by Ben Miller
“Actually I did. We were on this weekend. I spent most of the night talking with her family and friends. Big shocker to everyone, to tell you the truth.”
“What’s it looking like?”
“A head-scratcher, for sure.” Jack thought he could hear Troy literally scratching the shortly-cropped hair on his scalp on the other end of the line. “Sure looks like suicide, but every single person I talked to said, ‘No way.’ They couldn’t buy it.”
“Any note or anything?” Jack asked, then wondered to himself if that voicemail could be interpreted as her suicide note in some way.
“Nope. Nothing. She had been seeing a therapist for the last year since her separation, but she—the therapist—said that Melissa had never been suicidal. In fact, she always denied any suicidal thoughts.”
“Huh.” Jack felt like scratching his own head. “Well I wanted to let you know that she called me on Friday.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It was pretty weird. I hadn’t seen her since Melvin Young’s sentencing, and we hadn’t spoken since even before that.”
“Really?” Troy repeated. Jack could hear him shuffling some papers, likely finding a spot in his tablet to start taking notes. “What did she say?”
“Something… well… weird. We didn’t speak; she just left me a voicemail.”
“Uh-huh. Do you still have it?”
“I do.”
“Uh-huh. And what time was this?”
“A little before ten. I can tell you exactly…” Jack scrolled through the menu on his phone to missed calls. “9:46 am.”
“Uh-huh. And did you call her back?”
“I didn’t listen to the message until late afternoon, around four o’clock, I think. I did try to call her back, several times, but it kept going straight to her voicemail.”
“Huh.” Troy didn’t say anything for several seconds. Scratching his head again, perhaps. “Do you think you could come in and play that message for me?”
“Yeah, gladly. That’s why I called,” Jack said.
“OK. How about eleven? I guess the easiest place to meet would be at my office.”
“That’s the main headquarters, right? On Indiana Avenue?”
“No. We’re on M Street, 101 Southwest,” Troy confirmed. “I guess they don’t want us Homicide boys scaring off John Q. Public at Main Headquarters.”
“OK,” Jack said, essentially ignoring the comment. “I’ll see you at eleven.”
“Great. Glad you called, Jack.”
Jack wasn’t so sure yet, but he agreed with Troy anyway before signing off.
52
Worth going to see D Coulters family?
Reilly looked down at his phone, considering how to respond to Corinne’s text. He sat in the front corner of the conference room in the Warren County Sheriff’s Office. He and Camilla had planned a debriefing and strategy-planning session with Hank Hanley, county deputies, and nearly two dozen members of the local police officers from around the county, many of whom volunteered their time on this Sunday morning to help find Danielle Coulter’s killer. Only a few of the planned attendees, including Camilla, had arrived yet. He tapped out a response on his iPhone.
Prob not. Pretty upset & bitter. Give it 1-2 days.
He closed his text program and opened up his e-mail, finding no response yet from Terry Friesz. Not long after arriving at the county office building, Reilly went to the morgue to retrieve the message the Predator had left inside Danielle Coulter’s sock. Keeping it inside the clear plastic bag, he had taken a photo of it with his phone and e-mailed it to Friesz, copying himself, Harringer, and Camilla as well. This one looked nothing like the previous two, though Reilly recognized it surely as some kind of foreign language, probably Middle Eastern. Reilly opened up the photo again on his phone to take another look at it.
He studied the lines, the curves, the dots placed at seemingly random locations. He had trouble imagining how someone could derive meaning from this.
His phone vibrated briefly; a new text message—again from Corinne— had come in:
OK Thx. This sucks for them, but sorry you had to deal with that this morning.
Reilly smiled subtly. He appreciated her empathy, more so for him than for the Coulter family. He got the sense that she really cared.
Another vibration; another text from Corinne.
BTW, OK to use Playground Predator, now that its out there?
