“Please, sit down.” She gestured to the chair crammed into the small space between her desk and the one next to it. “You drew this, Ms. Jeffries?”
“Yes.”
“When was that?”
Paige wanted to keep as close to the truth as she could. “Saturday night.”
The woman looked at her through narrowed eyes. “Are you friends with Teresa Cavasos? Know her from somewhere?”
Paige had known these questions would be tricky. “No. I don’t know her.”
“But you drew what could only be called an amazing resemblance to her. With remarkable detail. Were you watching her? Studying her, in order to get this much detail?”
This was where Paige knew deviating from the truth was going to be necessary. “No. It’s an artist exercise. After a day of being around people, I try to pick one and recreate the person and scene from memory. I’ve gotten pretty good at it over the years.”
“And you happened to pick out Teresa Cavasos to draw on Saturday?”
And the red surrounding Detective Schliesman kept flaring. The woman was keeping her temper at bay, but just barely. She was frustrated and what Paige was telling her was not helping.
“Yes. Normally with this type of exercise I draw strangers and never know who they are and never think any more about it.” A partial truth — Paige never knew who she drew, but she definitely thought more about them. “But when I saw the ad in the paper Teresa’s family had taken out, I thought I would bring the picture down here.”
“Are you hoping to claim the reward?”
Paige shook her head. “No. No, I don’t need or want any money. I’m just trying to help.”
That was the absolute truth. But she was beginning to think this whole thing was a bad idea.
“Look.” Paige turned a little more towards Detective Schliesman ignoring all the chatter, ringing phones, and general chaos going on at desks all around them. “I don’t have any agenda here. I just wanted to bring this drawing because it has so much detail about the location around Teresa.”
“But you weren’t watching Teresa at that location?”
“No. I don’t recall seeing her at all. But an artist’s mind works differently somehow.” That was putting it mildly in her case. “I just drew what I pictured in my mind and here it is. It might be nothing.”
Another officer walked by and Detective Schliesman grabbed him, showing him the drawing. “Randal, you recognize this? The area in the background?”
The man stopped to look. “Whoa. Hey, isn’t that Teresa Cavasos?”
“Yep.”
“Isn’t she—”
“The background, Randal. Do you recognize that area in the back of the drawing? I just need confirmation of what I’m thinking.”
The man looked at the detective, then over at Paige then finally stared down at the picture.
“Yeah, sure Janet. It’s that fancy boutique strip mall over in Healy Heights, right? I can tell by the way the flowers are laid out over here and the angle of this building.” He pointed to the edge of the drawing.
“Thanks. That’s what I thought too.”
Relief coursed through Paige. The officers knew the area. So maybe this would help them, in some way, find the missing woman.
Randal handed the drawing back to Detective Schliesman. “Isn’t that strip mall just a couple blocks away from the hotel where—”
“Yep.” The woman definitely cut him off.
“And I thought this had turned over to hom—”
“Thanks for your help, Randal. We’ll talk later.”
The man was wise enough to know he wasn’t going to get a full sentence out around Detective Schliesman, so gave Paige one more look and left.
There was something going on here that Paige didn’t understand. But she had done what she had set out to do. She would let the police take it all from here. She stood up.
“That’s really all I had to offer, Detective. I hope it is helpful in some way.”
“Ms. Jeffries, do you mind waiting just a few more minutes? This drawing is very interesting and I’d like to show it to a few other people who might have some questions for you.”
The detective’s tone was as friendly as the smile on her face, but Paige could see the pulsing red that still dominated her entire person.
Detective Schliesman was angry. What Paige didn’t know was whether it was directed at her or the case or what.
“Well…”
“Let me take you somewhere where it’s not so chaotic to wait.” She gestured around her with her arm. “It can be overwhelming in here, I know.”
The woman took her and led her down the hallway, opening the door to a small room with a table and chairs. Paige had to admit, the quiet was a relief.
“If you could just wait here,” the other woman told her. “And this is a non-cell phone use room, if you don’t mind. I’ll be back in just a few minutes.”
Detective Schliesman didn’t wait for a response and the door closed behind her with a resounding click.
Paige looked around the room —gray walls with no decor whatsoever. There were cameras in two corners and a large mirror taking up the entire far wall. The only furniture was a sparse table with four medal chairs surrounding it.
Paige had seen enough TV to know where she was. She walked over to the door and tried to open it.
Locked. She went back and dropped down into one of the uncomfortable chairs.
She was in an interrogation room and was evidently now a suspect in Teresa Cavasos’ disappearance.
Chapter Fifteen
“Yo, Brett,” Alex shouted from his desk, that damn phone receiver still glued to his shoulder even two hours later. The man was the king of multitasking. “Report of our Jane Doe from Friday. Got a positive ID. Sending it your way.”
Brett threw his arm up in acknowledgment —no need to add to the late afternoon chaos around all the desks by yelling— and sent the electronic file directly to print.
