by Mary Burton
He wasn’t sure if she was nervous by nature or hiding something. He took a risk and fed her a detail. “The woman in the picture is dead. And the work on her face was done in the last month. I’m trying to piece together her last weeks.”
Her face paled. “I never met her, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“But you have an idea who might have done the work?”
“No. I really don’t. But I can ask around. This guy has an obsession with dolls?”
“I believe so.” He handed her a business card. “Please call me if you hear of any helpful information.”
“Sure.” She studied the card a beat. “How does the work done on her face relate to her death?”
He had already tossed her a couple of morsels of information, but no more. “Can’t say. Keep in touch. Thanks.”
Sharp and Vargas arrived at Diane Richardson’s Monument Avenue house just after two. The historic redbrick town house had been built circa 1912 and had floor-to-ceiling front windows as well as a wide front porch stretching the length of the house. A large planter on the porch was filled with dried and withered marigolds.
Vargas touched a brittle blossom. “My plants look like this, though I’ll bet she didn’t forget to water hers.”
“How long does it take for a plant like this to die?” Sharp asked.
“Under a covered porch like this in mild weather? A couple of weeks.”
Sharp nodded. “Did you speak to Diane Richardson’s parents?”
“I did as soon as the doctor identified her. They’re shattered. They couldn’t talk and asked that I come back. They’re expecting me this afternoon.”
“I’ll come with you,” Sharp said.
“Sure.”
Sharp studied the building’s brick exterior and looked inside the brass mail slot centered in the front door. “There are no signs of forced entry on the lock. A month’s worth of mail is scattered on the floor inside. No newspapers.”
“Not too many people get the newspaper delivered anymore.”
Sharp checked his watch. “When is the leasing agent going to be here?”
“Any second.”
The sound of high heels clicking on the sidewalk had them both turning to find a neatly dressed woman in a dark A-line skirt, white blouse, and red heels. Her blond hair was twisted into a knot, and gold hoop earrings dangled. Keys jangled in her hand as she hurried up the brick front steps.
“You must be with the police,” she said. Expensive perfume wafted as she brushed bangs from her eyes.
“I’m Agent Sharp with the Virginia State Police, and this is Agent Vargas. We’re here to see Diane Richardson’s place.”
“I’m Gina Heath, the property manager.” She thumbed through a ring of keys. “I understand you have a search warrant.”
Sharp reached in his notebook and pulled it out. “Would you like to read it?”
“Yes. I need to justify your entry just in case I have an issue with Ms. Richardson or her family.”
“Ms. Richardson is dead,” Vargas said.
Frowning, the woman scanned the paper. “My maintenance man said her mother called him a couple of hours ago and wanted to get into the apartment. He said she sounded upset.”
Ms. Heath found the right key and handed the search warrant back to Sharp. “What happened?”
“Can’t say right now,” Sharp said.
Her gaze held his for a beat, and then she shoved the key in the lock. It didn’t work. After a couple more tries, she discovered the right key and the dead bolt clicked open. “Sorry, I haven’t been on this property in the three years since Ms. Richardson rented it. She is—was—a model tenant.”
Ms. Heath pushed open the door and knelt to carefully collect the mail, piling the envelopes into a neat stack and setting them on a small entryway table. She clicked on the light.
The house had ten-foot ceilings, and from the front entry, Sharp could see through to the kitchen. A stairway to his left climbed to the second floor, and to the right were two large rooms. The first was a living room and the second a dining room. His footsteps echoed through the house as he made his way toward the kitchen. The room was bright with granite countertops and modern light fixtures. A large window looked out on a narrow grassy yard with a small table on a slate patio.
“I checked her records,” Ms. Heath said. “According to her rental application, she was a marketing director for a chain of restaurants in the central Virginia area. I don’t know if the employment information is still correct, but I made a copy of her application.” She removed the photocopy and handed it to Vargas. “Now you know all I know about her.”
Sharp glanced at the application. “What’s the rent here?”
“Thirty-five hundred a month plus utilities.”
“That’s kind of tough to swing on a fifty-thousand-dollar annual salary,” Vargas said as she looked up from the application.
“She had a trust fund.” The woman’s gaze swept the front living room. “One look at the furniture and you can see there had to be money in her family.”
“Or she had more creative ways to make her money,” Vargas said.
Ms. Heath frowned. “I doubt that. She didn’t strike me as the type.”
“What’s the type look like?” Vargas challenged.
“I’ve been in property management for a long time, Agent. I know trouble when I see it.”
Vargas moved to the hallway and picked up the stacked mail. “You would be surprised, Ms. Heath, how people make their money or what trouble really looks like.”
“She had a real job.”
“It didn’t cover the rent. And a real job doesn’t mean she wasn’t moonlighting. Drugs and prostitution are both great ways to make some sizable cash on the side.”
The woman tugged at the hem of her shirt. “I approved her application. She gave me the bank account information confirming a sizable amount of money she told me was a trust fund payment.”
“And you were able to verify the money’s source?” Vargas asked.
“No. But you’re wrong about her,” Ms. Heath said.
