‘Sixteen thousand square feet.’ Will’s head called up the layout he’d studied for so many hours that it was still imprinted in his brain. ‘It’s shaped like a horseshoe, with a swimming pool in the middle. The family lives in the main section, the top of the horseshoe. The two wings off the back have a bunch of guest suites, and there’s a nail salon, an indoor basketball court, massage room, gym, movie theater, playroom for his two kids. You name it, they have it.’
‘So, logically, something bad could happen in one part of the house without someone in the other part knowing.’
‘Without two hundred people knowing. Without the maids and the butlers and the valets and the caterers and the cooks and the bartenders and the assistants and the whoever else knowing.’ Will had been given a two-hour tour of the Rippy estate by the family’s chief of security. Cameras were mounted at every possible angle around the exterior of the house. There were no blind spots. Motion sensors detected anything heavier than a leaf landing in the front yard. No one could go in or out of the estate without someone knowing about it.
Except for the night of the assault. There had been a bad storm. The power kept cutting in and out. The generators were state-of-the-art, but for some reason the external DVR that recorded footage from the security cameras was not jacked into the backup power grid.
Faith said, ‘Okay, I saw the news. Rippy’s people said she was a nutjob looking for a payday.’
‘They offered her money. She told them no.’
‘Could’ve been waiting for a higher number.’ Faith drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. ‘Is it possible her wounds were self-inflicted?’
That had been the contention of Rippy’s lawyers. They’d even found an expert who was willing to testify that the giant finger marks around her neck and back and thighs were made by her own hand.
‘She had this bruise here—’ Will indicated his own back. ‘Like a fist print between her shoulder blades. A big fist. You could see the finger marks, same as the bruises on her neck. She had a severe contusion on her liver. The doctors put her on bed rest for two weeks.’
‘There was a condom with Rippy’s semen—’
‘Found in a hall bathroom. The wife says they had sex that night.’
‘And he leaves the used condom in the hall bath, not the master?’ Faith frowned. ‘Was the wife’s DNA on the outside of the condom?’
‘The condom was on a tile floor that had been recently mopped with a cleaner that contained bleach. There was nothing we could use on the outside.’
‘Any DNA found on the victim?’
‘There were some unidentified strands, all female, probably picked up at her dorm.’
‘Did the victim say who invited her to the party?’
‘She came with a group of college friends. None of them can remember who got the initial invite. None of them knew Rippy personally. Or at least none of them claimed to. And all four of them immediately distanced themselves from the victim when I started knocking on doors.’
‘And the victim positively ID’d Rippy?’
‘She was standing in line for the bathroom. This was after she threw up in the ice bucket. She says she only had one drink, but it made her sick, like something wasn’t right. Rippy approached her. She recognized him immediately. He was nice, told her there was another bathroom down the hallway in the guest wing. She followed him. It was a long walk. She was feeling a little dizzy. He put his arm around her, kept her steady. He led her into the last guest suite at the end of the hall. She went to the toilet. She came out and he was sitting on the bed with his clothes off.’
‘And then what?’
‘And then she woke up in the hospital the next day. She had a bad concussion from being punched or hit in the head. She’d obviously been strangled repeatedly, lost consciousness a few times. The doctors think she won’t ever completely recover her memory of that night.’
‘Hm.’
Will felt the full weight of her skepticism in the sound.
Faith asked, ‘The hall bath where the condom was found?’
‘Six doors down from the guest suite, so they passed it on the way there, and he passed it on his way back to the party.’ Will added, ‘There’s video evidence from phones that show Rippy at the party off and on all night, so he went back and forth to work his alibi. Plus, half his team backed him up. Jameel Gordon, Andre Dupree, Reuben Figaroa. The day after the assault, they all showed up at the APD, lawyers in tow, each of them telling the exact same story. By the time the GBI caught the case, every single one of them declined to be interviewed again.’
‘Typical,’ Faith noted. ‘Rippy said that he never even saw the victim at the party?’
‘Correct.’
‘The wife was pretty vocal, right?’
