Detective Lester shrugged. “Are you admitting to your guilt, Tony? All I wanted to do was ask you a few simple questions and that’s all. If you want to make this into a big production, where you sit here for the next three days, that’s fine with me,” he stated and began to stand.
“No! I just want to get out there and start looking for Bridget! This is a waste of time. I didn't hurt her. We just started dating, and I really like her.”
“Start at the beginning and tell me how you met. Walk me through it,” he said, calmly.
“Okay,” he answered, wiping the perspiration from his brow. “I was getting a beer at a bar one Saturday night and there she was. I was drawn to her because of her smile. It was infectious.”
“So far, so good.”
“We started talking, and we hit it off. I programmed my number into her phone, and she did the same for mine.”
“So, what you’re saying is that we’re going to find your prints on her cell.”
The man looked sick. “Yes, and in her house and car. We were dating. We went out a few nights a week.”
“Were you having sex?”
“Yes, thus the word dating, Detective. That usually implies rolling around and having a good time.”
Lester scribbled down some notes. “How long have you been a cop, Tony?”
The man thought about it. “I’ve been one for about six years now. What does that have to do with finding Bridget?”
“Who is the first suspect when a person goes missing?”
The cop stared at him. “You and I both know it’s the person who she’s married to or dating. I’m just telling you that you’re looking the wrong way here. I’m clean.”
“Tell me about Bridget.”
He sighed. “She worked for a doctor, as a receptionist, and loved her job. She is super friendly and loves people. I have never seen someone who is so happy and peaceful like her.”
The man wiped his eyes.
“Please, can I go look for her? I can’t sit here and wait for her to show up, in that stream, like the last woman. I care about her, and need to find her.”
“I need your alibi.”
“Fine,” he said with frustration in his voice.
“Let’s start with Melissa Lagerfeld. Where were you the night she went missing?”
“I was at home watching the playoffs.”
“By yourself?”
“I invited Bridget over, but on Saturday nights, she and her friends get dinner and go to the clubs. I opted to stay home and watch a game. She came over afterwards, and we had sex.”
“How about Tawny James?” Lester gave the officer the TOD that the coroner had given him. “Where were you?”
“I was with Bridget. She made me dinner after I got off work. We had chicken cordon bleu, and it was horrible.” He shook his head as he remembered the evening. “We laughed about it, and then went to bed. I had work the next morning and came in early to help locate Tawny.”
“Where were you last night?”
“I was home. Bridget went out and sent me a text around eleven that she was going to head home after they left the club. I replied that I’d see her today. Do you want my phone?”
He pulled up the message and slid it across the table. “Unless you think that I kidnapped the woman, who I was sleeping with, to abscond her phone and give myself some half-assed alibi.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t make you look innocent.”
“Newsflash, Detective. I don’t need to look innocent. I didn't do this!” he shouted.
Lester ignored him. “Okay, one last question. “When I divided up the area behind Tawny’s home, which part did I give you to search?”
Officer Jersek already knew where this was going.
“You gave me the river.”
Neither man spoke. The silence was telling.
“So, your alibi is the missing woman, and you were the person who didn't see the shoe on the bank and the victim floating in the water.”
“Yeah, that’s about right. I screwed up and missed the body.”
Tori watched through the window. This all looked bad for the man being questioned. It all pointed right at him. When the detective spoke, he had her attention once more.
“I was wrong, Officer. I have another question for you. My partner found a syringe on the scene. Do you have access to any medical grade needles?”
“No.”
“If I looked around your house, I won’t find any?”
“Again, no. If you piss test me, I’m going to come up clean, minus the poppy seed bagel I ate yesterday.”
“Can I search your place?”
“Do you have a warrant?”
The detective grinned ferally. “Is that the route you really want to take?”
He pulled out his keys and handed him the house one. “Have at it. Keep this in mind, Detective. When you don’t find anything there, and we find Bridget, you can publicly apologize to me for being a dickwad.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t hold my breath,” Lester stated, as he stood. “When you become a detective, you get a license to be an asshole. It’s in the job description.”
When Officer Jersek pushed back from his chair, the man shook his head. “Have a seat, son. You’re here until I get back from the search.”
“Why do I have to sit here?” he objected.
“Because you’re a cop, you missed a shoe, your girlfriend has turned up missing, and you don’t have a valid alibi.”
He dropped into his seat and shook his head in disgust. “I can’t believe you’re treating me like this. We’re cops and brothers against the bad guys. It’s us against the world.”
Lester said nothing else. He couldn’t disagree with that statement.
Finally, Officer Jersek gave up. “I have nothing more to say to you.”
Detective Lester walked to the door. “I’ll be back.”
“Great. I can’t wait.”
Tori stayed in the observation room until the detective came in to get her. Wow, had that been a Fed in there with the officer, he would have been weeping like a baby. In her opinion, the detective went a little easy on him.