“We’re trying to find out how she died, Ms. Heath,” Sharp said. “That means we have to ask some unpleasant questions.”
“Diane wasn’t trouble,” Ms. Heath said.
“Did you do regular maintenance on the apartment?” Sharp asked.
“Sure. We come in every six months to change the filters and check for issues, such as damage to floors or walls, as well as pets. This is a no-pet property.”
“Did maintenance ever find anything out of the ordinary?” Sharp asked.
“Not that I’m aware of, but I’ve contacted our man and he should be here soon.”
Sharp walked up the polished front stairs to the second floor. The first room on the left was a guest room and office combination. All neat. Nicely decorated. Again, screamed money. The next room was a renovated bathroom fitted with white marble tile and a walk-in shower and claw-foot tub. When he and Tessa were first married, she had moved into the small place he’d rented on Libby Avenue. Bathroom counter space had been nil. There was no tub and only a small shower just big enough for the two of them. How many times had he stepped into that shower and rubbed against her?
Shaking off the memory, he opened the medicine cabinet and found a collection of pill bottles. By their looks, they were for anxiety and depression. He took a picture with his phone and moved to the bedroom. Dominating the center was a mahogany bed with a canopy. Nothing about the room struck him as off.
Vargas appeared at the door. “Ms. Heath said the maintenance man is here.”
“Okay.”
Downstairs, Ms. Heath ended her call and nodded toward a beat-up red truck. “That’s my superintendent of properties, Mike Bauer.”
A midsize man wearing jeans, heavy work boots, and a green T-shirt got out of the truck. Graying thick hair was brushed back off a lean face. His muscles were taut, and he had the look of a body builder.
&
nbsp; Sharp extended his hand to the man and made introductions.
Bauer’s grip was strong. “Yes, sir, what can I do for you?”
Sharp repeated the questions he’d asked Ms. Heath. “The place was always clean and well kept,” Bauer said. “No pets. I changed the filters. Her place was always nice. I was here a week ago, and I noticed the dead plants. That’s not like her, so I took extra time walking the property.”
“And?” Sharp prompted.
“In the back alley, I found a doll shoved in her trash bin. The can was already full, so the doll was sitting on top. It seemed odd. Garbage hadn’t been picked up the week before, so it was lucky I saw it.”
“What kind of doll was it?” Sharp’s gaze locked on Vargas, who looked up when he said doll.
“One of those old-fashioned types. White face. Heart-shaped lips. Frilly dress. If you saw one, you’d recognize it.”
Sharp’s muscles snapped with interest. “What did you do with the doll?”
Bauer shrugged. “It was in the trash.”
“That’s not what I asked,” Sharp said.
Bauer hesitated. “I took it. It was in perfectly good shape, and it seemed a shame to waste it.”
“Do you still have the doll?”
“I was going to give it to my daughter.”
“We need to see it,” Vargas said. “It might be evidence.”
“But it was in the trash.”
“It’s evidence. I need you to bring it to the station, or I can send a patrolman to your house for it.”
“I get off in a few hours. Send someone by the house.” Bauer rattled off his address. “Can I get it back?”
Sharp shook his head. “If it’s linked to a case as evidence, not until the case has been settled.”
“How long is that?”
“Years,” Vargas shot back.
“Why are you all so worried about a doll?” Ms. Heath asked.
“I can’t say,” Sharp said.
Bauer tossed a glance at Sharp, then headed back to his truck. “I’ll get you the doll.”
Sharp followed and handed him his card. “Thanks.”
As Bauer drove off and Ms. Heath locked the home, Sharp and Vargas moved several paces away before Sharp said, “Recent medication in the cabinet tells me she was being treated for anxiety within the last couple of months.”
“So what was stressing her out?”
“I don’t know if she was having other issues or perhaps figured out someone was watching her and sending her little keepsakes that made her uncomfortable.”
Vargas’s cell phone chimed with a text message. She checked and nodded. “Department of Motor Vehicles just sent over a picture of Diane Richardson without all the crap on her face. Despite it being a DMV photo, she really was a stunning woman. I’d have killed for those cheekbones.”
He accepted the phone and studied the black-and-white photo. Memories stirred in the shadows. “Diane E. Richardson.” He said the name hoping to jostle free a memory.
Vargas checked her notes. “Diane Emery Richardson. Richardson was her married name. She has been divorced four years.”
“Diane Emery?”
“You say her name like you know her.”
Where had he heard the name? And then it clicked. “My sister had a friend in high school and college by the name of Diane Emery.” There’d been four girls that first semester at college who’d all been friends in high school and then in college.
Kara, Diane, Elena, and Tessa.
“Your sister died, right?”
“She died of an overdose. Twelve years ago.” The back of his skull burned with a warning. He’d learned quickly never to ignore the feeling. He dialed Andrews’s number. He answered on the second ring.
“Loading your files into my computer.”
“Andrews, I just identified a murder victim we found in a local park. Her name was Diane Emery Richardson. She was a good friend of my sister, Kara, at the time of her death.”
“I came across her name in several of Knox’s files. He interviewed her twice.”