‘She was a megaphone for his defense.’ LaDonna Rippy had gone on every talk show and news program that would have her. ‘She backed up everything that her husband said, including that she never saw the victim at the party.’
‘Hm.’ Faith sounded even more skeptical.
Will added, ‘And people who saw the victim that night said she was drunk and falling all over every basketball player she could get her hands on. Which, if you look at the GIF of her puking and combine that with the tox screen, makes sense. But then you look at the rape kit and you know that she was brutally raped, and the victim knows that Rippy was sitting on that bed, totally naked, when she came out of the bathroom.’
‘Devil’s advocate?’
Will nodded, though he knew what was coming.
‘I can see why it fell apart. It’s he said/she said and Rippy gets the benefit of the doubt because that’s how the Constitution works. Innocent until blah-blah-blah. And let’s not forget that Rippy is filthy rich. If he lived in a trailer park, his court-appointed lawyer would’ve pled him down to five years for false imprisonment to keep him off the sex-offender registry, end of story.’
Will didn’t respond, because there was nothing else to say.
Faith gripped the steering wheel. ‘I hate rape cases. You don’t throw a murder case to a jury and they ask, “Well, was the guy really murdered or is he lying because he wants the attention? And what was he doing in that part of town? And why was he drinking? And what about all those murderers he dated before?” ’
‘She wasn’t sympathetic.’ Will hated that this even mattered. ‘Her family’s a mess. Single mom with a drug habit. No idea who the dad is. She had some drug issues in high school, a history of self-cutting. She was coming off academic probation at her college. She dated around, spent a lot of time on Tinder and OkCupid, like everybody her age. Rippy’s people found out she had an abortion a few years ago. She basically wrote their trial strategy for them.’
‘There’s not much daylight between being a good girl and a bad one, but once you cross that line—’ Faith blew out a stream of air. ‘You can’t imagine the shit people said about me when I got pregnant with Jeremy. One day I was a junior high school honor student with her entire life ahead of her, and the next day I was a teenage Mata Hari.’
‘You were shot for being a spy?’
‘You know what I mean. I was a pariah. Jeremy’s dad was sent to live with family up north. My brother still hasn’t forgiven me. My dad got forced out of his Lodge. He lost a ton of customers. None of my friends would speak to me. I had to drop out of school.’
‘At least it was different when you had Emma.’
‘Oh, yeah, a single thirty-five-year-old woman with a twenty-year-old son and a one-year-old daughter is constantly praised for her excellent life choices.’ She changed the subject. ‘She had a boyfriend, right? The victim?’
‘He broke up with her a week before the assault.’
‘Oh, for godsakes.’ Faith had worked enough rape investigations to know that a defense lawyer’s dream was an accuser with an ex-boyfriend she was trying to make jealous.
‘He stepped up after the assault,’ Will said, though he wasn’t a fan of the ex-boyfrien
d. ‘Stayed by her side. Made her feel safe. Or at least tried to.’
‘Dale Harding’s name never came up during the investigation?’
He shook his head.
A news truck sped by, dipping into the oncoming traffic lane for twenty yards before taking an illegal turn.
Faith said, ‘Looks like news at noon has its lead story.’
‘They don’t want news. They want gossip.’ Up until Rippy’s case had been dismissed, Will couldn’t leave GBI headquarters without some well-coifed anchor trying to bait him into a career-ending sound bite. He got off light considering the death threats and online stalking Rippy’s fans lobbed at his accuser.
Faith said, ‘I guess this could be a coincidence. Harding being found dead at Rippy’s club?’
Will shot her a look. No cop believed in coincidence, especially a cop like Faith.
‘Okay,’ she relented, shuffling the steering wheel as she followed the news van’s illegal dip and dash. ‘At least we know why Amanda sent four texts.’ Her phone chirped. ‘Five.’ Faith grabbed the phone. Her thumb slid across the screen. She hooked a sharp turn. ‘Jeremy finally updated his Facebook page.’
Will took over the steering as she typed a message to her son, who was using the summer months away from college to drive across the country with three of his friends, seemingly for the sole purpose of worrying his mother.