When Lester popped his head in, she turned.
“Did I do okay or can you give me some advice?” he asked, sarcastically.
“I was going to applaud your performance but now that you’re being a condescending dick, you just lost points.”
Her candor made him laugh. “I suppose you want to join me, on my little trip to his place, to do a walk through.”
“You better believe it. I’m your shadow until you get your partner back, and I get mine.”
“Awesome. I always wanted to be followed around by some irritatingly pretty ex-Fed.”
Tori walked beside him and grinned. “Awwww you called me pretty. I must be growing on you.”
He shook his head in exasperation. “I’m simply tolerating you.”
“Why?” she asked.
“My boss told me I have to and like yourself, I was in the Army and at least owe you a little courtesy.”
“Hey, we’ve bonded,” she added. “Oh, and I’m going to go out on a limb with this one. He’s not guilty.”
“How do you know that? Do you have some crystal ball that you can gaze into?”
Tori sipped her coffee. “No, because I was a special agent for the FBI, and I know that he’s a cop and knows better. If he did do it, his alibi would be air tight. He’s not stupid enough to miss the body, and then not have his ass covered. In fact, he would have looked less suspicious had he found Tawny in the water. You did give him that area to search. That would have been the mother of all alibis, for a cop doing his job, to find the dead victim.”
“So, you think he’s being framed?”
She shrugged. “You got me, but whoever is doing this is beginning to fall apart. His method switched from abduction to killing, and then back again.”
He stopped. “So you do believe that they’re all connected.”
Tori thought about it, measuring her words carefully. “I don’t know, but if it is, we have one hell of a problem.”
“And that is?”
“In the FBI, we call this escalation and that means one thing.”
“What?”
“This person is damn crazy and isn’t going to be stopped easily.”
Chapter Twenty Two
Sunday Afternoon
Vivian and a few techs went in first. They wanted to assure that the locks weren’t tampered with and that Bridget Green’s home wasn’t a crime scene.
Not far behind her, she had the two brothers joining her. Both had gloved up and were ready to walk through the house to see if anything stood out.
Immediately, they knew that the woman lived alone. The house screamed of blatant femininity. The pillows were pink and the dishes were bright colors and matched impeccably, unlike that of most bachelors. There wasn’t a trace of man to be found in the place.
“She didn't have a roommate,” Justin said, staring around the confines of the living room.
Vivian nodded. “I agree, Mr. Littlemoon.”
When she turned her head, he was grinning wickedly at her, and Vivian was forced to give him a look. If he made her laugh, the gig would be up.
“The pictures on the mantle are all of women,” Julian said, as he carefully picked one up. “I don’t think she’s had a long term relationship in a while.” He thought back to his own house before Tori, and how it was void of pictures too. When he first saw her home, she had family, and the man who she had once been engaged to, on her mantle. They were all there in memoriam for the loved ones she lost.
Vivian had to agree. As they headed into her bedroom, again, nothing looked out of place. “I don’t think that he came here after he took her.”
Justin dropped down to peek under her bed. “Yeah, me either.”
Opening the closet, Vivian peered inside and ran her gloved hand over the contents. “Yeah, she definitely worked in the medical field. We have scrubs in a rainbow of colors and prints.” When neither man commented, Vivian glanced over at them. Julian was staring out Bridget’s bedroom window wordlessly, and Justin was by his side.
There was definitely something bothering him.
“Are you okay, Jules?” asked his brother.
“She was running here,” he replied.
Vivian joined him at the window. “What?”
“When we drove here, it felt like we were going in a big circle to me. When she pulled off the road and ran through the trees, Bridget Green was trying to get home.”
They headed outside and he pointed at the thick covering. “She knew that she wasn’t far from home and was trying to get to safety.”
Vivian thought about it. “If she knew, then the killer knew too. It’s just like with the first two women,” she said, lowering her voice. “He took Melissa less than a quarter mile from her house and Tawny James in front of hers.”
Justin saw where they were taking it. “He’s really planning these out carefully,” he added.
“He’s more than a stalker,” Vivian said.
“Yeah, he’s a predator.”
* * *
Melissa remained silent the entire time that he was in the room. Having to watch him assault the woman had made her sick to her stomach. She was glad that he drugged her before he touched her. It was probably the only way she would get through it.
The man was depraved and completely perverse.
When he placed the other woman in a cage across the room, she waited until he went upstairs before she spoke.
“Are you okay?” she whispered.
“No,” the woman whispered back through the soft sobs.
“We’re going to get out of here,” she promised. “We just need to bide our time and gang up on him.”
“Where are we?” Bridget asked, as she struggled to find a comfortable position with her hands duct taped above her head.
Melissa thought about it. “I don’t know what’s outside these walls, but we’re in his basement. I think there’s someone upstairs. He’s always yelling, but I never hear any response.”
“I want to go home,” she sobbed.
