by Eva Hudson
Faber nodded almost imperceptibly. “I went to her apartment early. We’d arranged to meet before class. So I guess it must have been eight. Certainly no later than eight thirty.”
“This morning?”
Faber glanced at Ingrid, her confusion evident. “Of course this morning.”
“How did you gain access to the property?”
“I have a key. We used to be roommates. Lauren has—had keys to my apartment too.”
“So you were close?”
“We looked out for one another, you know? Us ‘Yanks’ gotta stick together.” She made air quotes with fingers raw from the forensics swabbing process.
“So Lauren was expecting you this morning?” McKittrick asked.
“She wanted to discuss her thesis with me. She was getting a little anxious about it, and I said I’d help.”
“And the apartment door was locked when you arrived?”
Faber nodded. “I went straight up to the third floor. Banged on the door, waited. When there was no response, I used the key. The door was stiff, sticky. I had to force it open.”
“Then what did you do?”
“I called her name from the hallway outside the apartment.”
“And she didn’t answer?”
Faber wrinkled her nose. “Of course she didn’t.”
“I’m sorry if my questions seem obvious, but we do have to be very precise.”
Faber took a shaky breath and swallowed. “I stepped into the apartment and called her name again, louder this time.” She blinked. “That’s when I saw her. Just lying there.” She snatched a Kleenex from the box on the table. “Who would do something like that to her?” She stared at McKittrick, her eyes wide, as if she were actually waiting for an answer.
Faber’s hands dropped into her lap, and she picked at the Kleenex. She hadn’t dabbed her eyes or blown her nose.
McKittrick pressed ahead. “Do you know if Lauren had fallen out with anyone recently?”
“What?”
“Did Lauren have any enemies?”
Faber snorted. “No way. Not Lauren. She never fought with anyone.”
“How about boyfriends?” McKittrick asked. “Was Lauren in a relationship?”
Faber wriggled in her seat and pulled a face.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know if she was seeing anyone. Whenever I asked, she got evasive. She’d change the subject. But she had that look sometimes, like she was keeping a secret. And sometimes she had that other look.” She turned to stare at Mills. “Like she was getting laid.”
The detective’s face blushed, and Mills looked down at his notepad. How could a thirtysomething homicide detective be so easily embarrassed?
“Can you hazard a guess?” McKittrick asked. “Someone she studied with, perhaps?”
“Why do you want to know? Do you think he could have killed her?”
McKittrick took a deep breath. “In a case like this, we’re particularly interested in her close relationships. Can you think of any reason she wouldn’t want to tell you who she was dating?”
Faber shrugged. “Maybe she just wanted to keep it a secret. Maybe she was embarrassed.”
“About what?”
“Whoever was screwing her.”
Ingrid flinched. She had been expecting Faber to say ‘sleeping with.’
“What about other friends? Would they know who she was seeing?”
Faber shook her head. “If she was going to tell anyone, it would’ve been me.”
Ingrid was taken aback by her certainty.
“Can you give us a list of her friends’ names at college? We will need to speak to all of them.” McKittrick scribbled something in her notebook.
“You can find them on her cell phone,” Faber said. Her tone was now infused with a teenager’s snark, a brooding petulance.
McKittrick’s nostrils flared ever so slightly. “A list from you would be very much appreciated.”
“Sure, it won’t take long.”
“Are you saying Lauren didn’t have many friends?”
Faber pinged the elastic cuff of the Tyvek coverall. “She didn’t really click with many people. She could be a little… What’s the word you Brits use?” She played with the stitching while she tried to remember. “Brittle. That’s it.”
“Brittle? Lauren had mental health issues?”
“Not exactly. At least… none I know of. She could just be a little… off beam now and then.”
McKittrick scribbled more notes. “Thank you, Madison, we really appreciate your cooperation. Now, when was the last time you saw Lauren?”
Faber’s mouth dropped open. “You know when.”
McKittrick drew a breath. “I’m sorry, I meant before this morning.”
“You mean when was the last time I saw her alive?” Faber shuddered.
Ingrid had heard enough. “I think we need to take a break.”
McKittrick gave Ingrid a stern stare and raised an eyebrow. Where was her compassion?
“I’m fine to carry on,” Faber said in such a way that it sounded like a rebuke to Ingrid’s concern. “We had lunch together on campus yesterday.” The girl wasn’t helping herself: she was coming across as cold and uncaring. Ingrid remembered her own odd behavior when she lost her best friend. She understood that shock can make a person appear unhinged.
“How did Lauren seem to you?” Mills asked.
Faber pursed her lips as she considered her answer. “Fine. No, more than fine, actually. Happy even. Maybe the happiest I’ve seen her.”
McKittrick made more notes, then flipped back through the notebook. After a few moments of concentrated reading, she looked up and stared at Faber. “When did you and Lauren stop being roommates?”
McKittrick’s sudden change of direction took Faber by surprise. She turned to Ingrid for guidance, and Ingrid nodded encouragingly.
“In January. I went away for a long weekend. When I came back, she’d moved out.”
“Why?”
Faber shrugged. “She said something about wanting to be more independent.”
