by Lisa Regan
“No, you’re not under arrest at this time, Mr. Holloway, but I have just advised you of your rights. Do you understand them?”
He looked from her to Connor uncertainly. “Uh, sure, yeah. Okay. Did you find out something about Leah? Did you find out why she—I mean, what happened? Like, did she have a heart attack or something?”
Connor could hear the man’s fingers drumming once more against his knees. “Mr. Holloway,” Connor said, taking the chair across from the man, “before she went into the river, your wife drank a large amount of vodka.”
Holloway stared dumbly at him. A few times, the corners of his mouth lifted, forming a small smile that was at first uncertain and then incredulous. “What?”
Connor repeated himself. Jade said, “She was drunk. Your wife was drunk.”
Holloway’s face darkened. “What? No. That’s impossible. Leah never drank. Never. You couldn’t pay her to drink. I told you yesterday. You gotta do one of those—what’re they called, when they cut up a body to find out why the person died.”
“An autopsy?” Connor said.
“Already did one,” Jade said. “Your wife’s blood alcohol level was point one zero. The legal limit in the State of California is point zero eight. She left the soccer field, stopped at a gas station, drank almost an entire bottle of peppermint vodka, and got back into the car. She left the bottle in the bathroom. She was so drunk she was stumbling when she walked back to the car.”
Holloway stared up at Jade with a look so uncomprehending, Jade might as well have told him that aliens had abducted his wife. His eyes grew slowly moist, disbelief and confusion blanketing his jowly face. “No,” Holloway said. “No, no. That’s wrong. You’re wrong. You’ve got the wrong person.” His hands came up to the table and he fanned his palms out, beseeching. “You got the wrong body. Leah didn’t—she wouldn’t—” His voice cracked and again, Connor was struck by the very real, bone-deep disbelief on the man’s face. He remembered seeing a similar look on his father’s face when the doctors told them Connor’s mother was dying of cancer. It was so big, so awful, so unexpected, and so entirely foreign to everything he knew to be true about his life that he simply could not process it.
Connor remembered his father’s words in that doctor’s office, stilted, awkward, and delivered in the same cracked tone as Jim Holloway: “Wives don’t die.”
Wives don’t die. They don’t leave their husbands and children behind to fumble through the pieces left of their lives. Wives live. They stay. They run things. They hold the world together. Connor had no doubt Leah Holloway had been holding her husband’s very existence together for as long as they’d known one another.
“Mr. Holloway,” Connor said calmly, a pained smile on his face, “I’m very sorry. I know that this is difficult to hear, but Detective Webb is correct, we are absolutely certain that your wife was drinking vodka before she crashed her vehicle into the river.”
Tears welled in Holloway’s eyes. He looked down at his outstretched palms. “But I—I don’t—where did she get vodka?”
“Alan Wheeler,” Jade supplied.
“Alan Wheeler? What the—?”
“Wheeler was drinking at Peyton’s soccer game,” Connor cut in. “Leah caught him. She confiscated the bottle.”
Holloway’s features lifted and brightened at the word confiscated. That must have sounded like his wife.
“She took it with her and, when she stopped at the gas station, she drank it,” Connor finished.
Holloway’s features fell again. He shook his head, as if this entire thing were just nonsense. Connor wished it was. He kept picturing little Peyton in his mind, hearing her small voice. “Will you bring my mommy home?” He wished the whole thing were just a nightmare they’d all wake up from. Peyton could have her mother back. Jim could go back to doing whatever his wife told him to do.
Unless, of course, he was a serial killer.
“Mr. Holloway,” Jade said, “your wife received two phone calls before she died.” She flipped open her notebook. “One at nine fifty-two a.m. and another at ten twenty-eight a.m. It was after she received those calls that she decided to drink herself stupid and kill a bunch of people, including your kids.”
Horror stretched Holloway’s eyes wide. His head reared back like he was trying to get away from her.
“Jade,” Connor cautioned. He caught Holloway’s gaze. “Do you have any idea who might have called Leah?”
