by Marie Force
“This has been going on for a month?”
“It’s only been bad for the last week or so.”
“Bad how?”
“He keeps trying to get me to talk to him, to go out with him, to train him. I’ve told him I’m living with someone, and I’m happy and to leave me alone.”
“And he didn’t?”
“No, he... The other night when I was leaving work, he was waiting for me when I got to my car. It was the first time he really scared me. I pulled out the pepper spray you gave me and told him I’d use it if he touched me. He backed off, and I got in the car and drove away.”
“This was the night you said you couldn’t get warm after you got home, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” she said softly.
“God, Elin, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I told Glen the next day,” she said, referring to the gym manager. “They suspended his privileges at the gym.”
“And you didn’t think that would piss him off?”
“Freddie... I’m sorry. Don’t be mad with me. I was trying to handle it on my own.”
“I’m sorry, baby. I’m not mad at you. I’m mad that this guy hassled you, and I had no idea you were going through something like this. How could I not know you were so upset and stressed out?”
“I didn’t want you to know. It’s not your fault.”
It bothered him greatly that she’d felt the need to keep something so huge from him, but he’d deal with that part of it later—after he heard the rest of the story.
“Anyway,” she said with another sigh, “Andre came into the gym today looking for me and Glen stopped him from coming in. Andre is a lot bigger than Glen, and I was afraid he was going to hurt him, so I tried to help him.”
Freddie had to bite his tongue to keep from asking why she’d had to be the one to protect Glen.
“It turned into a big melee with other staff and members getting involved.”
“How did you get hit?”
“I don’t think he meant to hit me...”
“Who hit you? Was it Andre?”
She gave a tiny nod that seemed to cost her. “He whirled around and connected with my face. It all happened so fast... I hit the back of my head on the desk. And then I was sort of out of it for a while. Next thing I knew the police were there, and they were arresting him.”
“You said Andre is bigger than Glen, and Glen is huge. Andre could’ve killed you with one hit. You know that, don’t you?”
“I know that now, but I really wasn’t afraid of him hurting me.”
“You pulled pepper spray on him,” Freddie reminded her, making an effort to keep his voice down. “You must’ve felt threatened to do that.”
“I wanted him to know I could and would defend myself. That was all.” She glanced up at him. “I knew you’d be mad with me.”
“I’m not mad. I’m sad that this happened to you, and that you felt you couldn’t come to me about it. That makes me really sad.”
“I’m sorry. I should’ve told you.”
“Don’t be sorry. Nothing about this is your fault. You’re the victim here, and you’re going to pursue charges against this guy, you got me?”
“Yes, I will. I want him to leave me alone.”
“We’ll see about getting a restraining order too,” Freddie said, even though he was far too aware of how often restraining orders were violated.
Her eyes fluttered closed. “Tired, Freddie. So tired.”
“Get some rest.” He kissed her forehead. “I’ll be right here.”
“Love you.”
“Love you too, baby.” He’d never loved her more than he did right then. Seeing her bruised and beaten had sparked a primal need to protect her. That she’d kept such an important thing from him in order to protect him was something they’d have to talk more about later. And he’d also be having a conversation with this guy Andre as soon as he could get back to HQ.
* * *
Sam and Arnold entered the interrogation room while Terrell headed for observation. She’d suggested it might be better to keep the FBI out of the room for the moment, and he’d agreed. He was much more malleable than his superior, that was for sure. Hill would’ve demanded entry into the interrogation room, even if it made sense to take a softer approach at the outset.
Bringing the FBI acronym into an investigation changed the game. She wanted Hughes to talk to them, not clam up.
The minute they walked into the room, he surged to his feet. “I want a lawyer.” His shoulder-length brown hair had been tied back into a ponytail, and his jeans and hoodie had been switched out for an orange jumpsuit. “They fucking strip-searched me!”
The strip search tended to humble even the most obnoxious of collars. “Routine part of processing,” Sam said. “Who do you want us to call for you?”
“How the hell do I know? I’ve never needed a lawyer before.”
“Not even when you were taken to court for failure to pay child support?”
“Is that the kind of lawyer I need now?”
“Not exactly. Can you afford to pay for a lawyer or would you like us to call the public defender?”
“How much does a lawyer cost?”
“Don’t exactly know the going rate, but I suspect they aren’t cheap. All that schooling goes to their heads.”
“Fine, then call the public defender.”
“You know they’re closed today because it’s a holiday, right?”
“So what does that mean?”
“A sleepover,” Sam said, gratified to watch some of the starch go out of him as he began to realize his predicament. “Of course if you rescind your request for a lawyer, we can have our chat today and maybe get you home before bedtime.” She shrugged, as if it didn’t matter at all to her what he decided. “Up to you.”
“What do you want to know?” he asked tentatively.