Faith mumbled as she typed, bemoaning the stupidity of kids in particular and her son in specific. ‘Does this girl look eighteen to you?’
Will glanced at a photo of Jeremy standing very close to a scantily clad blonde. The grin on his face was heartbreakingly hopeful. Jeremy was a skinny, nerdy little kid studying physics at Georgia Tech. He was so out of the blonde’s league that he might as well have been a cantaloupe. ‘I would be more worried about the bong pipe on the floor.’
‘Oh, fer fucksake.’ Faith looked like she wanted to throw the phone out the window. ‘He’d better hope his grandmother doesn’t see this.’
Will watched as Faith forwarded the picture to her mother to make sure this very thing happened.
He pointed to the next intersection. ‘This is Chattahoochee.’
Faith was still cursing the photo as she took the turn. ‘As the mother of a son, I look at that picture and I think, “Don’t get her pregnant.” Then I look at it as the mother of a daughter and I think, “Don’t get stoned with a guy you just met, because his friends could gang-rape you and leave you dead in a hotel closet.” ’
Will shook his head. Jeremy was a good kid with good friends. ‘He’s twenty years old. You have to start trusting him sometime.’
‘No I don’t.’ She dropped her phone back into the cup holder. ‘Not if he still wants food, clothes, a roof over his head, health insurance, an iPhone, video games, pocket money, gas money—’
Will tuned out the long list of all the things Faith was going to take away from her poor son. His mind instantly went to Marcus Rippy. The basketball player’s smug face as he sat back in the chair with his arms crossed and his mouth shut. His wife’s hateful glares every time Will asked a question. His conceited business manager and his slick lawyers, who were all as interchangeable as Bond villains.
Keisha Miscavage, Marcus Rippy’s accuser.
She was a tough young woman, defiant, even from her hospital bed. Her hoarse whispers were peppered with fucks and shits and her eyes stayed constantly squinted as if she were interviewing Will instead of the other way around. ‘Don’t feel sorry for me,’ she’d warned him. ‘Just do your fucking job.’
Will had to admit, if only to himself, that he had a soft spot for hostile women. It killed him that he’d failed Keisha so miserably. He couldn’t even watch basketball anymore, let alone play it. Every time his hand touched a ball, he wanted to shove it down Marcus Rippy’s throat.
‘Holy crap.’ Faith coasted to a stop several yards behind a news van. ‘Half the police force is here.’
Will studied the parking lot outside the car window. Her estimate didn’t seem far off. The scene was vibrating with people. A semi truck hauling lights. The APD crime scene investigation bus. The GBI Department of Forensic Sciences mobile lab. APD cruisers and unmarked cop cars scattered around like Pick-Up Sticks. Yellow crime-scene tape roped off a smoldering burned-out car with a halo of water steaming off the scorching asphalt. Techs swarmed the area, laying down numbered yellow markers by anything that could be evidence.
Faith said, ‘I bet I know who called in the body.’
Will guessed, ‘Crack addict. Raver. Runaway.’ He took in the vault-like building in front of them. Marcus Rippy’s future nightclub. Construction had stopped six months ago when the rape charge had looked like it was going to stick. The poured concrete walls were rough and weathered, darkened along the bottom by several overlays of graffiti. Weeds had cracked up around the foundation. There were two giant windows, high up, tucked into opposite corners of the street side of the building. The glass was tinted almost black.
Will didn’t envy the job of the techs who had to inventory every condom, needle and crack pipe on-site. There was no telling how many fingerprints and shoeprints were inside. The broken glow necklaces and pacifiers indicated that ravers had made good use of the space.
Faith asked, ‘What’s the story on the club?’
‘The investors put construction on hold while they waited for Rippy’s problems to go away.’
‘Do you know if they’re back in?’
Will muttered an expletive under his breath—not because of the question, but because his boss was standing in front of the building with her hands on her hips. Amanda looked at her watch, then looked at them, then looked at her watch again.
Faith added her own expletive as she got out of the car. Will blindly reached for the round door handle, which was roughly the circumference of an M&M. The door popped back on its hinges. Hot air rushed in. Atlanta was at the tail end of the hottest, most humid summer on record. Going outside was like walking straight into the mouth of a yawning dog.