Holloway shook his head. “No, I don’t. I don’t know. Maybe Rachel?”
“What about you?” Jade asked. “Did you call your wife yesterday morning?”
“No, I was asleep most of the morning, like I told you yesterday.”
They’d have the phone records soon enough. Jade asked Holloway for his cell phone, and he relinquished it instantly, another indication to Connor that Jim Holloway wasn’t hiding a damn thing. Jade took the phone out to Stryker, who would go through it thoroughly. When she returned, she slid a piece of paper in front of Connor. On it, Stryker had written the dates and times of the Soccer Mom Strangler murders.
Jade leaned back over the table. “When’s the last time you had sex with your wife, Mr. Holloway?”
Holloway’s face colored. “Wh—what? Why would you ask something like that? That—that’s none of your business.”
“How was your sex life? Did the two of you like to experiment? Maybe you liked it a little rough?”
Holloway’s cheeks flashed from hot pink to fire-engine red. “Hey,” he shouted. “That’s private stuff.”
“Mr. Holloway,” Connor cut in, “where were you on April nineteenth at eleven a.m.?” He chose the date of Hope Strauss’s murder, the first victim.
Bewilderment. “What? I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t remember. That was months ago.”
Connor went to the most recent victim, Ellen Fair. “How about October fifteenth at noon?”
“How the hell should I know? I work nights so I was probably sleeping or—or getting ready for work. Jesus. Why are you asking me this shit? What’s this got to do with my wife?”
Jade pulled the paper over to her and rattled off the other two dates. “Do you remember where you were on September eighteenth at one p.m. and October second at nine thirty in the morning?”
He threw his arms in the air. “I have no idea. I don’t keep a calendar. During the week I go to work from four to midnight. I come home, I go to bed, I sleep until ten or eleven. Then I get the kids at three. Leah gets home at three thirty, and I go back to work. On weekends, I fish.”
“So you can’t account for your whereabouts on those dates?” Jade said.
Holloway shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. I guess not. I don’t keep track of my whereabouts every second of every day. You want to know where I was every second of my life, ask my wife.”
The joke died on his lips almost before it was finished coming out of his mouth. His face paled instantly. “Oh God,” he said. For a moment, Connor thought the man was going to be sick.
Jade said, “Mr. Holloway, have you ever cheated on your wife?”
Still chalk white, Holloway’s eyes snapped toward Jade. “What? What the hell kind of question is that? Of course not. I love my wife. I don’t—I don’t know why this is happening.”
Jade placed a hand on her hip and narrowed her eyes at Holloway. “So you’ve never cheated on your wife?”
Holloway shook his head. “No. Never.”
“How about your wife?” Jade asked. “Are you aware that she was having sex with someone else last year?”
Holloway stared at Jade, unblinking, a blank look on his face. “N-no,” he stammered. “Leah didn’t—she wouldn’t—”
“Last year your wife went to her gynecologist and asked to be tested for every STD under the sun. Do you know why she would do that? Why a presumably faithful married woman with a great marriage would do such a thing?”
Holloway didn’t answ
er. Connor could see the man slipping away. It wasn’t that he was tuning Jade out, it was that the situation was becoming too overwhelming for him to comprehend. He was shutting down. He couldn’t process the things Jade was telling him about his wife.
Connor tapped his palm lightly against the table, drawing Holloway’s eyes to him. He smiled sympathetically. Good cop. “Mr. Holloway, your wife told her doctor that you were having an affair. That was why she needed to be tested for STDs. We believe that Leah was the one having an affair. Do you have any idea who she might have slept with?”
“Wh—what?” Holloway spluttered, spittle flying across the table. “Leah didn’t cheat. She wouldn’t. This is a mistake. This is all a big mistake. She was—she was lying. She lied.”
Jade said, “How long did you know your wife?”
Holloway shrugged, the movement jerky and spastic. “I don’t know. Ten, eleven years.”
“Did you know her to lie regularly?”
