“You want me to relive that again? It would all be on record. Detectives interviewed me at great length.”
Zach nodded. “We’re aware of that.”
“Good. Then read the record.”
“Mr. Nichols, if you could just humor us. His murder has never been solved,” Paige entreated him.
“I figured as much. And they brought the FBI in? What’s so important about one faggot reaping the results of his lifestyle?”
Whoa! Paige’s vision instantly flared red with rage. Roy did well hiding behind the glasses and the sweet-grandfather look, but on the inside, he was rotten from his prejudice. She wanted to lash out with He was a human being, but what would be the point? A man of Roy’s distorted views would never be able to comprehend that every person’s life was just as valuable as the next.
She clasped her hands instead and angled her head. “You think he deserved to be tortured and murdered?” It took all her willpower to water down the contempt she was feeling.
“I think that everyone reaps what they sow,” Roy said, his voice cold and hard.
Paige took a deep breath—in through her nose, out through her mouth. She wasn’t naive enough to think that discrimination against those who chose an alternative lifestyle would ever completely go away. Unfortunately, judging others was woven into the fabric of society. But like rust, it ate away at society, tearing apart families and friends. All because a person chose to be true to who they were. What a sad state.
“And what exactly did he ‘reap’?” she asked, not able to let it go.
Zach cleared his throat. “I think what Agent Dawson means by that is, who or what caught up with Mr. Malone?”
“Who or what? The answer’s clear. The man was murdered,” Roy ground out. “It was because of his lifestyle. He liked men, isn’t that enough?”
“No,” Paige responded coolly.
“I’m sorry if you’re offended, but it’s God’s law that—”
“Do you know anyone who would have hated him this much?” Paige was in no mood—and never would be—to discuss the stand of a biased, self-righteous man.
Roy seemed taken aback by Paige’s interruption. He shook his head, but not in response so much as apparent dislike. “Read the record.”
“Mr. Nichols, we have read the reports,” she snapped. “We’re here because we want to hear it straight from you.”
“You want to hear it straight from me? That faggot”—he glanced at Paige, seemingly for the sole purpose of provoking her—“got what was coming to him. Now, whether you want to believe that or not is up to you. But when he’d go out clubbing, which was most nights of the week, and bring different people home, what do you expect is going to eventually happen? Something bad. And if you”—he pointed a finger at Paige now—“think otherwise, then you’re blind.”
“You said he went out clubbing?” Zach intercepted.
“I don’t know if it was clubbing, but he went out at all hours. Liked the bars.”
“And how do you know this? It doesn’t seem like you two were close,” Paige said.
Roy glared at her. “People talk.”
“Any specific bar or club?” Zach asked, breaking the growing tension between Paige and Roy.
Roy looked back at Zach. “Wild Horse.”
“And that’s a gay bar?”
“No, I don’t think so. Clancy’s, out in LA, was, but it’s long gone. Wild Horse is a honky-tonk out in Canyon Country. It’s still there, I believe.”
Paige stood. They had enough to move on now, and if she didn’t leave this man’s apartment soon, she’d lose more than just her professionalism. Maybe it was the time she had spent behind bars, wrongly accused, but she was angry right down to her core. Proper upbringing taught people to respect their elders, but Roy Nichols was one man who didn’t deserve anyone’s respect.
-
Chapter 25
BART KELMAN HAD BEEN MALONE’S SUPERVISOR at Synergies where he worked in customer service. After Jack and I had explained who we were and why we were at his house, he stepped to the side of the door.
“You can come in, but I don’t know what I could say that would be any different from what I said six years ago.”
Kelman’s house was a modest, beige brick bungalow with white metal shutters screwed in place next to the front windows. The picture window also had a gold-and-white metal awning. Inside, as expected based on the outside, was aged. The linoleum in the entry was made up of shades of brown and laid out in a tiled pattern.
“Here, this way.” Kelman was in his early fifties and mostly bald, except for some greasy strands he combed over, clearly indicating he was in denial of his hair loss. The result only made his baldness stand out more. He gestured to the left, behind a half wall and spindles that separated the entry from the living room. Two oversized sofas filled the room, along with a coffee table old enough that Kelman may have grown up with it.
I sat at the end of one couch and Jack joined me. Kelman sat on the other sofa.
“Kyle Malone,” he said. “I still can’t believe something like that happened to someone I know—knew.”
“You still have a hard time thinking of him as being gone?” I asked.
“Not sure it’s so much that. It was just so sudden.” He met my gaze. “Here one day, gone the next.”
I dipped my head in acknowledgment. “We know he reported to you at Synergies.”
“Happy to be finished with that place, I tell ya.”
“You no longer work there?”
“You betcha I don’t. I didn’t leave soon enough, though. I don’t even care that I’m currently unemployed. Time’s too precious to waste, and I’ve wasted enough already. Not sure how much you know about Synergies, but it’s a call center for Fortune 500 companies. The one here is the customer service hub for five states.”
