by G. K. Parks
“Do you want to take point?” Nick asked. “It seems you might have more information than I do. Plus, you’re not a cop, so you can ask the crazy questions, and his lawyer can’t take any official action against the department.”
“Sounds like fun.”
He opened the door, and we entered the room. “Mr. Spencer,” O’Connell greeted, “I’m Detective Nick O’Connell, and this is our police consultant, Ms. Alex Parker.” Spencer looked at me uncertainly. His lawyer whispered something to him, and his gaze shifted unsteadily around the room. “Shall we begin?”
“I’ve informed my client not to answer any questions without my approval,” the lawyer told us. O’Connell nodded, taking a seat at the table across from Spencer’s counsel.
“Mr. Spencer,” with any luck, my interrogational skills weren’t that rusty, “you have one hell of a reputation when it comes to the ladies. Are there any models you’ve photographed that you haven’t slept with?” His lawyer looked uneasy, but Spencer kept his mouth shut. “Monique and her threesomes, Seline and her bondage fetish, Valerie and her drug use,” I paused, letting my words sink in, “and let’s not forget Caterina Skolnick and her adventurous fantasies.”
“I never raped her,” he sputtered, and his lawyer glared angrily at him, advising him to be quiet.
“No, you didn’t. Having a twisted desire to fantasize about nonconsensual sex and having nonconsensual sex are two very different things. So how far were you willing to go to please Caterina?” I asked, pulling out a chair and taking a seat.
“Look,” it was O’Connell’s turn to play, “we have proof you gave the Rohypnol to the bartender, Raymond Alvarez, with instructions to slip it to Ms. Skolnick.” His lawyer looked uncomfortable. It was understandable since his client might be guilty of conspiracy to commit murder or an accomplice to murder.
“But,” I interjected, “given Caterina’s sexual proclivities, maybe it’s not as bad as it seems.”
“If you tell us exactly what the two of you planned for the evening, who else knew of your sexual escapades, and where you got the drugs, we’ll have the more serious charges dropped,” O’Connell promised.
“Let me consult with my client in private,” the lawyer said.
O’Connell and I left the interrogation room. We had him on the ropes. It was only a matter of time before everything would fall into place.
Thirty-two
Spencer had given us everything we could have possibly hoped to gain. The only problem was we couldn’t exactly verify any of the details with Caterina, unless we bought an Ouija board and found a medium. Spencer insisted Caterina wanted to up the ante and devised the entire plan for their foreplay. She allegedly wanted to make her experience as real as possible and had him procure the Rohypnol from one of Valerie Yves’s drug connections.
The plan was simple. Caterina would wait at the bar, hoping to find a man who would take an interest in her. Once things escalated to the point of no return, she would ask the unsuspecting third party to order a cosmo. This would signal Alvarez to dose both drinks, and then Spencer would follow Caterina and her companion as they left the event, thereby adding to the illusion by taking her in front of another man. Their plan was deplorable, dangerous, and stupid beyond belief.
My stomach roiled at the absolute depravity, and a part of me wished O’Connell could lock him up just because he was a pervert. James Martin had become the unknowing and unwilling participant in this sick, twisted game, but some things still didn’t make much sense as I paced the interrogation room, just to get a few feet farther away from this sicko.
“Why did you have sex with Caterina in the bathroom beforehand?” I asked harshly.
“The anticipation was driving her crazy,” Spencer said, saddened. I wanted to slap him. “There was no reason we couldn’t take advantage of things ahead of time. If I knew what was about to happen,” he sniffled, “I never would have gone through with any of it. I would have called the whole thing off.” His voice caught in his throat, and he began to sob uncontrollably.
“Goddamn,” I cursed, deciding to continue questioning him anyway. What was the worst he’d do, blubber some more? “Why the hell didn’t you follow her when they left the party?”