Reilly contemplated her inquiry for a moment. His initial instinct told him to first discuss it with Harringer— probably the prudent thing to do. He knew, though, that Harringer didn’t want to micromanage stuff like this. To demonstrate his ability to serve as a lead investigator, Reilly decided to make this call himself. He considered the possibility that their derisive, somewhat disparaging approach in her article on Friday may have, in fact, provoked the Playground Predator to kill again so quickly. Perhaps throwing their un-sub a proverbial bone in the media wasn’t such a bad idea. He thought that it couldn’t turn out too much worse than the previous strategy.
OK. But not in headline, and only once.
Reilly hit send and felt good about it, confident he had made the right decision. Before he could bask in his own glow too much, his phone vibrated again. He had received an e-mail. He exited out of the text program and anxiously opened up his e-mail inbox. The lone unopened message residing at the top of the list had arrived from Terry Friesz.
Reilly opened the e-mail, which contained just one sentence. Not even a sentence, actually. Just six words.
Arabic. The man of the hour.
53
Corinne sat on the edge of the bed in her hotel room, planning out her day in her head. She had put on her bra and underwear, but hadn’t dressed any further, as her agenda would influence what clothes she wore. Going to see the Coulters: a professional but unassuming business suit. Stopping by police headquarters: business casual. Pounding the local pavement to try to ferret out a witness or two: jeans and a light sweatshirt.
Her hair still hung wet down her shoulders, an infrequent drop of water falling from the end of one of her red coils onto the bedspread. She looked down at her phone, reading over the last text from Reilly. It reminded her that she needed to get in touch with her friend Meredith today. She had to send a thank you.
She scrolled through her phone menu, contemplating whether to send a text or an e-mail. E-mail would probably be better; she could say a little more. She eschewed her phone for her laptop, tossing the handheld onto the bed beside her and hopping to the other bed in the room, on which lay her laptop. She opened up Outlook and began writing a new message before a thought occurred to her: I probably shouldn’t lay down an electronic trail.
She hadn’t done anything illegal, per se. At least she didn’t think so. Still, perhaps a phone call would be best.
Corinne had met Meredith Rivas back in college. Both had been journalism majors at American University, so they shared several classes throughout their four years. Meredith possessed a natural beauty which made many other females envious; it made it difficult for her to make friends at times. Girls often assumed that she found herself too pretty, too special, or too important to be a good friend. Corinne always found that kind of approach to interpersonal relationships foolish— “horseshit” in her lexicon. She and Meredith shared a healthy competitive friendship in their classes, but this never permeated into their personal life. Even when Meredith landed her first TV job straight out of college, it didn’t bother Corinne. She figured Meredith would find herself at home in front of a TV camera, whereas Corinne had always wanted to pursue work in print. Her skills and ambition as a writer far surpassed her desire to put on make-up, go out on assignment, and talk about the latest pseudo-tragedy at the local animal shelter. Not unexpectedly, Meredith quickly ascended the ranks at her local station and recently moved on to one of the major networks. She currently worked as a field reporter for ABC. (Within three more years she would land a spot as a weekend anchor
, one step closer to her lifelong dream—supplanting the evening daytime anchor.)
Corinne got up off the bed and grabbed her phone from the other bed. Meredith answered after the third ring.
“Hey, girlfriend!” Meredith answered.
“Hey,” Corinne responded.
“Long time no talk.” Meredith always seemed to slip this into the early part of one of their conversations, whether in truth or facetiously, like now.
“Yeah. Hey, I can’t talk long, but I wanted to thank you for your beautiful work yesterday.”
“No sweat. Thank you for the tip. We were the only network to run it at six. Everybody else played second fiddle at eleven,” Meredith remarked.
Corinne smiled. “Nice. I will put the finder’s fee on your tab. But I’ll subtract twenty bucks as a tip for the subtlety with which you threw it out there.”
“Subtle? Hardly. I punched that shit as best I could with shouting it. ‘The Playground Predator has struck again, and he remains at large’.” Meredith’s voice changed with that last sentence, coming through a little deeper and with added inflection. Corinne recognized it as her Reporter Voice.