Will unfolded himself from the car, trying to ignore the audience of cops standing several feet away. Their voices didn’t carry, but he was pretty sure they were waging bets on how many more clowns would come out of the tiny vehicle.
Fortunately, Amanda’s attention had been pulled away by one of the crime scene analysts. Charlie Reed was easily recognizable by his handlebar mustache and Popeye build. Will scanned the area, looking for other familiar faces.
‘Mitchell, right?’
Will turned around to find himself looking at a remarkably handsome man. The guy had dark wavy hair and a cleft in his chin, and he looked at Faith with the eyes of an all-conquering frat boy.
‘Hi.’ Faith’s voice had a weird, high pitch. ‘Have we met?’
‘Never had the pleasure.’ The man ran his fingers through his boyish, floppy hair. ‘You look like your mom. I worked with her when I was in uniform. I’m Collier. This is my partner Ng.’
Ng gave an almost imperceptible tilt of his chin to convey his coolness. His hair was buzz-cut, military style. He was wearing dark wraparound glasses. Like his partner, he wore jeans and a black APD POLICE T-shirt—in contrast to Will, who looked like the maître d’ at an old Italian steakhouse.
‘I’m Trent,’ Will said, straightening his shoulders, because at least he had the height advantage. ‘What’ve we got here?’
‘A clusterfuck.’ Ng looked out at the building instead of looking up at Will. ‘I hear Rippy’s already on a plane to Miami.’
Faith asked, ‘Have you been inside?’
‘Not upstairs.’
Faith waited for more, then tried again. ‘Can we talk to the unis who found the body?’
Ng feigned a strain on his memory. He asked his partner, ‘You remember their names, bro?’
Collier shook his head. ‘Drawing a blank.’
Faith was no longer enamored. ‘Hey, 21 Jump Street, should we leave so you two can finish jerking each other off?
’
Ng laughed, but he didn’t provide any more information.
‘For godsakes,’ Faith said. ‘You know my mom, Collier. Our boss is her old partner. What do you think she’s gonna say when we have to ask her to catch us up to speed?’
Collier gave a weary sigh. He rubbed the back of his neck as he looked off into the distance. The sun picked out slivers of gray in his hair. There were deep lines at the corners of his eyes. He was probably in his mid-forties, which made him a few years older than Will, which for some reason made Will feel better.
‘All right.’ Collier finally relented, but not before doing the fingers-through-the-hair thing again. ‘Switchboard gets an anonymous tip there’s a dead body, this location. Twenty minutes later, a two-man uni rolls up. They sweep the building. Find the DB, male, upstairs inside one of the rooms. Stabbed in the neck. A real bloodbath. One of ’em recognizes Harding from choir practice—drunk, gambler, poon hound, typical old-school five-o. I’m sure your mom’s got some stories.’
Ng said, ‘We were working a domestic when we got the call. That was some violent shit. Chick’s gonna be in surgery for days. Full moon always brings out the crazy.’
Faith ignored his war story. ‘How’d Harding or whoever gain access into the building?’
‘Looks like bolt cutters.’ Collier shrugged. ‘The padlock was cut clean, which probably took some muscle, so we’re thinking a man did it.’
‘You find the bolt cutters?’
‘Nope.’
‘What’s the story on the car?’
‘It was throwing off heat like Chernobyl when we got here. We called in AFD to hose it down. They say an accelerant was used. Gas tank exploded.’
‘No one called in a vehicle fire?’
‘Yeah, it’s shocking,’ Ng said. ‘You wouldn’t think all the junkies and whores squatting in these warehouses would pull a Kitty Genovese.’
Faith said, ‘Look who knows his urban legends.’
Will scanned the abandoned warehouses—one on either side of Rippy’s club. A construction sign advertised mixed-use housing coming soon, but the faded condition indicated that soon hadn’t come soon enough. The buildings were four stories each, at least a block deep. Red brick from the turn of the century before last. Gothic arches with stained glass that had been broken out long ago.
The Kept Woman (Will Trent 8) Page 2