“Parker.” O’Connell looked at me sharply, suggesting I back off. I stood in the corner near the two-way mirror and leaned against the wall, throwing my head back and staring at the ceiling while I regained my composure. “Mr. Spencer,” O’Connell pushed the tissue box toward the crying man, “we need your cooperation if you want us to find who did this to her.”
Spencer nodded through his tears and blew his nose loudly. “After our tryst, I got distracted. Tate asked me to take some photos of the event for her website. I figured,” he sniffled again, choking back the tears, “I had plenty of time to search for Caterina since it would take some time before the drugs wore off.”
“Disgusting pig,” I muttered under my breath, but luckily, no one heard me.
“Did you ever look for Caterina?” O’Connell asked. I thought back to the surveillance footage, but I didn’t remember seeing him leave the party.
“No. I told Monique to find her and make sure she was okay.”
O’Connell turned to me. Webber was on our list of suspects but had little connection to anything else until now. When I encountered her last night, she didn’t strike me as killer material.
“What was she supposed to do?” I asked. “Why would you tell one of your conquests to find another of your conquests, whom you’ve drugged and left with some strange man?”
Silent tears fell from Spencer’s eyes, but he kept his crying to a minimum. “I thought she’d wait until the Rohypnol wore off and take Caterina home, or the three of them would have some fun.”
“You fucking piece of shit.” I lunged forward, losing my patience with this worthless asshole and his entire story, but O’Connell grabbed me and shoved me out of the room.
“Calm down,” he warned. “Stay out here. I’ll deal with the rest.”
I stalked the hallway like a caged tiger. Spencer was a revolting piece of work. Assuming everything he said was true, and that was a big fucking if, then did Monique kill Caterina?
I was outraged by everything Spencer had said and done. The situation was disgusting anyway I looked at it. How could a person let someone they care about do something that dangerous? Out of nowhere, I felt the familiar twinge, deducing something I didn’t want to know or even consider, and filed it away for a later time and place.
“You okay?” O’Connell asked, exiting the interrogation room.
I rubbed my eyes and pushed a strand of hair behind my ear. “I guess. Sorry about in there.”
“I’m glad it was you and not me. If it were me, you would have let me hit him, and that would have been the end of my career.”
“You could always be a bartender,” I teased as we returned to the bullpen. “What’s the verdict with Spencer’s story?”
“We’ll bring Monique Webber in for questioning. Perhaps she’ll corroborate his story. In the meantime, maybe Thompson and Heathcliff got something substantial from Sanderson.”
* * *
O’Connell and I stood in front of the theory board, trying to connect the dots while we waited for Webber to be brought in and Sanderson’s interview to be concluded. “What part of Jake Spencer’s story enraged you the most?” O’Connell asked as I scribbled some notes, depicting the most reasonable scenario.
“All of it,” I responded automatically. Pulling out the evidence manifest from Sanderson’s boat, I looked to see if the video camera used for the adult film had been recovered. “He is morally abhorrent. It speaks against every fiber of my being.”
Nick chuckled. He knew me well, and normally, I didn’t judge this harshly. “I thought it was his comment about Martin and two models having a drug-induced threesome that you found particularly offensive.”
“Right, because it has nothing to do with the fact Spencer was encou
raging dangerous behavior from someone he claims to have a deep emotional attachment for and then abandons her, directly resulting in her murder.”
“Well, when you put it that way.” He fell silent, focusing back on the case.
I searched for the report the Bureau sent over regarding the questionable film, hoping for new leads. If we could cross-reference Skolnick’s TOD with the time of the filming, we might be able to knock a few more suspects off the list.
“How’d it go?” Heathcliff asked, joining us. O’Connell informed him of our interview, kindly leaving out my untimely outburst. Heathcliff nodded and jotted a few notes before sharing what he learned. “Sanderson had no choice but to admit to the filming; however, he insists he has no idea how the pillow from his boat turned out to be the murder weapon.”
“Did you find out who the filmmaker is?” I asked.