“Sounds like that could be a lot of pressure.” I was exaggerating this, of course, to establish rapport.
“You can say that again. They have policies for policies.” Kelman rolled his eyes. “Management is made up of a bunch of bumbling idiots.”
“Tell us about Kyle Malone,” Jack said.
“Well, he came down from Duluth—that’s the one in Minnesota—when he was twenty-one. But you probably know all this. He was a terrific employee. Always on time and never in a hurry to punch the clock and leave. He’d often sacrifice personal time without asking for compensation. Good thing, too, because they are not good about overtime. They really are a bunch of dicks.” Kelman eyed Jack as he leaned forward, set his elbows on his knees, and clasped his hands between his legs. “They demand too much from their employees, and I got sick of the way they treated me.”
“And you’d rather be unemployed?” Jack’s tone was confrontational.
“I’d rather be happy,” Kelman countered.
Jack shrugged. “It’s hard to be happy when you don’t have money for food.”
“I’ve never lacked.”
“It’s only been, what?”
“Two months,” Kelman told him.
“Give it time,” Jack said. “You made a decision based on emotion, and it will bite you in the ass.”
I glanced at Jack. This little sideshow wasn’t about Bart Kelman. This was about Paige.
“Spoken like a man who’s lived it.”
“Ahem.” I cleared my throat and both men faced me. “Mr. Kelman, please tell us more about Kyle. Did he have any problems with anyone at work?” There was no mention of any issues in the police reports, but the case was also cold as far as the locals were concerned, so every avenue needed to be explored—or in this case, revisited.
Kelman shook his head. “Not that I was aware of, as I told the police back when he was murdered. It still seems so odd to know someone who was mur
dered.”
Kelman seemed awfully caught up in that fact…
“So Mr. Malone got along fine with all his fellow employees?” I asked.
Kelman bobbed his head from side to side. “I’d say so.”
“Why do you say it like that?” Jack imitated Kelman’s head bob.
“As I said, Synergies puts a lot of pressure on its employees. There are quality reports and conversion reports. There are reports for the reports. And every one of them is reviewed with a fine-toothed comb after each shift. Of course, this is done by upper management, and they have no real hands-on experience handling customers. They might listen to some of the calls. You know the drill: ‘Your call may be recorded for quality assurance’?”
I nodded and wondered where Kelman was headed with all this.
“But they still didn’t really understand what it was like to be on the line,” Kelman continued. “People don’t call in because they are happy with the product they purchased.”
I had originally been thinking of it from the standpoint of the killer being someone in Malone’s daily life—a coworker, a friend—but what if it wasn’t as obvious as that?
“Did any of these callers get out of line with Mr. Malone?” I asked.
Kelman snorted a laugh. “All the time, but Kyle wasn’t special in that regard. Everyone was shit on—a lot. I mean, some of the products we represented sold for thousands of dollars, and many times we had to tell customers that there was nothing we could do. Calls were escalated to management all the time.”
“And these were recorded?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
There might not have been a strong basis for it, but my gut told me we had to get ahold of the company’s records and see if anyone spoke with Malone multiple times. For now, I’d stab at things from another direction. “You said he got along well with people. So no one had a problem with his sexuality? I only ask because this can still elicit reactions in certain people.” I knew that we weren’t leaning toward this being a hate crime, but it was best to cover all the bases.
“You’re alluding to the fact that he was gay?” Kelman shook his head. “Nope. Well, not that I’m aware of anyway.”
“And you’re sure that no one had an issue?” Jack asked.
Kelman perched on the edge of the sofa cushion. “You’re saying people should have an issue?”
“I’m saying that people are not as open-minded as they might like others to believe,” Jack said.
The two men held eye contact for a few seconds until Kelman broke the gaze. “No one had an issue with his sexual preference. Now, if that will be all, I have things to do.” He hopped off the couch and crossed his arms.
Jack wasn’t far behind and was to the door before I stood up. Kelman was still standing in front of where he had been sitting. I walked over to him and shook his hand.
“Thanks for your help,” I said.
“Sure. But I’m not sure how much help I was.” Kelman slid his gaze toward where Jack had been standing, but he’d already stepped outside.
I pressed my lips together and went to catch up to Jack. I wasn’t used to him practically running from a house.
He was in the car by the time I got outside and climbed into the passenger seat. He pulled out a cigarette, put the window down, and lit up. After a deep drag and exhale, he said, “That was a waste of time.”
“I disagree.”
He slowly turned to face me. “How do you figure?” Another puff on the cigarette.
I put my window down, too, hoping to stave off lung cancer from secondhand smoke for at least a couple more years.
“At first, I was thinking maybe one of Malone’s coworkers killed him, but police really did exhaust their efforts in that regard. Now I have a new theory.”
Another inhale. Exhale. No response to what I had said.