“What did she mean?” McKittrick asked. She was questioning Faber like a murder suspect, and Ingrid’s concern was mounting.
“She didn’t really explain. But I guess, if I think about it, I had assumed the big sister role. I took on most of the responsibilities. You know, making sure the rent got paid on time, settling the bills, cooking. I guess she wanted to prove she could survive on her own.”
“And how did that make you feel?” McKittrick’s questions were taking advantage of the late arrival of Faber’s lawyer.
“Feel? It didn’t make me feel anything. I was a little surprised she hadn’t discussed it with me in advance.”
“You weren’t at all upset by her departure?”
Ingrid didn’t want to tread on her friend’s professional toes, but she would be handling this interview completely differently. After four years working in the Violent Crimes Against Children Unit, Ingrid knew how to handle adolescents. Faber might legally be an adult, but she was nevertheless vulnerable.
“It’s almost as if she was snubbing you,” McKittrick continued, “throwing everything you’d done for her back in your face?”
“No, I was happy for her.” Faber bristled: McKittrick was getting to her.
After a pause, Mills picked up the questioning. “Did you ever fight with Lauren?”
“Why are you asking me that?”
“Please answer the question, Madison.” His tone was gentle but urgent.
“What are you trying to say?” Faber jumped up. “We never fought!”
Ingrid and Mills also got to their feet.
“We are taking a break now,” Ingrid said. She turned to McKittrick. “Madison is a young woman experiencing one of the worst days of her life. I must insist you wait for her lawyer to arrive.”
McKittrick, still seated, looked up at Faber. “Just one last question.”
“She was like a sister to
me. I can’t believe you’re suggesting—”
Faber’s flow was interrupted by the door bursting open. A steel-haired woman in a power suit and dangerously high heels marched into the room, a bewildered uniformed cop trailing in her wake. She pushed past Ingrid and Mills and stopped next to Faber. She slipped an arm around the student’s shoulders. “That’s quite enough, detective. This interview is now terminated.”
4
“Mr Brewster?”
Ingrid flashed her ID toward the narrow gap. The door closed and opened again. Ingrid slipped in from the hall to see a shoeless fat man padding down the plushly carpeted interior hallway of his luxury hotel suite.
“Well, come on!” Brewster yelled over his shoulder. “I don’t have all goddamn day.”
On the phone Sol had told her to ‘play nice’: he was aware of Brewster’s reputation and wanted to make sure Ingrid didn’t rise to the businessman’s bait. From what she’d seen of Brewster already, it was going to be a struggle. She wasn’t happy being taken away from chaperoning Faber, but Sol said it was important Brewster knew the embassy was taking his case seriously.
She entered the bedroom and found the red-faced businessman tying a dressing gown over his fleshy belly, the fat undulating like Jell-O. Diabetes and heart failure were just waiting to happen. The lack of wrinkles on his doughy face made it hard to determine his age. He could be anywhere between thirty-five and fifty.
“How long is this going to take?” Brewster barked. “I have better things to do with my time.”
You and me both. “I’m sure you want this dealt with thoroughly, sir.”
“I don’t want it ‘dealt with’ at all.” He tapped his watch, the leather strap secured on the very last hole.
“You called us, sir.”
“Not through any choice of my own. I have an obligation to inform the authorities when something like this gets stolen. Let’s get on with it, shall we?” He gestured toward an empty space on a narrow desk opposite the bed. A power cord snaked into thin air.
“Your laptop has been stolen?” Ingrid had meant it to sound more like a statement than a question.
“You don’t know?”
“Just confirming the facts, Mr Brewster.” She was pushing a boulder up a steep incline.
“Laptop, credit cards, cash.”
“And you won’t report this to the police, is that correct?”
“It’s a diplomatic incident, not a criminal one.” His sneer was threatening to turn into a snarl.
“I see.” She didn’t. She was grasping in the dark. “I’m going to need a bit of background, Mr Brewster. What line of business are you in?”
“What level of security clearance do you have at the embassy?” Brewster looked her up and down.
“That’s not something I can discuss.”
He shook his head. “Well, that tells me plenty.”
“Sir?”
“Unless you have level five clearance, I cannot tell you what I do, or what was on the laptop, but there are documents on there of a sensitive nature.”
“National security?”
“It would be more accurate to say commercially sensitive with security repercussions.” He looked out the gothic arched window of his hotel down onto the busy four-lane highway of Euston Road. “The content is encrypted. I’m confident the information is completely secure, but there are people in government who need to know about the potential for a breach.”
“Sir, I work for the FBI. I understand embassy officials are informing relevant parties via the regular channels. I am a criminal investigator, and as it is my understanding there was information on your laptop that belongs to the United States government, it is my job to retrieve it.”
He huffed.
“Do you have the make and model? The serial number?”
“I can get my secretary to email you that sort of thing.”
“That would be helpful. Now, do you know an approximate time your possessions were taken? I’ll need to interview the staff on shift.”
“No, you don’t.”
