Silent Neighbor

by Blake Pierce

  “Well, I hope your morning was more productive than mine.” She scooped up one of the menus on the table and started to scan it with only the slightest bit of interest.

  “Depends,” Chloe said. “How many jealous white women did you speak to?”

  “Three.”

  “I only spoke with two. So it looks like yours was more productive than mine. What did you find?”

  “Just that no one in any of these little social circles cared much for Jessie Fairchild. And it wasn’t even that anyone was rally jealous of her, per se…just sort of…”

  “Unfamiliar is the word that comes to mind,” Chloe said. “It’s not only that the Fairchilds were new, but it’s that they were incredibly wealthy. It made people uneasy. It shook up their little status quo.”

  “Yeah, that’s a good way to explain it. That, and I got the impression that no one wanted to be the one to actually come out and admit that they didn’t like Jessie. They tried to pass it off on others.”

  “Yeah, I got some of that, too,” Chloe said.

  A waitress came by to take their orders, leaving them both to ruminate on the little bit they had already discussed.

  “The only real lead I got was a woman who got outbid by Jessie Fairchild at some sort of silent auction,” Chloe said.

  “I heard that story, too,” Rhodes said. “I got it from one of the women at the Garden Club—which, for the record, sounds like an abysmally boring club. I got her contact number. I think she’s the next stop for us.”

  “I got it, too. Great minds thinking alike and all that. Did you get any intel on the husband?” Chloe asked. “Any indications if he was liked or not?”

  “No one I spoke with seemed to have any opinion on him. It was all about Jessie and how she seemed to flaunt her wealth in this passive kind of way. How about you?”

  “Nope, not a thing. But I also got some of those complaints of how Jessie seemed to sort of wave her wealth around. Again, though…it was almost like no one wanted to speak ill of her.”

  They continued to compare notes but for the most part, it was retreading over familiar ground. At this point, they could only go over points they had already covered, things that were filed away in the police files on the case.

  Their lunch came and they ate quickly. Somehow, noon had already come and this day, which had seemed to full of potential four hours ago, was starting to feel like it was getting away from them.

  ***

  Finding Rachel Dobbs was easy, as she worked out of her home. She was heavily involved in the selling and promoting of essential oils as alternative medicines—a trend that was apparently getting very popular on her side of the city. When Chloe first heard what Rachel did as a means of employment, she had pictured a bored stay at home wife, selling a bottle of lemongrass or lavender here and there. But when Rachel Dobbs invited them into her home and then into her office, Chloe saw that this was very far from the truth.

  Rachel had boxes upon boxes of the oils stacked up against her far wall. Over each stack of boxes, there was a small dry erase board on the wall with quantities, names, and other information.

  “You look busy,” Chloe commented as she sat down on the loveseat on the other side of the office.

  Rachel, forty-eight and dressed as if she were about to head out for cocktails rather than just working out of her home, smiled. She sat on the edge of her large oak desk and looked to the boxes.

  “Yeah, allergies are getting bad this time of year in this neck of the woods,” she explained. “It’s one of my busiest times of the year.”

  “And does your husband work as well?”

  Rachel chuckled, nodding. “Of course. I mean, I do well with the oils, but Bradley is the breadwinner. He’s a proposal strategist for privately funded groups out of DC and Richmond. He tinkers with military contracts here and there as well.”

  “Did he ever get the chance to meet either of the Fairchilds?” Rhodes asked.

  Rachel frowned and looked down at her well-manicured hands. “He did. At the gala you mentioned on the phone. Now, you said on the phone you wanted to talk to me about the night of the gala specifically. If you don’t mind my asking, what exactly did you hear?”

  “Nothing bad,” Chloe said. “We just gathered that it came as something of a surprise that Jessie Fairchild outbid you on a boat.”

  “She did. But if I do say so myself, I took it with a dash of grace. I know it may seem like Bradley and I are spoiled because of our success, but I’m not spoiled.”

  “And I’m not hearing that you are. Not at all. But we have it on the authority of two different witnesses that things felt awkward afterwards. And it’s also been implied that you simply did not like Jessie Fairchild. Was it primarily because of the auction?”

  “No, not at all. I had run into her a few times as she tried to find ways to get involved with community projects and organizations. And I wish I had something nicer to say, but I just didn’t like her from the start. And I don’t know why. It’s just that thing where sometimes you know right away that you and another person just aren’t going to get along. I felt that about Jessie from the start. And I am pretty certain she felt the same way about me.”

  “Why do you say that?” Chloe asked. “Was she ever rude to you?”

  “Not in any blatant way, no.”

  “And did you see her with any regularity?”

  “No. I take a spin class at the gym and she came to that two times. But no one really gelled with her and she stepped out.”

  “Did you ever speak to her in the class?”

  “Just surface-level stuff. The weather, the traffic, how we liked the class. Things like that.”

  Chloe nodded as her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. She checked it and saw that it was Deputy Nolan. “Excuse me, please,” she said.

