Detective Karen Seagate. My partner, Detective Ryan Miner.” We all shook hands.

  Unlike the woman—his wife?—Christopher James Barlow maintained his smile, as if he expected us to tell him he’d just won a Citizen of the Year award. He gestured for us to sit in the two leather club chairs in front of his desk.

  He remained standing. “Can I get you something to drink?” He pointed to a wet bar along the wall. “Soft drinks? Water? Coffee, tea?”

  “No, thank you, Mr. Barlow. I see you’re working. We won’t take much of your time.”

  He stepped around behind his desk and sat in his leather chair. “Not at all, Detective. I’m just finishing up some late tax returns.” His self-satisfied expression suggested that it was important that we see him as a legitimate citizen—a successful legitimate citizen.

  Ryan said, “You’re a CPA, is that correct, Mr. Barlow?”

  “Yes, I am.” Christopher James Barlow bowed his head slightly, flattered that a police officer was treating him respectfully. I took Ryan’s comment the other way: he was signaling that he had done his homework on Barlow.

  “I’m a little surprised,” Ryan said, “what with your felonies, I mean.”

  Barlow forced a closed-lips smile. “You’re correct that I am not practicing as an accountant anymore, Detective. I surrendered my license several years ago.” He pointed to the large computer screens on his desk. “I’m simply helping some friends. I don’t sign off on the returns. It’s very informal.”

  “And the pimping?” I said. “Is that informal or informal?”

  He raised an eyebrow, then turned on his full smile. “Detective Seagate, how can I help you today?”

  I gave him an official smile. “We’re here to talk with you about the death of Virginia Rinaldi.”

  He put on a confused expression, then shook his head. “I’ve been quite busy.” He gestured to the screens again.

  “The professor at the university? Fell down the stairs? It was on the news yesterday.”

  “Sorry.” Still confused.

  “Krista’s girlfriend?”

  His eyes darted to the side for just an instant, but he pretended not to recognize the name.

  “Elena Moranu. One of your girls.”

  He sighed, then assumed his smile. “I don’t know anyone named Krista—or Elena. Moranu, you said?”

  “Tell you what, Mr. Barlow. We could take you in to headquarters now, let you sit in Holding for a while. We can keep you for forty-eight hours before we charge or release. Or you can talk to us right here, and we’ll be done. Ten minutes, maximum. What’s your choice?”

  “Let’s talk here, Detective. You stop accusing me of being a pimp, and I’ll stop denying it. If you have any questions for me, I’ll be happy to answer them fully and honestly, to the best of my ability. Would that work for you?”

  “Yes.” I nodd
ed. “Let’s do that. But keep this in mind: If I conclude you’re not cooperating, we will drive you to police headquarters, and you will sit on a concrete bench in a small cell with some other gentlemen who don’t share your interest in personal hygiene and good grooming.”

  “I understand that. Please ask your first question.”

  “If you were a pimp, and Krista was one of your higher-end girls, and she moved in with Professor Rinaldi, would that upset you?”

  “If I were a pimp, I would take no interest in where she lived—or with whom—assuming she continued to perform her customary duties. Many prostitutes are bisexual or lesbian. From what I have read.”

  I waved my hand. “This is all hypothetical. There’s no need to keep saying you don’t know Krista.”

  “All right, it’s all hypothetical.”

  “If one of your girls decided to break away and go freelance, what would you do?”

  “I wouldn’t do anything. As long as she settled any outstanding accounts by paying me the commission for transactions she had already completed, I would wish her well and wave goodbye.”

  “Now, that surprises me. A girl who grosses five hundred and up per day, you wouldn’t be tempted to exert even a little pressure to keep her in the stable.”

  He tilted his head to signal that his next point was going to be educational. “Tempted, perhaps. Just as I might be tempted to cut corners in reporting a client’s income on a 1040. Being tempted is one thing; giving in to temptation is quite another. I make a comfortable living because I understand that basic distinction. Most people do not.”

  “So you’re saying you didn’t try to intimidate Krista in any way?”

  He shook his head, like I was a slow student. “Intimidation doesn’t work—at least, not in the long run. If your supervisor tries to bully you into doing something, you’ll spend your time trying to figure out how resist him. It’s a basic principle of personnel management. You need to communicate the values that underlie your business. If you can motivate your people to work according to those values, you will never need to intimidate or bully them. If I treat the girls well, they stay motivated and do an excellent job. Everyone’s happy, everyone makes money.” He paused. “If I ran girls, of course.”