Corinne laughed. “At any rate, you hit it out of the park. It got back to my contact, and he said today that I can start using it. So I won’t get credit for it, but…”
“But mission accomplished,” Meredith finished.
“Mission accomplished,” Corinne agreed.
54
Jack parked across the street from the MPDC Homicide Headquarters shortly before 11:00 am. His Nav system had confirmed the address, but the brick building in front of Jack looked to him more like a residential home than a branch of the MPDC. He walked up the sidewalk to the bright blue front door. Before he could knock, Troy Scharf opened it from inside.
“Hey, Jack, come on in,” Troy said, turning his shoulder so Jack could walk past him in the small foyer. They did not shake hands. “Any trouble finding it?”
“Nope,” Jack replied, trying to act casually.
Troy moved quickly down a hallway directly across from the door, assuming Jack would follow behind, which he did. “Good, good…” Troy said over his shoulder, his voice trailing off. Troy acted differently from any of their previous meetings. More tense, perhaps. His voice didn’t sound shaky or quivering, but… tight. Maybe this is just how he is at work, Jack thought.
Troy stopped in front of an open office door on their right and turned back to face Jack. He extended his hand into the room, suggesting that Jack enter. Jack walked in to see another officer, wearing a button down shirt without a tie, standing up behind a desk.
“This is my partner on this one, Jacob Sednick,” Troy announced.
“Hi, Jacob,” Jack said.
Jacob came out from behind his desk and extended his hand, which Jack accepted. “Hi, Jack. It’s really a pleasure to meet you. We always tease Troy,” he lightly smacked Troy’s abdomen with the back of his hand. “’Cause he says that he knows you, and we say he’s just making it up!”
“Yeah, no, it’s true. Our wives have been friends since college,” Jack confirmed with a hint of a smile.
Despite the lighter mood in the room, Troy seemed to remain somber. “Jack, sorry to do this, but something’s come up and I have to be on the phone for a little bit on a separate matter. Is it OK with you if you talk with Jacob for a little bit?”
Jack shrugged. “Sure, that’s fine.”
“Great,” Jacob said, almost gleefully. He pulled back an upholstered chair with a metal frame for Jack to sit in before he moved back behind his desk.
“Thanks. I’ll catch up with you two in just a little bit.” Troy closed the door behind him as he left. Jack thought to himself that possibly the tension that he detected in Troy stemmed from this other matter that came up, a matter that had to pull him away from this. Perhaps he felt bad about ditching Jack with this sycophant. Jack sat down in his assigned chair.
“So… Jackson Byrne,” Jacob said.
Jack wondered if he detected a hint of sarcasm, but he decided not to play into it either way. He raised his eyebrows. “Yeah.”
“Troy told me that you got a voicemail from Melissa Hollows the other day.”
Jack reached to his side and got his Blackberry off his belt. “Yeah…” He began navigating through the welcome screen to retrieve the message.
Jacob grabbed a pen that had been lying on his desk. He flipped to a fresh page on a legal pad in front of him and began taking notes. “What time did you receive the call?”
Jack scrolled through his missed call log. “9:46 am.”
“OK,” Jacob responded, scrawling notes. “And I take it you did not answer the call, since she ended up leaving a voice mail.”
“Yeah,” Jack affirmed. He resisted the urge to add a sardonic “That’s right, Sherlock” to his response.
Still writing, not making eye contact, Jacob asked, “And when had you last spoken to Mrs. Hollows?”
Jack took a deep breath, trying to answer as precisely as possible. “Last fall. Mid- September, I believe. At Melvin Young’s sentencing.”
Jacob looked up from his legal pad. “Who?”
Jack paused, looking straight back at the detective. Jacob’s initial impression led Jack to believe that Jacob had been a fan, of sorts. That he had followed his work. Yet, he didn’t know the name Melvin Young? It struck Jack as quite odd.
He began to reconsider his rationalization for Troy’s stiff demeanor. Something else was going on here.
“Melvin Young, the man who killed Melissa’s daughter,” Jack answered finally, still not averting his eyes.