  She stepped out of the office, into the hallway. The walls were adorned with multiple pictures, all of what Chloe assumed were Rachel’s family. She answered the call, hoping that Nolan was going to have a new lead for her.

  “Hey, Nolan. What’s up?”

  “So, I looked a bit deeper into Rachel Dobbs after you called and filled me in. She got a clean record, as does her husband. The only place her name came up on a database search was when someone attempted to break into their house six years ago. But there is one thing I found that was interesting. It seems she’s involved in a spin class at Crunch Fitness, one of those trendy little gyms here in town.”

  “Yeah, she was just talking about that. She said Jessie Fairchild took it a few times and then bailed.”

  “Well, I called around and spoke with the instructor. Seems that after the second class Jessie Fairchild attended, the instructor overheard a pretty catty conversation between Rachel Dobbs and some of the other women. Part of that conversation involved Dobbs saying, and I quote, God, I could just kill that Boston bitch. The instructor also said she was pretty sure some sort of boat was mentioned.”

  “That’s interesting,” Chloe said.

  “Yeah, I thought you might want to know.”

  Chloe thanked Nolan and ended the call. She took a moment to weigh her options before she walked back into the office. Sure, that conversation wasn’t enough to arrest her, but it was enough to warrant suspicion. She also knew that with women like Rachel Dobbs, they often became a different kind of person when they were taken out of their natural environment.

  She made her decision and walked back into the office. She waited to Dobbs to finish answering a questions Rhodes had asked about the night of the gala. When she was finished giving a vague and non-helpful answer, Chloe stepped forward two steps—just enough to seem a bit intimidating.

  “Mrs. Dobbs, I just received a call that shed some new light on this…particularly on your exchanges with and concerning Jessie Fairchild. I’d like for you to come with us to the station to answer some additional questions.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “With all due respect, I wasn’t asking. You can
either come down with us now, peacefully and helpfully—we’ll even let you drive your own car while we follow you—or we can escort you out. I’m sure your neighbors would love to jump on their phones and spread that story.”

  “I’m not a criminal! And I would certainly never kill anyone.”

  “I’m not saying either one of those is true,” Chloe said, keeping her voice calm. “But the sooner you come along with us, the sooner this will be over. If you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about.”

  Rachel scowled, standing up from her desk and moving back and forth from one foot to the other. She looked as if she didn’t know how to properly express the amount of anger coursing through her.

  “Do you know what this will do to my reputation?”

  “Whatever it is,” Rhodes said, “I’m sure it won’t be nearly as bad as us escorting you into a police car with handcuffs on your wrists.”

  “Fine,” Rachel said, seething.

  “You know the way to the police station?” Chloe asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Then you lead the way and we’ll follow.”

  Rachel walked right between Chloe and Rhodes on her way out of the office. There was so much anger and hatred in the woman’s expression and even her posture that Chloe could feel it in the air as she passed. While she knew better than to equate that anger into guilt, she had dealt with enough people to know that the next hour or so was going to be a bumpy one.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The anger Rachel had shown while in her home office had simmered down several notches by the time she was seated at the interrogation table in the Falls Church police station. There was still some rage in her, sure, but it was joined by anxiety and a good dash of fear. The result, Chloe saw as she and Rhodes entered the room, was a slight trembling in Rachel’s arms and a nervous twitching in the right corner of her mouth.

  She had not been cuffed to the table, as she was not considered a threat. The glare she gave the two agents as Rhodes closed the door behind them, though, suggested she might very well be capable of some sort of danger.

  “This is embarrassing,” Rachel said. “It’s insulting…to think…”

  “To think what?” Chloe said. “That we might expect you to explain yourself?”

  “I have absolutely nothing to explain.”

  “We hear from your spin class instructor that might not be the case. Seems you have something of a habit of talking trash about people behind their backs.”

  She seemed confused—almost interested at first—but then realization dawned on her. Rachel sat back in her chair, arms crossed, looking at both of them as if they were absolutely insane.

  “Is that what this is all about? Because I made some stupid comment to other women after a spin class?”

  “So you do remember the comment we’re referencing?” Chloe asked.

  “Yes. And it was stupid and mean-spirited.”

  “Could you repeat it here, for us?”

  “Are you serious?”

  Chloe only nodded. She, too, crossed her arms and she stepped closer to the table. Rachel cringed a little at the closeness and relaxed her posture a bit.

  “Look, it was nothing serious…just frustration coming out. We were just chatting and, I’ll admit, maybe getting a little mean. And I might have said something about wanting to kill her. But it was an empty threat. It was stupid.”

  “We’re told the words you used were ‘I could just kill that Boston bitch.’ Does that sound about right?”

  “Yes. It was mean and stupid. And I would have never said it if I knew she was going to actually be murdered.”

  “What happened between the two of you to make you say such a thing anyway?” Rhodes asked.

  “Nothing happened. We never spoke a cross word to one another. But there was tension there…unspoken tension. We just didn’t like one another and the night at the gala sort of bumped it to a new level.”