I went on anyway. “When people called in to Synergies, they were already angry, upset over their products. What if someone had spoken to Malone repeatedly, getting more unhappy—”
“To the level of violence we’re talking about? So…what? The product is out of warranty? Let’s rape a guy, chop his penis off, and—”
I held up my hand and looked out the window. We were still sitting in Kelman’s driveway, and I wished we would leave. But it was apparent Jack needed his fix before that would happen.
“As I said, it’s a theory. But hear me out. And before you say it, yes, I know it’s an extreme stretch to think someone would go that far.”
“You know how much I love wild notions,” Jack said dryly.
“Maybe it wasn’t even someone who called in a lot. Maybe it was someone who already had a connection to Malone. They could have had a past beef with him, figured out where he was working, where he lived.”
Jack tapped the ash from his cigarette and took another drag.
“I think it’s quite possible our unsub might have latched on to Malone through the call center. Maybe it’s a leap, but it’s a possibility I feel we should explore. And if we feel the connection to Malone was a personal one for the unsub, we still have to figure out how Hall fits in.” I paused, thinking about the stark difference between the two killers.
“So this theory assumes the killer lost track of Malone in the first place?” Jack took another drag.
“Yes.”
“Hmm.”
“Is that a good hmm or a bad hmm?”
He said nothing.
I clenched my hands into fists, frustrated and impatient. “Come on, speak.”
Jack faced me, his jaw rigid, his eyes sharp.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have…told you what to do.” I had a temper and was prone to speaking without thinking. But I don’t remember ever being so demanding with Jack before.
He ignored my apology and kept postulating. “You could be onto something, but you might not be.”
I straightened. “So can I have Nadia look into Malone’s callers who were escalated to management?”
Jack nodded and flicked the cigarette butt out the window. “Have her do it, but only after she’s looked into everything else.”
I dialed Nadia and made the request, but I picked up on the fact that she wasn’t her regular happy self. Now I had an even stronger feeling she’d been involved in Paige finding Ferris Hall. As far as I could guess, she had and was deeply regretting her contribution. I didn’t blame her. If she had helped lead Paige to California, her professionalism was called into question. My take on it, of course, would be different from Jack’s. What I saw was loyalty and friendship. Likely what Jack saw was a foolish act motivated by emotion. Either way, we were all in this together now, and we had no choice but to see it through.
-
Chapter 26
“I CAN’T GET OVER THAT MAN,” Paige said about Roy Nichols. She and Zach were down the hallway from his apartment. “I mean, it’s one thing to have an opinion, but it’s another when that way of thinking lets him believe Malone reaped what he sowed.”
Zach’s phone rang, and he looked at the screen. “It’s Jack.” He motioned for her to follow him to the stairwell. Once they were tucked away there, he answered. “You’re on speaker, Jack.”
“First, what have you got?”
Zach filled him in on the bar Malone had supposedly frequented, and Jack told them about Brandon’s suspicions that the killer could be someone who called into Synergies and spoke to Malone.
“Where are you guys?” Jack asked.
“We’re still at Malone’s building. We were going to talk to a few more people who lived here at the time of Malone’s murder,” Zach responded.
“Sounds good. Brandon and I will go that bar. What was it called again?”
“Wild Horse,” Zach said. “It’s a honky-tonk.”
“Oh Lord.” With that, Jack hung up.
Paige chuckled. “He sounds thrilled.” Her mind went back to the building manager. “We didn’t tell Mr. Nichols we’d be speaking to his tenants.”
“He doesn’t own the place. Besides, it’s not his business what we do.”
“Oh, I’m sure he’d have a different opinion.”
Zach smiled at her. “Isn’t that too bad.” A few seconds later, he added, “We’ll start with Betty Holt, apartment three-oh-two.”
“Malone was apartment three-oh-three, right?”
Zach nodded. “She was living across from Malone at the time.”
“I don’t know if I could stay.”
“I hear ya.”
“And we’ve seen some pretty nasty shit.” With her statement, the crime scene photos from Malone’s and Ferris’s murders flashed in her mind again. Too clearly. And while she had made the brave claim about seeing nasty shit, it was quite possible that severed penises topped the list. What kind of animal would do something like that, especially while the men were alive?
Her phone rang and she checked the caller ID: SAM. Maybe she should have talked to him before she left the hotel, but there was a lot to do.
Zach pointed to her cell. “Are you going to get that?”
“Not right now.” She swiped the call to voice mail and muted the ringer. Now wasn’t the time for the conversation they needed to have.
Based on the way Zach’s gaze fell to her phone and then back to her eyes, she gathered he knew it was Sam. But he said nothing as he turned and headed up the stairs.
She followed, thankful that he didn’t comment. She’d learned a lot about Zach in the last couple of months, and she liked what she saw. He respected her personal space, even after learning about her relationship with Brandon.
“It makes me wonder how Wild Horse was overlooked the first time,” she said, eager to get back into the investigation.
[Brandon Fisher FBI 05.0] Violated Page 13
