I wait a second too long and he glances back up at me.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say, walking away from him. There’s a weight in my stomach and the only thing I could describe it as, is doubt.
* * *
“Thank you, Mrs. Lively,” I say as she hands me a cup of tea. I’d much rather have coffee, but when I’m talking to the wife of a murder victim, it’s best to just take what I’m given.
Jennifer Lively sits across from me. She’s a sweet looking woman—small body frame, delicate facial features, and pale blonde hair—but her body is hunched over and her facial expression has this constant puzzlement on it. Even as she smiles, she seems confused about how the world keeps going on as if nothing has happened when her husband was brutally murdered and his murderer is still walking around, doing all those things that Gavin can no longer do.
“So, what can you tell me about Gavin?” I ask. “You told my colleague that he sometimes went to the church. Was he devout?”
The edge of her lips curve up, but the wrinkles at the corner of a person's eyes that denote a genuine expression of joy isn't there. “Uh, no. I mean…he accepted Jesus as his savior and he loved God…but when it came to devoting time for worship? It wasn’t a priority compared to his job. We argued about it a couple of times. He told me that he could worship God from anywhere and he didn’t need to go into any specific building to do it. He said that God would care more about him providing for me than if he sang a few hymns. It used to make me so angry, but now…it seems so trivial.”
I grasp her hand. She looks up at me.
“You don’t need to feel bad about any tension between you and your husband,” I tell her, letting go of her hand. “I’m sure he knew that you loved him and he’s with God now. It’s okay.”
She nods, sipping from her cup of tea. “I know. That’s the only thing that reassures me.”
“So, is there any reason he would go to Pious Church in the last couple of days?”
She shakes her head. “No. He actually usually meets with clients on Sunday—I think it’s some kind of power play for him to force people to meet him on days they don’t usually work…but I actually haven’t seen him in the last couple of days…like I said…we had been arguing lately, both because of the church issue and his constant working…so, sometimes he’d stay at his office for two or three days and sleep there. I suppose he could have gone to the church this morning, but it doesn’t seem like something he would do.”
I swallow, trying to push down the grief I feel for her. “Mrs. Lively, I don’t think he went to the church this morning. Our medical examiner thinks…well, the way he was killed, it would have taken a day or two…”
Her bottom lip trembles. I don’t want to hurt her by implying that her husband suffered, but she needs to know the truth and with Mary Fitzgerald involved, I have no doubt that the media will be talking about it for weeks.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Lively. I can’t imagine that pain you’re feeling.”
She wipes away two tears that slide down both sides of her face. “It’s…it’s going to be okay. I just want to help you find his killer.”
“Did he have any enemies?”
“Gavin? No, not really. Not anyone who would do this,” she says. “Like I said, he could be an aggressive businessman sometimes, but everyone wanted his product and they were always very satisfied with it.”
“Still, if you could write down anyone he angered, that would be great,” I say. “Also, was your husband a fan of Mary Fitzgerald?”
Jennifer shrugs as she grabs a pen and a pad of paper off her coffee table and begins to jot down some names. “He liked some of her songs because I was always playing them, but he wasn’t a big fan. She was just another pop singer to him that sang some catchy songs.”
I nod and take a sip of my tea. It’s bitter. “Right. Thank you.”
She hands me a piece of paper. “The first one is his old business partner. When they split it up, he wasn’t very happy about it, but Gavin helped pay for his mother’s hip surgery, so I don’t think there’s any bad blood between them. And the next two are people who wanted to invest in his product but Gavin either didn’t like them or they didn’t offer enough money.”
As I take the piece of paper, her whole face seems to crumple and tears begin streaking down her cheeks.
“What am I supposed to do without him?” she mumbles.
I move over to the armchair she’s sitting on and wrap my arms around her. My training officer had told me that I shouldn’t become too empathetic to the people I question because it would compromise my ability to investigate, but if it comes down to investigating or comforting someone who has lost the most important person in their life, there isn’t any argument in my mind.
There is nothing more important than reaching out and feeling somebody reaching back, knowing that they are there for you, no matter what difficult experiences life throws at you.
Sometimes it’s God. Sometimes it’s a significant other. Sometimes people reach out and they feel nothing, so they tumble down into some dark place where all their demons come out to play.
Chapter Six
Tobias
To say that Mary’s father, Captain Thomas Fitzgerald, is an intimidating man would be an understatement. He has to be at least 6’5” with broad shoulders and a jawline that puts sculptures to shame. His hair is gray, but it’s cut in a military style and he moves with the precision of someone who has spent his time making everyone else feel inferior.
I called him about fifteen minutes ago, but he didn’t answer, and I can assume now that it’s because he had been flying over, then coming straight to this police station in order to terrify everyone in it. The reason I know it’s him is because of his LAPD patch. As he talks to one of the police officers right outside of the elevator and the police officer points to me, my hopes are dashed that he won’t find me.
Once he’s in front of me, his hand cuts through the air as he raises it. I stand up from my desk and I shake it, my hand feeling small and weak as he grips it like a vise.