Call him old school, but he preferred a hard copy of information in his hand. The tactile nature of it helped him think. He walked to the office’s common printer thankful it was fast. It was time to see their Jane Doe without any bruises, and hopefully be one step closer to proving, or disproving, his serial killer theory.
The name and general info sheet came up first: Teresa Cavasos. Single, Caucasian female, twenty-eight years old. 5’5, 120 pounds. No criminal record, so she hadn’t been in the system for easy identification. Between that and whatever had happened in the coroner’s office requiring bodies to be sent out to county morgues, it had caused a much slower identification of the body. Brett noticed the report had also been sent to an officer in missing persons a few hours ago. The missing person wasn’t missing anymore. She was dead.
The picture of the woman covered in bruises came next. Brett didn’t need to study that one, he’d remembered the bruising clearly enough from the crime scene. But the picture he grabbed from the printer after that had his stomach dropping; the picture of Teresa Cavasos with no bruising.
This was the woman Paige had drawn in her sleep.
Brett forced himself to loosen his grip on the papers so he wouldn’t crush them as he walked back to his desk. What the hell was going on?
He had totally believed Paige when she had said she had no idea who the woman she’d drawn was. That it was just someone Paige had made up in her mind. But obviously she had to have known Teresa Cavasos. The image couldn’t have been anyone but her.
Brett grabbed his cell phone to punch out a text message to Paige, since he knew her security team had gotten her a replacement one this morning.
I need to talk to you ASAP. Call me.
It wasn’t very romantic, or even gentle, but Brett didn’t care. He needed to know how the hell Paige was connected to Ms. Cavasos.
He stared at his phone for five minutes, willing Paige to reply. Nothing. He was still staring at it when Alex came over and picked up the picture.
“Teresa C
avasos.” Alex whistled through his teeth. “That’s a shame. Her family has been looking for her. They took out multiple ads in the paper, went on television, everything.”
“Really? I totally missed it. I’ve been caught up in so many other cases, I hadn’t even seen anything about her.”
“Yeah. They’ve got money. She was their only daughter, I think. I was hoping they’d get a ransom note or something. But at least now they know.”
Brett nodded. “I guess that’s better than never knowing.”
“Always.”
Alex left, leaving Brett staring at the picture of Teresa Cavasos. Damn it, he wanted to believe the best about Paige. The absolute best case scenario he could think of was that maybe Paige saw one of the ads Alex just mentioned and didn’t remember. Then had drawn Teresa from her subconscious.
The medium case scenario was that she had seen the ad, and drawing Teresa was a way of getting attention. Like what the other members of the police department had accused her of with the drawing of her own attack.
The worst case scenario was that she knew Teresa and didn’t tell him. That she had lied outright.
Actually, the really worst case scenario was that Paige had something to do with Teresa’s murder.
But no, Brett categorically refused to believe that. Actually, he had a difficult time believing any of the scenarios except the first. Paige wouldn’t purposely deceive him.
Right?
Her subconscious might have deceived them both. But she wouldn’t have lied to him outright.
Although Brett had been doing this job long enough to know that everyone was capable of deceit. And everyone was capable of letting their emotions cloud their better judgment where attraction was concerned.
And damn it, why had she not texted him back?
Brett called and left a message —similar to what he had said in his text— when the call went straight to voice mail. Then he sent another text.
If this all turned out to be nothing, she was going to think he was crazy. But Brett needed this cleared up for him. Right. Now. He willed her to call.
“Hey QB.”
Brett looked up to see Randal Younker standing by his desk. This was not the time that Brett wanted to turn down another dinner party invitation.
“Hey Randal. What’s going on? I’m pretty busy.”
“Janet Schliesman from down in Missing Persons sent me up to get you.”
“Okay. For what?” Brett asked.
“She heard you and Olivier are taking over the the Cavasos case now that it’s officially a homicide.”
Randal motioned for Alex to join them.
“They’ve got a present for you downstairs in Interrogation Room A having to do with the Cavasos case. A suspect.”
“Already? It just became a homicide case,” Alex said. “Based on what? Ransom? Family member?”
“No. Much better,” Randal shook his head in disbelief. “Woman came in with a drawing of Teresa in a strip mall parking lot in Healy Heights.”
Brett felt his stomach drop out. They had Paige in their interrogation room. It couldn’t possibly be anyone else but her. He stood up.
“Healy Heights?” Alex looked over at Brett. “The strip mall is just a couple blocks from where she was found in that hotel.”
Brett looked over at Randal. He didn’t want to give away that he knew the person they were holding was Paige. “A picture of Cavasos? Weird, but what makes the person a suspect?”
“The woman said she drew the picture, which is fine, Teresa’s picture has been all over the paper and news. Anybody could’ve drawn her.”
“Okay…” Alex said. “So?”
“So,” Randal continued, drawing it out in his usual dramatic fashion. “In this drawing, Teresa is wearing the outfit she went missing in. The one she showed up dead in. Which is not the same one her parents put in the paper or on TV. Only someone connected with Teresa’s death would’ve known what she was wearing.”