He slumped. “No. Leah didn’t lie about anything. Leah is good. She was good. She was a good person.”
“Then why would she lie about needing to be tested for STDs? Why would she put herself through all that invasive testing?” Jade asked. “Why would a good person, an upstanding person like your wife, just start lying about things?”
“Jade,” Connor said.
Jade went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “Why would a woman who didn’t drink gulp down a bottle of vodka before getting behind the wheel and driving a bunch of kids around?”
Connor stood and stepped toward her. He spoke in a low voice so that Holloway wouldn’t hear him. “Jade, you’re not going to get anything out of him by bullying him.”
Jade stepped around Connor, her eyes locked on Holloway. “Why would a woman who, as you told us yesterday, had no stress in her life try to kill herself and her kids? Why, Mr. Holloway? What are you not telling us?”
“That’s enough,” Connor said. He took Jade’s elbow and ushered her out of the room. Jade’s bad-cop routine worked on some suspects, but it was clear that Holloway had nothing to confess to them. As Connor turned back toward him, the man put his face in his hands. His voice was a muffled wail. “I don’t know. I don’t know what you want from me.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Holloway,” Connor said, resuming his seat across from the man. “Can you just tell me if your wife ever talked to you about having had an affair?”
Holloway shook his head no.
“Can you think of anyone she might have had an affair with?”
Holloway’s “no” came on the end of a long sob. As he dissolved into tears, shoulders heaving, a knock sounded at the door. Connor stood and answered it. Stryker beckoned him into the hallway. “Nothing on his phone. I need his prints, DNA, and a dental impression.”
“Now’s the time to ask,” Connor said. “He’s pretty beaten down. But I think we should keep digging into Leah Holloway’s life, like Agent Bishop said.”
Stryker nodded. “Let’s explore every avenue. The prints will come up pretty fast. If he’s not a match to the unidentified prints we have on file, then we’ll get DNA and a dental impression from this guy and turn him loose. I’ll put someone on him. We’ll see what he does. Cap said I could call in the forensic dentist to compare the impression to the Strangler bite marks. She’ll be here by the morning. In the meantime, why don’t you guys talk to everyone Leah Holloway knew.”
“We should take another crack at the little girl,” Jade said.
“And the best friend,” Connor agreed. “Coworkers too.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Jim Holloway consented to fingerprinting, a dental impression, and DNA sample without question, if it meant he could go home. His prints didn’t match the unidentified prints from Hope Strauss’s vehicle, but that didn’t eliminate him as a suspect since they had no idea whether or not the mystery prints had been left by the Strangler. For all they knew, the prints belonged to someone in Strauss’s book club. Jim also gave consent for Connor and Jade to speak with Peyton again, under his mother’s supervision. Mother Holloway wasn’t too happy about it, but she let Connor and Jade try to question the girl again. This time, they got nothing at all. Not one word.
They went next door to the Irving household, which was nearly identical to the Holloway house except that it was painted a muted periwinkle with dark-brown accents. The flowerbeds around the perimeter of the house looked more like they’d been planted by professional landscapers, but the trail of discarded toys, bikes, and scooters leading from the edge of the driveway to the front door was equal to that of the Holloway household’s.
Rachel Irving answered her door wearing exactly the same outfit as she’d worn the day before, only her yoga pants were purple instead of black. This time her face was flushed, and a light-blue dish towel was thrown over one shoulder. Wisps of hair escaped from her ponytail and floated around her face. She frowned when she saw them, and Connor wondered if they’d interrupted a workout.
“Mrs. Irving,” he said. “We met yesterday. I’m Detective Connor Parks. This is Detective Jade Webb.”
She rearranged her face into something closer to a smile. “I remember,” she said. “Can I help you?”
“We need to talk to you about Leah,” Connor said.
Her brow furrowed. “What do you need to know? I mean, I told you everything I know already, which isn’t much. I have no idea why she did what she did.”
“You were very helpful,” Connor replied. “We have some questions about the last week of Leah’s life. Was she acting any differently in the days before her death?”