Jacob raised his head in an exaggerated nod before looking back down at his legal pad. “Oh, right, of course.” He scribbled a few more before dropping his pen dramatically. “All right, let’s hear this bad boy.”
Jack dialed his voice mail and listened for the menu. He then hit the speaker function and lay the phone down face-up on top of Jacob’s desk.
A quiet, stifled sob from Melissa, the first sound on the recording, sent a chill down Jack’s spine. She inhaled through a snotty nose. “We were made for each other, Jack.” Quick sob. “You and me.” A brief pause, followed by the hurried, “Me and you! Me and you.” The first “Me” came out abruptly, as if rooted in a startle. Then silence. The end of the message.
Jack looked across the desk at Jacob, who stared wide-eyed at the phone. He continued to avoid eye contact with Jack. “Whoa,” the detective finally said. He picked his pen back up, tapped it on his pad a couple of times, thinking about his next question. Pointedly he suddenly looked Jack straight in the eye. “What do you make of that?” The calm, conversational lilt in his voice contrasted the intensity of his gaze.
“I’m not sure,” Jack responded honestly, fixed on Jacob’s eyes. It felt unnatural to keep gawking at each other like this, but, given Jack’s competitive nature, he resolved not to lose this weird impromptu staring contest. “I’ve been racking my brain about that for the last two days. Something about it feels familiar, as if she were reciting something, but I can’t place it for the life of me.”
Jacob looked down at his legal pad to jot something, leaving Jack the victor of the staring contest. “She never said anything like this to you before?”
Jack shook his head. “No.”
“And what was the nature of your relationship with Melissa Hollows?” Jacob asked. He nonchalantly grabbed his coffee mug and took a drink.
Jack opened his mouth to answer, but then paused for a beat. Now he understood why Troy had passed this conversation onto his partner: he didn’t want to have to ask these questions. These questions that—Jack knew for the integrity of the investigation— needed asking. “Professional, lasting through the investigation of her daughter’s murder. I came to like her and respect her on a personal level, but never saw her in any capacity outside of the investigation.” Jack had thought this lie in his head so many times that he almost believed it. He felt extremely confid
ent that it came out convincing to Jacob in this moment.
“OK. You said that you last spoke in September. Did you keep in touch by any other means? E-mail? Texts?”
“No.”
“Had you seen her, even from a distance, during that time?”
Jack thought for a brief moment. “No.”
“And what did you do after you heard the voicemail?”
Jack scratched his ear and thought back to the events of Friday afternoon. “I didn’t listen to it until I was leaving work, a little after four, I guess. I tried to call her right back, but it went straight to voicemail.”
“Uh-huh.” Jacob continued writing his notes.
“I tried several more times, with the same result.”
“Did you leave a voicemail?”
“No.”
“Uh-huh. And were all of these calls from your cell?”
“Yes.” Jack began to feel uncomfortable. As part of his FBI training, he had to undergo interrogations. Even these simulated questioning sessions had made him feel uneasy, as they should when conducted by a skilled inquisitor. Gradually over the last few moments, he sensed that kind of tension rising. He found himself the subject of an interrogation. Why? he wondered. Because Melissa killed herself? It didn’t make sense. Unless…Was this on behalf of Vicki? Had Brenda found an opportunity to have her husband—or one of his associates—interrogate Jack about his affair with Melissa?
“OK. And then what did you do?”
“I—“
Before he could begin his response, Troy burst into the room. He walked around Jack to the side of Jacob’s desk, triangulating the two of them so that they all could see each other. “I just got a call from the coroner,” Troy proclaimed. “Melissa Hollows’ death has been ruled a homicide.”
Jack’s eyebrows rose instinctively. “Holy shit,” he said quietly. He looked at Troy, who kept his attention towards Jacob, as if he only cared about informing him of this revelation. Jack looked down at Jacob, who kept his eyes trained right back at Jack. Jack now sensed that Jacob had been looking at him the entire time since Troy entered the room, watching for his reaction to the news.