“Detective Rodriguez,” he says. “Captain Mattinson informed me that you and your partner are the ones looking into the murder of Gavin Lively. I’ve already talked to Adult Missing Persons Unit, but we both know the two cases intersect and I hope you’re working just as hard in finding my daughter as Missing Persons is.”
“Of course, Captain Fitzgerald,” I say.
“From your voicemail, I’m assuming you want to talk to me. Should we talk here or in the interrogation room?”
“Here is fine,” I say, pulling Lauren’s chair to the side of my desk. I gesture to it, and sit back down in my own chair. “You’re not a suspect, so there’s no need for us to go to the interrogation room.”
“Detective Rodriguez, it’s not my job to tell you how to do your job, but you should never eliminate any suspects,” he says, sitting down. “But since you’re already assuming I’m innocent, I will tell you that I was at a crime scene in Los Angeles this morning. The victim’s name was Andrea Scalfold. She had fallen from the roof of an Italian restaurant called Agostino’s. Many officers were there, so was Detective Rivers and Detective Bell. There was also a fair amount of news crews and bystanders with cameras, so I’m sure there’s footage of me somewhere on it.”
“Thank you, Captain,” I say. “I will check in to that.”
He raises an eyebrow. I grimace. This is going to be more difficult than I thought. This is why I would never work for internal affairs—there’s too much of a conflict of interest to investigate someone who has been in the same perilous situations as me.
“Anyway, what can you tell me about your daughter? Any enemies? Strange behavior?”
He shakes his head. “No. She was beloved. I didn’t see her often with my job and her career, but we talked last night and she seemed like her usual joyous self.”
“You say she was b
eloved, but what about Jackson Belamonte?” I ask.
His nostrils flare and he clenches his jaw. “Yes, well, he was annoying, but Mary insisted that it was part of being famous,” he says. “I tried to get a restraining order pushed through, but she refused to do it and I couldn’t get it done without her consent. Have you looked into Belamonte?”
“Yes,” I say. “His alibi is solid.”
“But he didn’t work alone,” Captain Fitzgerald says. “He had many people who supported his Satanist cause. I’ve seen the photographs of them at Mary’s concerts. It could have been any of them.”
“Some of the other detectives are looking into that. Since you’ve now remembered that Belamonte didn’t look at your daughter so fondly, is there anyone else you can think of who didn’t like her?”
“…When she talked to me a couple nights ago, she mentioned she was having some issues with her bodyguard,” he confesses. “I’ve known Brian for awhile now…at least six months. I thought she was just being oversensitive and stressed over touring so much.”
“What did she say about him?”
“She said he was clingy and never gave her any time by herself,” he says. “He’s her guard, so he’s supposed to always be around, but I guess she missed her privacy and didn’t like him guarding her hotel rooms.”
I jot down what he tells me. “That’s interesting. We’ll look into him. Anything else?”
He shakes his head. “Like I said…she was beloved. She spent her time volunteering at hospitals and adoption centers. She didn’t make enemies. Even people who didn’t like her from her persona as a singer warmed up to her the moment they met her.”
“All right, thank you, Captain,” I say, standing up. I offer him my hand and he shakes it, standing up as well. “I’ll keep you up-to-date on the investigation.”
His grip tightens on my hand. “You shouldn’t have to keep me up-to-date because you should be spending all of your time finding her and you should find her before I expect any update. Understood, Detective Rodriguez?”
I force a smile and jerk my hand out of his grasp. “I will do what I can.”
“You’ll do better than that.”
“Of course.”
* * *
I knock on Brian Sidorov’s hotel door. His hotel room is right beside Mary’s. There are still officers going through her room, looking through every detail of her life to find some evidence that would point to who would kidnap her. It would make the most sense that it would be the person who is literally by her side all of the time—her bodyguard—but it might be a little too obvious. From the scene left in the pastor’s office, this killer seems to be much smarter than that.
Brian’s hotel room door swings open. Brian is a mammoth of a man—the kind that you would think belonged to a biker gang except there probably isn’t a bike that could handle his weight. But, after facing Mary’s father, I’d rather talk to anyone else.
“What do you want?” he rumbles. The fish tattoo on his chin wiggles as he talks.
I flash him my badge. “I’m Detective Rodriguez. I’d like to talk to you about Mary.”
He snorts, gesturing into his hotel room. “Come on in. I can assure you there aren’t any teenage girls locked up in here.”
I walk past him into the room. It seems barely used—the bed has its silk sheets pulled up and tucked under the mattress and the only sign of Brian’s presence here is a suitcase beside the silver dresser. A chandelier hangs from a ceiling and gold statues of eagles stand guard in two corners of the room. I’d be impressed if I hadn’t glanced into Mary’s room and seen the ceiling painted in gorgeous colors that remind me of a sunset and gold butterflies all over the walls in addition to the chandelier and gold eagles.
Brian closes the door and I turn back around to face him. He may not terrify me in the same way as Captain Fitzgerald does, but that doesn’t mean I have any desire to have my back turned toward him.