“We will. It’s only a matter of time,” she reassured. Melissa didn't tell her of his threats to kill them or sell them off when he was bored. The poor woman was distressed enough, and she would need her if they were to escape.
“My name’s Melissa,” she offered.
The woman gave a choked sob. “I saw your picture on the news. The police and private investigators are looking for you.”
That was good to know. Melissa knew that her dad wouldn’t give up easily. It gave her renewed hope that someone would find and save them. “What’s your name?”
“Bridget.”
“We can do this, Bridget. We’ll get out of here and be free.”
“I want to go home,” she murmured, before closing her eyes. “I just want to forget what he did to me.”
Melissa understood, because she did too. Yet, there was more underneath the fear and sadness. There was rage. If she could get free, she knew what she’d do.
“I recognize him,” Bridget stated.
“Yeah, me too. I saw him almost every day at work. The cops will figure it out. Just hang in there, okay?”
There were more soft sobs, as the woman cried herself to sleep. Melissa didn't follow. She wanted to work out a few things in her mind.
Like how to kill this animal and get revenge.
* * *
All the way to Officer Jersek’s place, Detective Lester was pretty much silent. Tori knew that he was dwelling on her and the rest of the Littlemoon team, since he kept glancing over at her speculatively.
“Why don’t you just ask what you’re thinking?” she finally said. It must have caught him off guard, since he looked over rather quickly.
“Who says I have something to ask you?”
She laughed. “Well, then, you must be checking me out again, because you did call me pretty,” Tori tormented, as she tried to get him to spill it once and for all. “That’s going to make my husband very unhappy when I tell him.”
“Knock it off. I wasn’t checking you out. I’m wondering why you really left the FBI. Did you screw up and get fired?”
Tori began to laugh. “No, I didn't screw up. One of the last cases I worked, I was almost killed, and then I went on leave,” she admitted, but left the VA hospital out of it. “When it came time to decide on going back, Julian proposed and I accepted.”
“So, you left being a Fed to be a private investigator? Isn’t that downgrading?”
Tori shrugged. “I got a great husband out of it, and I get to be my own boss. I think I won on this one, so that’s a matter of perspective.”
He pulled into the man’s driveway. “If you say so,” he muttered. “Make sure you put on a pair.” He didn't get to finish, before he already heard the snap of latex gloves.
Tori stared at him, as if waiting for his next absurd comment. “Want to tell me not to disturb anything or to watch where I step?”
Detective Lester muttered, “You’re a smart ass.”
Hopping out of his vehicle, they headed to the door. As he unlocked it, he stuck his head in and glanced around. “Be careful,” he stated.
Tori unclipped the snap on her holster, just in case they found something jumping out at them.
“And for Christ’s sake, don’t shoot me!”
The absurdity behind that comment made her smirk. “I doubt it would be an accident,” she stated, as she followed him into the place.
Detective Lester held back his snotty comment as she moved right by him. He was trying not to notice that she was definitely attractive. In his book, pretty girls should be far from the ugliness of being a cop, and especially a Fed.
Immediately, Tori suspected this wasn’t the place where the women were being kept. The house was one level and she didn't see a basement door. Vivian had specifically told them the victims were
being held in a concrete room.
“Is there a garage attached to this place?” she asked.
“No, why?”
She relaxed marginally. “I’m just trying to get the lay of the place.” If there wasn’t a garage, and there wasn’t a basement, then this man wasn’t the suspect.
“If you were going to abduct people, where would you keep them?” he asked her.
“I would want to use a basement or attic, because they would be quiet and private.” Tori had worked enough cases in the FBI to know that that was generally the place abductors would hide their victims. “Although, if he has a spare room, that might have to do in a pinch.”
They headed to the back of the house to where the bedrooms were located.
“Then let’s see if they’re here.”
Tori cleared a room used as an office, and then stopped at another room with the detective right behind her.
“There’s nothing in the one room. I checked,” he stated.
“Mine either. This looks like the master bedroom. Want to search it?”
He nodded and followed her. Inside, they found a small gun safe, bed, and the normal bedroom furniture. The first places that they headed were the bathroom and closet.
When they exited, both of their faces said it all. There were no women being held in this cop’s house.
Tori headed to the night stand, beside the bed, and pulled it open. Inside, she found handcuffs and condoms. “I don’t think these are standard equipment,” she stated, as they dangled from her finger.
“Yeah, well, there’s no law against kinky sex.”
She noticed he was uncomfortable with the search, so decided to play with him a little more. It was her payback for the nastiness that he had been handing out. “Wow, that’s some big box of condoms. He must have really liked sex.”
The man squirmed.
“Wow, and that’s like a gallon of lube. I wonder what he used that for,” she asked, tormenting him further. When the man turned red, she pushed on.
“Do men always have this many condoms in their nightstand?”
He stared at her. “How should I know?”
Blood Red Rage (LIttlemoon Investigations Book 1) Page 33