Her cell phone buzzed in her bag, vibrating noisily against her metal water flask. No doubt it would be her fiancé again. They hadn’t spoken for days, possibly weeks. She ignored it.
“The robbery had nothing to do with the hotel staff.”
“How can you be so—?”
“I had a… guest last night.” He leaned his plump forearms on the window ledge. “It’s an agency I’ve used every other time I’ve visited. I’ve never had any trouble before.” He held up a hand, his wedding ring digging into the flesh of his finger. “Before you ask, I’ve already been in touch with the agency. All the contact information they have is fake.”
“An escort agency?” His dressing gown made him look like a sleazeball.
“I’m a businessman on a long trip from home.” He turned to face her. “It’s not exactly unusual.”
Ingrid took a notebook out of her bag. “Can you give me a description of your visitor? I should be able to track her down.”
Brewster’s shoulders tensed.
“A description?”
“What did she look like?” She joined him at the window and caught sight of a skyline of modern glass spikes and ancient religious spires. His eyes were screwed tight shut.
“I can assure you I will be discreet.” You cheating bastard.
Brewster let out a long sigh. “Dark short hair, mid to late twenties. Six feet two, one-eighty pounds, muscular.” He opened his eyes and studied her face, daring a response.
Ingrid fought hard not to appear surprised. “Ethnicity?”
“White.”
“Nationality?”
“How the hell would I know? I wasn’t paying to make chitchat with him.”
“Did you notice an accent?”
“He sounded British; that’s the best I can do.”
“I’ll need the name of the escort agency and a complete list of what was taken.”
He glanced at a large flight case shoved beneath the narrow desk.
“What’s in the case?” she asked.
“Nothing was taken from it.” He stepped between her and the case. He was hiding something.
“How long are you in London?” she asked him.
“Another forty-eight hours. And then I will be back again in a week.”
“And you’re sure no one else had access to your room? Only the escort?”
“Correct.” He was getting agitated.
“I have to ask you, sir. Is there anything personally compromising on the laptop?”
His eyes narrowed. “It is my work laptop.”
“I’m trying to ascertain a motive for the theft, Mr. Brewster. If, as you suspect, the thief wants to access whatever sensitive information is on the device—and if that’s the case, I imagine he’ll be easier to find—but if his intention is merely to blackmail you”—she looked deliberately at his wedding ring—“he might be harder to track down.”
Brewster said nothing.
“I need to ask: were you conscious the entire time the escort was in your room?”
She could tell he wished he hadn’t called the theft in. “I may have nodded off.”
“Might you have been drugged?”
He looked puzzled.
“Rohypnol,” she explained. “The ‘date rape’ drug. There may be other crimes he could be charged with if we can’t prove the theft.”
Brewster had had enough. He looked at his wrist. “Dear God, is that the time?” His flesh bulged around his watch strap. “I really do think you should be going, Miss Skyberg.”
The man was objectionable.
“It’s agent Skyberg.” She dropped her notebook into her bag and turned for the door. “I’ll show myself out.”
When she reached the door, she glanced back and saw Greg Brewster crouching down for the aluminum flight case. She paused, suddenly needing to straighten her collar in the mirror.
He looked up at her. “You can go now.�
�
She let herself out. Ingrid had no desire to help him out, but every single piece of her wanted to know what he was hiding.
5
Ingrid arrived at the embassy building in Grosvenor Square shortly before lunch. She fired up her computer, determined to do a bit of background research on Greg Brewster. While she went through the long-winded log-in procedure, her mind drifted back to the scene in Lauren Shelbourne’s apartment. She saw again the lifeless body and was overwhelmed with sadness. She wondered which of the embassy staff had told the girl’s parents.
Ingrid closed her eyes, and inevitably an image of her lost school friend appeared, the way she’d looked the last time Ingrid had seen her. The last time anybody had seen her. Ingrid took a moment to offer up a silent wish. One day I’ll find you. Then she puffed out a breath, snapped her eyes open, and focused on her computer monitor. She tapped Brewster’s name into the database search field and tried hard to concentrate on something other than dead girls. There was no record of him. She tried another database, and this time an alert flashed up: ‘access denied.’
On her way through the bull pen to Sol’s office, Ingrid passed a couple of other agents. One acknowledged her politely with a nod; the other totally blanked her. She knew her role in the criminal division was seen as lowlier than the counterterrorism work her colleagues were involved in, but sometimes the way she was treated felt like more than rudeness.
She reached the end of a wood-paneled, airless corridor and rapped on the frame of Sol’s half-open door. The office was empty. She checked the hallway both ways. No sign of Sol. Or anyone else. After one last glance up and down the empty hallway, she slipped inside the office and behind Sol’s desk. She looked for a scrap of paper and a pen. Sol’s computer woke from sleep mode. Ingrid stared at the cursor flashing enticingly at her from the search field in the center of the screen. Maybe Sol had a higher clearance level—he was bound to, wasn’t he—and she wouldn’t get the access denied message if she searched for Brewster on his computer? Her fingers hovered over the keyboard.
“Can I help you with something?”
“Sol, hi.” She swallowed hard. “I, um, thought you always ate a sandwich at your desk.”