“I can’t talk to you with your request for a lawyer on the record.”
“Fine! No lawyer, for now anyway.”
“Detective Arnold, please record our conversation with Mr. Hughes.”
Arnold moved from his post at the doorway and turned on the recorder, noting the date, time and parties present.
“Mr. Hughes,” Sam said, “have you rescinded your earlier request for an attorney?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“I can’t hear you.”
“Yes, I’ve rescinded my request for an attorney. Can we get on with it?”
“Let’s talk about Lori Phillips.”
He paled at the mention of Lori’s name. “I thought this was about outstanding child support?”
“We’ll get to that. I want to start with Lori.”
He eyed her tentatively. “What about her?”
“How do you know her?”
“We went out a couple of times. No big deal.”
“How long have you known her?”
“I don’t know. A few months maybe?”
“How did you meet her?”
“An online dating thing. I meet a lot of girls that way.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
He squirmed in his seat and fidgeted with his hands. “I don’t know.”
“I think you do know. I think you know exactly when you last saw her.”
“We hooked up yesterday. So what?”
“Tell me what happened yesterday, and don’t leave anything out.”
He looked down at the table, seemingly trying to decide what he should say. Then he looked up at her, and Sam detected the first hint of fear. All the cockiness was gone. “She hit me up with a text in the morning, telling me she was going to be in the city and wanted to get together. So I told her to stop by.”
“Did she?”
“Yeah, she did. We hung out for a couple of hours, and then she left to go do something with one of her friends for New Year’s. I was going to a party. It was all good.”
“Can you give me a list of people who were at that party who can confirm you were there?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Sam slid her notebook across the table. “Give me at least three people.” While he got busy writing, she said, “What went on while she was at your house?”
“We hung out. And stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“We fucked. Is that what you want to know?”
“Yeah, it is. How many times did you fuck?”
A bead of sweat appeared on his forehead, which gave Sam a queer sense of accomplishment. “Like, you want a number?”
“That’d be good.”
“Twice. And she blew me too. Satisfied?”
“Sounds like you were. So it was probably your semen that was found inside her vagina after she was murdered?”
His face got even paler than it already was at the mention of murder. “I didn’t kill her. She left my house around two, and I haven’t seen or talked to her since.”
“How come you didn’t glove up when you had sex with her?”
“She’s on the pill.”
“That doesn’t protect you against diseases.”
He shrugged that off as if it wasn’t something he worried about.
“Did she tell you where she was going when she left your place?”
“Nope and I didn’t ask.”
Sam tended to believe him when he said he didn’t kill her, but she was still going to request the DNA to make the connection to the semen. “I’m going to need you to provide a DNA sample.”
“Why, so you can build a murder case against me?” More beads of sweat joined the others at his hairline.
“If you didn’t kill her, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“Right. I know how you people work. You’ll tie me to her through my spunk, and next thing you know, I’m a murderer. I take it back. I want a lawyer. I’m not saying another word until I have one.”
“Sure thing. I’ll make the call, and I’m requesting a warrant for your DNA. If that comes through, you’ll have no choice but to comply or risk additional charges. Right now, you’re only facing charges on the child support thing and resisting arrest. This could get a whole lot worse for you short of murder if you don’t cooperate.”
He gave her a mulish look and crossed his arms, sending the signal that their conversation was over.
She got up and pushed in her chair. “Detective Arnold, please take Mr. Hughes downstairs.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Sam walked out of the interrogation room and ran into Terrell as he and Malone came out of observation.
“I’m thinking he’s not our guy,” Terrell said.
“Your thinking matches mine. I tend to believe him when he said she left at two. It would be easy enough to prove he was elsewhere without her last night. I’ll call the people he listed to confirm he was at the party.”
“I’ll get the warrant for the DNA,” Malone said.
“We may as well close that loop.” Sam unclipped her hair and let it fall down her back, rubbing her fingertips over her scalp. “We’re right back to square one with figuring out who killed her. I’d really like to know where she went after she left his house.”
Archie came down the corridor toward where they were gathered. “There you are,” he said to Sam. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“What’ve you got?”
He handed her a thick pile of papers. “The dump on Lori Phillips’s phone. I’ve got something else that might interest you too.”
“What’s that?”
“The vic was found in a car parked near West Potomac Park, but the nine-one-one call reporting the body in the car came from ten blocks away.” He showed her an address that had Sam’s heart sinking. It was right near Gonzo’s place. Son of a bitch. “I listened to the recording of the call. It was a man, he was out of breath, said he’d been running and saw a body in a car. He wouldn’t give us his name or any other info.”
“Interesting. Thanks, Archie.”
“I did a quick look at the text messages and there’s some other stuff in there that might help. She did a lot of texting yesterday.”