“And she just walked in and volunteered her drawing?” Brett asked. “That doesn’t seem very smart if you’re involved with a murder.”
Randal shrugged. “Actually, I think she came in under the pretense of helping with the missing person’s case. She thought the scene in the background might be helpful.”
“Still not particularly smart if you’re guilty and trying not to get caught,” Alex said.
“She said it was some sort of artist exercise where she just picked someone at random to draw. Replicates a scene from memory and then draws it.”
“And she just happened to choose Teresa Cavasos.” Brett said it and could see how the detectives downstairs would’ve found it pretty suspicious.
“Said she didn’t know Cavasos was missing at the time, and when she saw it in the paper today she came down to the station to see if she could help.”
Why the hell hadn’t Paige come to him?
Of course, Brett had no idea what he would’ve done if she had.
Alex stood up. “Sounds like someone needs to go question our artist friend downstairs.”
Chapter Sixteen
Paige wasn’t sure what to do. Was she under arrest? Could they just leave her locked in here?
She knew she wasn’t supposed to use the phone, but maybe she should before Detective Schliesman returned.
But who would she call?
Brett? He was probably at his desk. But what position would that put him in? Plus, she didn’t want him to have to tell the entire police department that she drew in her sleep. Not to mention he would have to tell how he knew that for a fact.
Should she call her sister Adrienne? Her husband was FBI and maybe could help. But they lived a couple hours away.
If she was being arrested she should probably call a lawyer. But she didn’t even know one. Her manager did. Or Melissa, the governor’s wife, surely did.
But Paige didn’t want to drag Brett or her sister or even a lawyer into this. All she wanted to do was help them find Teresa Cavasos. And to be honest, if her picture couldn’t help them do that, then Paige really wasn’t of any more use to them. She didn’t know anything beyond what she’d drawn on that paper.
Her phone buzzed in her bag, and Paige grabbed it. A message, actually a voice message and two texts, from Brett to call him. She’d missed his call a few minutes ago.
Should she call him back? If they were just going to leave her locked in here, maybe she shouldn’t worry about breaking the rules. What were they going to do, arrest her?
Seems like they may have already done that.
But Detective Schliesman walked in —the reds around her still spiking— so Paige dropped the phone back in her bag. Maybe they’d be releasing her in just a minute.
“Ms. Jeffries, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law.”
Paige listened as the detective read her the rest of her rights. Evidently they wouldn’t be releasing her in just a minute.
“Do you understand these rights as I’ve presented them to you?” Schliesman finished.
“I don’t understand, am I under arrest?”
“Do you understand your rights, Ms. Jeffries?” the detective repeated.
“Yes, I understand my rights. What I don’t understand is if I’m under arrest?” Paige was trying to remain calm, but it was becoming difficult.
“No, you are not under arrest,” the other woman replied. “Reading rights is normal procedure before doing any questioning.”
“Do I need a lawyer?”
Detective Schliesman looked at her steadily. “Have you done anything to need a lawyer?”
“All I’m trying to do is help find a missing woman.”
“Then let’s go over the details of the picture again.”
* * *
Brett and Alex watched from the other side of the mirrored glass as Schliesman questioned Paige. The two women had been at it for over an hour. Question after question about the drawing and Paige’s r
elationship with Teresa Cavasos. Schliesman never let Paige know Teresa was dead.
Brett knew why. The detective was hoping Paige would trip up and say something that would give away that she knew Teresa was dead. That would catch her in a lie, and because the news of Teresa’s death hadn’t been released, would link Paige to the murder. Brett had interrogated suspects before and had to admit that Schliesman was doing a good job.
But it might possibly be the most painful thing Brett had ever had to watch.
Everything about the interrogation room was designed to make the person being questioned feel uncomfortable. The chairs, table, color of the walls, lighting, everything. They were hard, cold, sterile. A suspect’s subconscious noticed, even if their conscious mind didn’t.
Given Paige’s artistic mind and senses? He’d bet she was well aware of the damage the room was meant to ensue on the psyche. He watched Paige shift again on the uncomfortable chair, her expression pinched as she attempted to answer Schliesman’s questions.
He couldn’t watch this any longer.
“I’m going in there.”
Alex held his hand out. “This woman have anything to do with the art show you attended Friday night?”
Brett glanced over at him before looking back through the mirror. “Maybe.”
“You go in there right now and this situation gets a whole lot more complicated, whether she’s innocent or not. Think about that.”
Brett ran a hand across his face. Alex was right.
“Right now this is my case,” Alex continued. “There’s nothing to report involving you and her. You walk in there as anything other than a homicide detective and that changes.”
“I don’t think she had anything to do with Cavasos’ murder, Alex. She was a victim of violence herself a couple of years ago.”
“Yeah, I remember.”
“She didn’t do this,” Brett said again, leaning closer to the mirror.
“That may be true,” Alex responded. “I hope it’s true. But you need to let someone else establish that as fact. Not just barge in there as her boyfriend. In the long run that won’t help you or her.”
Critical Instinct Page 11