“Scared, fearful, anxious?” Jade added.
Rachel stared at them for a long moment, as though waiting for more. When neither of them spoke, she said, “No. She wasn’t acting differently. Leah was Leah. She was fine.”
“Did you notice anything off about her?” Jade asked. “Physically? Did she seem like she was in pain?”
“No. Why? Did you find something? I assume the autopsy is finished.”
Connor and Jade looked at one another. Jade nodded at him to take the lead. “We believe that Leah was sexually assaulted a few days before her death. We were wondering if she had confided in you about any sort of attack.”
Rachel looked incredulous. Nervous laughter erupted from her diaphragm. “Leah? You think Leah was raped? That’s absurd.”
Connor could practically feel Jade’s annoyance. He looked over and saw her brow severely arched. “Absurd? Why is it absurd?”
More laughter. “Well, no one would want to—I mean Leah wasn’t the kind of woman who—I just can’t see it. Where would that have happened? She’s only ever at work or at home.”
“Surely she went other places,” Connor said. “Grocery shopping, out to eat, soccer practice.”
Rachel made a puh sound. “I was with her during the soccer practices this week, and she only goes grocery shopping on Sundays. I don’t see when she possibly could have been attacked. If someone came into the house, the whole street would know about it.”
“What about her sex life with her husband?” Connor said. “Did she ever talk about it? Were they into anything unusual?”
Rachel shook her head. “Leah was very private. She didn’t talk about that stuff. She was good at putting on a brave face. Half the time she was fighting with Jim I didn’t even know about it until later.”
Jade said, “So she did fight with her husband? About what?”
Rachel waved a hand in the air. “You know, the stuff every married couple fights about. Schedules, day care, who’s going to pick up the kids. Jim wasn’t much help. She was always on him about taking on more responsibility with the kids. Really, I shouldn’t even call them fights. They had spats now and then, nothing out of the ordinary. Is that all?”
“Did Leah ever tell you about her affair?” Connor asked.
Rachel’s right hand grabbed at her “#1 Mom” charm. She looked uncertain, then slowly her expression morphed into a quizzi
cal smile. “What are you talking about?”
Connor said, “We have reason to believe that Leah was having an affair, possibly as far back as before she got pregnant with Tyler.”
“That’s absurd. Leah never had an affair.”
“You mean she never told you she was having an affair,” Jade said.
Rachel met Jade’s eyes. “No, I mean she never had one. I’ve already told you: Leah would never cheat.”
Connor sighed. “You also said Leah never drank, but the coroner found that she was legally drunk when she went into the river. You said she’d never hurt her kids, but she tried to kill them. So, I’ll ask again, did she ever talk to you about her affair?”
Rachel crossed her arms over her chest. “She never talked about having an affair. I know you don’t believe me, but I am telling you, Leah never had one. I mean, I know what you’re saying, like, if she didn’t drink or whatever. Look, I don’t know what happened yesterday.” Her eyes shone with unshed tears. “It was crazy, right? But maybe that’s just it—maybe she just snapped and went crazy. Like when people go postal. What other explanation could there be? It happens. People with good lives, happy lives, they just lose it. There’s no reason. Or maybe they weren’t that put together to begin with. I mean, I told you Leah had a bad childhood, right?”
“You alluded to it,” Connor said.
Rachel was pacing now, this explanation, this theory, which she’d obviously given a lot of thought, propelling her back and forth across the small foyer. “She never gave me details, but I know it was bad. So maybe she was, you know, predisposed to depression. Her mom killed herself—I don’t think I told you that before. Maybe it’s something that runs in the family.”
“What makes you so sure that Leah wasn’t having an affair?” Connor asked.
“I told you at the hospital, she totally hated cheaters.” She looked at Connor. “I told you how judgy she was. How her dad ran around on her mom. She just wouldn’t. I mean, it’s one thing to go postal and kill a bunch of people, but having an affair? Doesn’t that take planning? Calculation? She just wouldn’t.”