“Just what I needed to put together her day. Appreciate this.”
“Sure, no problem.” He withdrew a flash drive from his pocket and gave that to her too. “The nine-one-one call is on here. Let me know if I can do anything else to help.”
“You’ve already done a lot, thanks again.” After Archie walked away, she said to Terrell and Malone, “Let’s get everyone into the conference room to see where we are.”
“You’re going to need to head home soon to get your beauty sleep for your TV appearances tomorrow,” Malone said with a teasing grin.
The reminder of her promise to appear with the chief made her groan. “No one said I had to be beautiful.”
Malone laughed. “Your public has big expectations. You wouldn’t want to let them down, would you?”
“Ugh, shut up.”
“See how she talks to her superior officers?” Malone said to Terrell, who chuckled.
“Her reputation does precede her,” Terrell said, his brown eyes twinkling. The good-looking dark-haired agent wore an expensive suit. That must be a thing with FBI agents—he who has the best suit wins.
“I’m sure you’ve heard nothing but how charming I am.”
“Yes, indeed,” he said. “That’s exactly what I’ve heard.”
“I like this guy,” Sam said. “He rolls with me.”
“She likes you,” Malone said. “Consider yourself fortunate.”
“I am indeed blessed,” Terrell replied drolly.
“And he’s sarcastic too.” Sam wanted to add that he also didn’t stare at her the way his superior officer did. “It doesn’t get any better than this.”
“I aim to please,” Terrell said with a grin.
They returned to the pit, where most of Sam’s team had gathered. “Everyone in the conference room. Ten minutes.” She took the printout Archie had given her into her office and shut the door. The first thing she did was plug the flash drive into her computer and call up the nine-one-one call.
“Nine-one-one, please state your emergency.”
“There’s a lady in a car,” a man said between heavy breaths. “I was running and saw her.”
“Where is the car located?” the operator asked.
“Near West Potomac Park. Constitution side.”
The voice sounded muffled as if the caller was holding something over the mouthpiece. Between that and the heavy breathing, it was difficult to get a read on whether she recognized the voice. She listened to it three more times, thinking of all the people who’d like to screw her and her team: Lieutenant Stahl, Detective Ramsey, her ex-husband, Peter Gibson... Not to mention the litany of criminals that had come through their doors.
Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make it seem possible that Gonzo could be at fault. Who would want to do that? She listened to the recording three more times and still had no more information than she’d had before. Ejecting the flash drive from her computer, she added it to her pile for the meeting, hoping someone else might hear something she’d missed.
Then she took a few minutes to go through the text messages downloaded from Lori’s phone. Archie had taken the extra step of cross-referencing the calls to names and numbers from Lori’s list of contacts. Sam appreciated that tremendously and planned to tell him so the next time she had the chance.
She gathered all her materials, tugged her ever-prese
nt notebook from her back pocket, grabbed her phone and a pen and headed for the conference room where her team had gathered, less Cruz and Gonzo. She’d never admit to feeling somewhat hobbled without them, but they were the two detectives she relied most heavily upon.
She had no choice but to press on without them. However, their absence made her more acutely aware of how valuable they were to her. Not that she’d ever tell them that.
Chapter Twelve
“Not sure everyone has met FBI Agent George Terrell,” Sam said when she took a seat at the head of the table. Chief Farnsworth and Captain Malone were standing in their usual positions in the back of the room. “He’s helping us out on this case since it involves someone connected to a member of our team.”
After a series of murmured hellos and nice to meet yous, Sam said, “Cruz is with Elin at the hospital. Apparently she was injured at work today.”
“Is she okay?” Arnold asked.
“She was talking and pissed, so I assume so. Who’s got an update on the case for me?”
“I’ll go,” Jeannie said. “Tyrone and I were able to track down the dentist Lori worked for. He said she was a good worker, prompt, professional and reliable—until a little over a month ago. After she lost the custody hearing, she seemed to lose interest in the job and everything else. She called in sick more often than she showed up and one of the other women in the office had suggested that she was on something. The dentist was planning to speak to her tomorrow and they were going to let her go. He said, and I’m quoting here, ‘We all felt for her after the custody hearing didn’t go her way, but the recent spiral was obvious to all of us, and something had to be done.’”
“Did he give you the sense that she knew her job was in jeopardy?” Sam asked.
“We got the feeling that if she knew, she wouldn’t have cared all that much.”
“The autopsy indicated an elevated BAC, as well as cocaine in her system, so the dentist and his staff were right that she was using again,” Sam said. She divided the stack of paper containing Lori’s text messages and handed some to each of her detectives. “Let’s track down these individuals and see what they know about her movements yesterday. I want a report on each person and what you find out about them. Shoot it to my email. Have we heard anything from Crime Scene’s search of her house?”