“You’re not going to believe this,” Thompson interjected. “Yolanda Tate.”
“This would be so much easier if everyone wasn’t so damn interconnected,” I complained.
Everyone would have to be brought back in and questioned in light of all the new evidence. Moretti suggested I keep my head down, just in case Lola had to go back to Tate’s agency, so I was in the evidence room, reviewing the items recovered from last night’s search and seizure. From what was uncovered during Sanderson’s interrogations, the surveillance feed, the crime scene, and our Bureau provided internet report, I managed to piece a lot of things together concerning the adult film. Obviously, the solitude of the evidence room was good for something.
Tate’s agency was going under. She was hemorrhaging money by having a slew of models that couldn’t land a gig to make ends meet. The downward spiral in the economy hit everyone hard, and advertisers wanted established names instead of wannabes. Caterina Skolnick was supposed to take Tate’s agency out of the red, but her ad campaign wasn’t scheduled to shoot for another few months.
While they waited for their cash cow to produce milk, Tate and Sanderson devised a plan to gain publicity, albeit initially negative publicity, by having some of the willing and lesser known models flood the internet with sex tapes. It would cause a media buzz and get their names, faces, and other assets out to the world. With a bit of luck, the popularity gained through these despicable means would get the girls hired for some kind of work, even if it was just lingerie ads.
Valerie Yves was selected to be the guinea pig. Like she said at the memorial, only blondes and exotic, foreign beauties were getting hired. By breaking into the amateur internet porn industry with a barely known, practically never-was model, Tate and Sanderson would be able to determine how advantageous this new marketing technique could be. If it made Yves a household name, just think what it could do for the others. This was the best way Sanderson thought to test their new business ploy or a great excuse for him to bone a model, and since Valerie was desperate, she was a willing participant. It also explained her absolute aversion to Sanderson, whom she affectionately dubbed Rick the Dick.
While all of this made for a fascinating tale into the dark side of the modeling world, it did little to explain how Caterina ended up dead on Martin’s yacht. I skimmed through the financial records and insurance policy, thinking that Tate might have murdered Caterina in the hopes of finding an immediate, untapped revenue source with the life insurance policy. However, the policy was chump change compared to what she stood to gain from the nationwide ad campaign. Tate didn’t have a strong enough motive to kill her only moneymaker, and the same was true for Sanderson.
“We’ve finished up with Tate, and we made another go at Sanderson,” O’Connell proclaimed, entering the room and filling me in. “Neither of them is good for it. They’ve both alibied out.”
“No motive either,” I added glumly. “What’d you get from your stint with the catering company? Any idea who swiped a knife? Let’s not forget, Skolnick was stabbed, probably for emphasis, after being suffocated.”
“No idea. It could have been anyone.” He helped put all the evidence bags back in their boxes.
“It’s either Yves or Webber. They’re the only two left on our list who had opportunity. Plus, Skolnick was their rival, so they both have motive.” Was there any way to figure out who did it? Webber had been sent to look after the drugged Caterina, but Yves provided the drug connection to Spencer. They both looked equally likely, unless Yves was still screwing Sanderson at the time of the murder. Too bad we didn’t have TOD and the time of filming down to the minute. “Is the DA filing charges against Tate and Sanderson for making the video?”
“Probably not. Yves might be able to bring them up on civil charges or claim coercion, but it’s beyond our jurisdiction if two consenting adults want to film themselves.”
“How much longer do you think it’ll be before they finish with the models?” It would be nice to escape the dank and dusty evidence room.
“We’ve booked both of them. Valerie Yves was in possession of narcotics when we brought her in, so if nothing else, we have her on some coke charges. And until we get things sorted out, Monique Webber is being held on suspicion of murder. Neither of them is going anywhere. Not anytime soon, anyway. Sanderson and Tate have cleared out, so Moretti said you can come upstairs and rejoin the world of the living.”