  “What about the gala?” Rhodes asked. “Earlier, you said it really wasn’t that big of a deal.”

  “It wasn’t. It was just…”

  “You’d been unseated,” Chloe said. “You were used to winning these things, tossing your wealth around. And now someone comes to town with more wealth to toss around—someone that didn’t know you felt you had earned that spot.”

  “That’s not fair,” Rachel spat.

  “Fair or not, it seems like the truth. And it pissed you off bad enough to make that very stupid comment.”

  “So for making such a comment, I’m what…a suspect?”

  “Not at all. Not yet, anyway. Can you confirm where you were last Friday morning?”

  “Yes, actually. I had breakfast with a dear friend of mine. It’s a Friday custom…breakfast with her before spin class. But I missed spin class this week. I had a chiropractor appointment.”

  “How long did all of that take?”

  “I met my friend for breakfast at eight thirty. Spin class starts at nine thirty and ends at ten fifteen. I was back home around eleven thirty or so, give or take a few minutes.”

  “And there are people that can back all of this up?” Rhodes asked.

  “Yes!”

  Rachel snapped the last comment, nearly shouting it. It was clear that she was getting frustrated—not just because she was not accustomed to being treated in such a way, but because they were really drilling her. Chloe knew that it was time to let up; such specific details over the course of a single morning, especially when concerning a doctor’s visit, would be fairly bulletproof.

  Chloe took a step back and uncrossed her arms. “If you’ll leave the name and contact information of the friend you had breakfast with as well as your chiropractor, you’re free to go.”

  “Unbelievable,” Rachel muttered as she pulled out her cell phone. But despite the anger, Chloe could also see relief washing over the woman’s face.

  As she got up from her chair, Rachel seemed bothered by something. She took only two steps toward the door before she sighed deeply and looked directly at Chloe.

  “Did anyone mention Gwen to you?”

  “Gwen? No…no one has mentioned anyone named Gwen. Who is that?”

  “I hate to even say anything. It’s not my place and—”

  The ringing of Chloe’s cell phone interrupted her. She almost ignored it completely but felt she had to at least check it. If it was Danielle, she wanted to know. If it was maybe even Moulton, she wanted to know as soon as possible.

  The caller ID read DC Police. It was a tag she had given for any number coming in from any Washington DC police units or directories. It had saved her a whole lot of confusion and back and forth phone tag situations when she’d been asked to work with them.

  “Hold that thought,” she told Rachel as she stepped quickly out of the room.

  She answered the phone, anxious to get back to Rachel and hear about this Gwen character. “This is Agent Fine,” she said.

  “Agent Fine, hi. This is Officer Alice Henley with the DC Police. I wanted to let you know that I’m standing in front of your apartment right now. The door looks like it’s been kicked in and the place is sort of a wreck inside. Looks like someone broke in.”

  “Oh my God. How long ago…do you know?”

  “We got the call from your neighbor about half an hour ago…said they heard when the door was kicked in.”

  “Thanks. I’ll be right there.”

  She opened the interrogation room door, poking her head in and looking straight at Rhodes. “I’ve got a bit of a personal emergency to handle back home. Can you hang here and finish this up?”

  “Sure. Everything okay?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll keep you posted.”

  Rhodes only nodded, obviously a little taken aback at the abrupt shift in the case. Chloe gave her an apologetic look as she closed the door and hurried down the hallway toward the front door.

  She tried to think of a reason someone might break into her apartment. Hers was no differen
t from those of the other residents around her. She didn’t own anything particularly expensive and, honestly, knowingly breaking into the apartment of a federal agent was just about the dumbest thing a criminal could do.

  Unless…

  Unless it was my father…or Danielle…

  Neither option made sense but somehow, the first one felt right.

  My father…the journal…

  By the time Chloe reached the parking lot, she was sprinting for her car.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Dusk had settled over the nation’s capital by the time Chloe pulled her car into the parking lot in front of her building. The officer she had spoken with assured her that there would be a policeman on the scene when she arrived. Sure enough, when she went running up the stairs and down the second floor hallway to her apartment, there was a female police officer waiting for her.

  “Agent Fine?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m Officer Henley. Sorry to meet you under these circumstances.”

  Chloe only gave a perfunctory nod as she pushed open her door. She looked at the hinges and saw where they showed signs of recent stress; one of them had been knocked slightly askew, the screw holding it in bent and slightly popped out. The chain lock had been snapped, the longer half hanging from the slide bolted to the frame.

  While the apartment was indeed in a ruined state, it wasn’t as bad as Chloe had been envisioning it on the way home from Falls Church. A few of the kitchen cabinets had been left open. The little end table by the couch in the living room had been overturned. Every single door on the small entertainment center had been left open; DVDs and assorted cables and odds and ends were strewn all over the floor.

  But the TV was still there (not that anyone would want to steal it, as it was at least ten years old) and her MacBook was still sitting on the little desk in the corner.

  Someone came in looking for something very specific, she thought. And again, her inclination was to assume it had been her father, looking for her mother’s diary.