“Cause of death was a high amount of narcotics in her system via an IV. Her face was tattooed to look like a doll’s.”
Andrews didn’t speak, but Sharp knew he had his full attention.
“Kara had been missing for days before she was found. The crime scene photos I saw were either blurred or didn’t show her face. I’m hoping Knox had other pictures.”
“Witness statements report your sister had been to a Halloween party, and she and several of her friends went dressed as dolls, but your sister was wearing a red dress. One of those friends was Diane Emery.”
Sharp’s heart hammered in his chest. What were the chances Kara and a good friend of hers had died in the same manner? Drug overdoses weren’t unheard of, but his instincts, which had never failed him, said otherwise. And in both cases, there’d been a link to dolls.
“My sister hated dolls,” Sharp said. “Everyone knew she couldn’t stand them. That explains why she wasn’t dressed as one.”
“There was no evidence of tattooing on your sister’s face, nor was there any makeup from what I can see.”
Emotions Sharp had struggled to keep locked away for years clamored for freedom. He shoved them all back into their dark recess and forced his mind to focus. “The cases could be connected.”
After a pause, “Feed me what details you can on your active case. I’ll analyze both cases separately and see if evidence connects.”
“Understood.” The call disconnected. Sharp checked his watch and shoved his phone in his pocket.
“So what was that all about?” Vargas asked.
“I don’t know. I’m going to find Tessa. She knew my sister and Diane Emery.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Friday, October 7, 4:00 p.m.
Tessa was finishing the last of a stack of HR forms when she felt him. The familiar tightening in her gut told her Sharp was close. Setting her pen aside, she looked up. He was standing in her doorway, studying her.
Slowly she rose, sensing this was the moment he was going to insist she file the papers and be done with their marriage. “Is everything all right?”
He walked into her office, his tall frame dominating the space. Boxes filled with medical books and unhanged framed diplomas lined the wall behind her desk. His gaze settled on a picture resting on the top box. It was taken of her in the jungle six months ago.
He frowned. “What can you tell me about Diane Emery?”
What had prompted that question? “Diane was one of our friends from town. There were four of us from town who went to the college.”
“I remember Kara mentioning her, but not much else.” At her desk, he picked up a paperweight given to her when she’d made the honor society in medical school. Slowly he turned it over in his hand. “I remember you. But not Diane, or Elena.”
“We all knew each other in high school, but we didn’t get together much outside of school. We four roomed side by side on the same freshman hallway, but you were in Iraq then. I was Kara’s roommate, and Diane and Elena stayed in the room next to ours.”
“She never mentioned Diane to me.” How many times had he tried to recall their last conversations together, she wondered. “But then there were always other things to talk about. Mom. Roger. College applications. She did say she had friends from high school going to college with her.”
“Why the questions about Diane?”
He looked at her with no hints of emotion. “Diane Emery was the Jane Doe on your table yesterday.”
The familiar name of an old friend was the last she’d have expected to hear. Her memories of Diane dated back twelve years to college, when they’d been so excited about striking out on their own. A cold knot settled in her gut. “Diane Emery is our Jane Doe? That victim’s last name is Richardson.”
“Richardson was her married name.”
“God, I thought there was something familiar about her, but I didn’t make the
connection.” Sadness strangled her heart. “Are you sure? The Diane I knew just wouldn’t end up like this.”
“How long has it been since you’ve seen Diane?”
She was irritated and disappointed with herself for not knowing the woman on the table had been a friend.
“I haven’t seen her in twelve years.”
“What do you know about her?” He studied the paperweight.
“Clearly not much. I didn’t know she’d gotten married. We both went our separate ways after my accident. I had to take the rest of the semester off, and by spring I really started to focus on the sciences. I also moved back in with my aunt to save money because the accident ate into most of my savings for college. Diane stayed in the art department, and I think she spent her sophomore year in Paris.”
“She married a guy named Nathan Richardson five years ago and they divorced a year later. I’m tracking her ex-husband now, and I’ll be talking to him soon enough. I remember Kara ran with a few other girls that first few months in college. One was you. Was Diane one of the others?”
“Yes.”
“I want to know more about her relationship with Kara.” A razor-sharp edge had crept into his voice.
“Diane was from town, just like Kara and me. Kara and Diane were school friends. They were both on the cheer squad in high school. They had a lot in common, and I know even by mid-October they were already talking about being roommates during their sophomore year. Both of them were art majors. They went to the frat parties together. They even went out with the same guy.”
“What guy?”
“Stanford Madison.”
“Where can I find him?”
“I don’t know, but I have a phone number for him. You can try that.”
“You’ve kept in touch with him?”
“He came to visit me in the hospital after my accident. Helped me with my rehab. I haven’t seen him in a couple of years. I’m still digging out eight months’ worth of e-mails, but I did notice he e-mailed me about an upcoming art show here in Richmond. I think he’s also teaching at the university.”
“He’s in Richmond now?”
“Yeah.”
“Send me his number.”
“Sure.” She pulled her phone from her lab coat pocket and forwarded the contact.