“Fun,” I muttered, following him up the steps. We were talking through our theories on motive, so I was distracted and didn’t notice the uniformed officer and his charge exiting the interrogation room to our right.
“You fucking bitch,” a woman screeched and slammed me against the wall, her nails slashing across my face. “What did you tell them?” She continued to rant and rave as my instincts kicked in, but before I could fend her off, O’Connell and Heathcliff simultaneously grabbed Yves and threw her into the opposite wall. O’Connell cuffed her and berated the officer for allowing this to happen.
“You okay?” Heathcliff asked.
“Yeah.” Although temporarily stunned, I was fine. Unless a model was holding a pillow or a knife, she couldn’t inflict too much damage. “But feel free to add assault charges to her rap sheet.”
Seated back at my desk, Heathcliff was annoying me with antiseptic and butterfly bandages. “Stop moving. I’m trying to clean that nasty scratch. Do you want to contract rabies?” I laughed and let him treat the two scratches on my cheek that actually drew blood.
“I won’t get rabies. She didn’t bite me. She scratched me.” I was joking around. Getting assaulted in the middle of a police station was bad business for the cops and tended to make me believe that my attacker was guilty of a serious crime, hopefully murder.
“If this were a vet’s office, they’d put her down,” Thompson commented.
“Maybe we need to start calling the two of you Doc,” I said to Heathcliff and O’Connell, “since you both got there at the same time to put her down, hard.”
“You know I have your back.” O’Connell winked. Eventually, Heathcliff grew tired of playing doctor and put his first-aid kit away, and the four of us got back to work.
Thirty-three
“I don’t want to hear this isn’t admissible because it’s entrapment,” I complained as a tech taped a wire to my bare torso. “Cold, cold, cold.” I slinked away from his hands.
Monique Webber waived her right to counsel, but she was taking her right to remain silent very seriously. She hadn’t spoken a word to any of the officers after she was booked, so they put her uncooperative ass downstairs in the empty drunk tank, secluded from Yves, hoping some time alone might loosen her lips. Since Valerie assaulted me, my cohorts thought it’d be a great idea to give Monique the same opportunity.
“Don’t worry about it. Anything she says freely in a police station after being informed of her rights should be fair game,” Heathcliff said from the doorway. I put my shirt back on, and the tech performed a sound check. “Plus, the scratches ought to help sell your story.”
“Are you gonna knock me around a bit to add some realistic bru
ises too?” I asked cynically.
“No, but here,” he produced an almost empty bottle of bourbon, “swish and spit.”
“Did this come from your bottom desk drawer?” I narrowed my eyes, assessing his reaction. “This is why you’re so possessive of your desk, isn’t it?” He caught the smartass look on my face and rewarded me with a slight smile.
“I thought you were over breaking my balls.”
“Keep dreaming.”
Inside the women’s locker room, I transformed back into Lola. It was a good thing I didn’t actually go home last night or else the dress and shoes wouldn’t be in my car. I mussed my hair and reapplied my makeup, splashing water on my face to give it an old, runny appearance. Returning to the bullpen, I wondered which of the detectives would have the privilege of throwing me into a holding cell.
“Whenever you’re ready.” Heathcliff’s cuffs were on top of the desk.
“Oh, come on.” I could suck it up and deal, but only if I really had to.
He noticed my trepidation and clipped them back on his belt before escorting me downstairs, making a show to speak to the officer in charge before opening the door to the drunk tank and shoving me inside. “Behave yourself while we get this sorted out,” he warned.
“I know my rights. Let me out of here,” I yelled after him. I made the effort to stumble and act as if I were dealing with a horrible hangover. Keeping my head down, I sat on the bench away from Monique, pretending not to notice her.
“Lola?” she asked, glancing out at the officer who was working on a crossword puzzle.
I looked up, conveying utter misery. “Why are you here?” I sounded confused, scrunching up my face and rubbing my temples. “Don’t tell Mrs. Tate or I’ll never get the job.” This would be a priority for Lola.