“I don’t suspect you,” I tell him. “I just want to ask you some questions.”
“Of course you suspect me,” he says. “Even the paparazzi was beginning to catch wind of the fact that Mary and I weren’t getting along. That’s not my fault. She wanted me to leave her alone and that’s not in my job description. My job is to keep her safe.”
“It doesn’t matter what she wants?”
“No,” he states. “You don’t understand. I work for the music industry. Mary Fitzgerald is more than Mary Fitzgerald—she is a brand, she is an icon, she is a symbol of Christian rock and gospel music. Her manager wants to protect all of that, and he hired me to do it. I’m not going to fail at my job because some whiny little teenager wants privacy.”
“So…you didn’t give her any extra space?” I ask.
He shrugs. “We scheduled some extra hours in her morning where she could do what she wants alone, but we weren’t going to give her more than that. She could have run away to finally get some privacy for all I know.”
“At the same time a guy was brutally murdered?” I ask. “I highly doubt it. Do you have an alibi for the murder and her disappearance?”
“I was with the band. While she was praying, we went to get donuts and coffee on the other side of the church. I’m sure other people saw us there.”
“So…absolutely nothing I learned here today was useful?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Sorry, man. I have a feeling that she may have not wanted me around because she was sneaking out to see some guy, but as far as I know, she never succeeded in seeing him. He could have kidnapped her.”
“And you have no idea who this guy is?” I ask.
He chuckles, shaking his head. “Detective, I saw Mary more than I ever wanted to and I heard her tell the same testimony over and over,” he says. “I had no interest in hearing about her personal life, much less about her secret personal life. I’m sorry. I wish she was back here and safe, but at the time, I simply didn’t care.”
I clench my jaw. I’m sure it’s not his fault that she’s been kidnapped, but it’s too easy for people to ignore what is going on in other people’s lives. If everyone paid more attention to what was happening around them, so many crimes could be prevented.
Then again, I’ve never been good at recognizing that my personal life is about to explode, leaving shrapnel in everybody who stands too close, so I can’t judge others for not caring.
* * *
With the help of the pure intimidation of Captain Fitzgerald, I got a search warrant from a judge for Mary’s cell phone. After getting the password from her service provider, I’ve searched through her phone contacts, texts, and recent phone calls—she has an abundance of all three of these things, but they all seem to be from random fans; none seem to be any kind of boyfriend or someone she was close to. I’ve also tagged her credit cards and Romano sent her photo to the news station, so they can tell everyone to be on the lookout for her, though many entertainment shows have already reported her missing. This brings me back to the same, constant question: who kidnaps a celebrity? Someone who had been living under a rock for the last year will still know who she is because her music is always playing and at least two magazines have her face on the cover every month.
When Lauren walks back into the station, I’m relieved to see her in a way I haven’t been in a long time. Though, it’s likely just because I’ve been reading texts along the lines of: Mary I luv u so much plz txt me back ill do nething and I have no idea what any of that means.
“Please tell me the killer just happened to be hanging out at Gavin’s house,” I say.
She smirks, pulling her chair up to my desk and sitting down. “Sorry, no dice. The wife wasn’t overly helpful, either. The husband was a workaholic, he wasn’t a fan of attending church, and they were having enough marital troubles that she didn’t think it was weird when he didn’t return home. He listened to Mary’s music, but he wasn’t a big fan. His wife gave me some names of people who weren’t happy with them, but one of them is in China right now, on
e of them is in Alaska, and the third one is still in the city, but it definitely wasn’t him.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“He broke his leg while cleaning out his gutters yesterday. There’s no way he could have dragged Gavin’s body into the church.”
I groan. “Why can’t murderers ever just walk into the station and confess? Can’t you pray about it or something?”
“I have been,” she says, standing back up and pulling her chair back to her desk.
“Come on, Lauren, you know I’m just joking around,” I say. “Though, I’d note that the praying thing isn’t working.”
“First off, praying isn’t supposed to magically grant wishes. It’s a dialogue with God,” she says. “And secondly, we always find our killer. Who’s to say the prayers aren’t working?”
I sigh, running my fingers through my hair. “Well, at least your last couple of hours were more successful than mine. There’s nothing in Mary’s life other than Jackson Belamonte that would point to her having any problems with anybody. I also didn’t find any connection between Mary and Gavin. I don’t know what’s going on here, Lauren, but we need to find Mary. Every hour that passes by increases her likelihood of being killed. We need to start focusing on her. I don’t care if we risk losing the killer—as long as we get her back alive.”
She nods, staring down at a photo of Mary, which Captain Fitzgerald had left on every cop’s desk. “It’s so strange working on a kidnapping. We’re not used to living victims.”
I grimace. “I know. I don’t like it. There’s so much more at risk when you’re absolutely certain that there’s another victim on a killer’s schedule and he could be doing anything to her right now. It adds a sense of helplessness. Still, if we get her back alive, I won’t complain about the fact that she’s breathing and not a murder victim.”
Voice of the Spirit (A Trinity of Death Romantic Suspense Series Book 1) Page 3