“Hey, come check this out,” he said to Adams.
Adams got up and came around their desks. He stood behind Stephenson as the video continued to play.
A female reporter sat across from them wearing a dark pantsuit.
“Stella's been missing for over five months now. What makes you sure her husband killed her?”
Stella's mother spoke first. “We'd been trying to convince her to leave him for years. He was incredibly controlling. We worried about how much worse he might treat her behind closed doors when we witnessed how verbally abusive he was when we were around.” She paused and dabbed her eyes with a tissue. “A week before she went missing, she had a black eye. That's when we realized things were even worse than we'd thought. She made an excuse that she'd ran into something, but we knew he'd beat her. We begged her to leave him. She said she was thinking about it, but he must've found out and killed her before she could get away.”
She began to sob, and Stella's father took the opportunity to speak.
“Stella was last seen at her work on Friday, December 16. The detectives confirmed with the hospital that Eric had mistakenly shown up for a shift that Friday and went home after realizing he wasn't rostered that night. We believe Stella had taken the opportunity to leave him while he was at work. When he came home early, he probably found her getting ready to leave him and killed her.”
“Detectives searched the home she shared with her husband, Eric. They didn't find any blood or evidence of a struggle in the home. They've also never found her body. If he killed her, what do you think he did with her body?” the reporter asked.
Stella's mother looked too emotional to speak.
“Eric has a fishing boat. We believe he took the boat out and dumped her body in the ocean,” the father said.
“And where are the police in the investigation? Do you think they'll ever arrest her husband for murder?”
“Without a body, they are treating her case as a missing person's. Unless they find her body or some other hard evidence that she was killed, it's doubtful they'll ever be able to arrest Eric, even though we know he killed her.”
“When we tried to contact Eric for an interview, we learned he's left the country and is now living in Seattle. We were surprised he would make such a big move only a few months after his wife's disappearance. Do you see that as further proof of his guilt?”
“Yes,” her mother said. “He never showed any emotion about her disappearance. Just said that she'd left him. He didn't even care. It was disturbing to see that he had no remorse whatsoever. He fled to Seattle to start a new life, while we have to live with the fact that we'll never see our daughter again.”
The clip ended, and Stephenson turned to Adams.
“Sounds like the same story her sister told me over the phone. After we get Stella's case file from Australia, let's go pay Dr. Leroy a visit.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Friday afternoon, Eric had an hour free between clients and was using the time to write another chapter in his novel. He was tirelessly typing away on his keyboard when he heard a tap on his door.
“Come in,” he said, assuming it was his secretary.
The door opened, but he didn't bother looking up. She probably came in to tell him something dreadfully unimportant that could've waited until the end of the day.
“I figured it would be easier for you if we came here than to ask you to come down to the station.”
Hearing Blondie's voice, Eric tore his eyes away from the screen. In his office doorway, there stood Blondie and his less than brilliant partner. Nice of his secretary to give him a heads up. What now?
“If you keep coming here, detective, I might have to start charging you. Are there some things you'd like to get off your chest? Your childhood perhaps?”
He frowned as his partner closed the door behind them, and Eric was filled with gratification.
“I just had a very interesting chat with your sister-in-law.”
“You mean my ex-sister-in-law?” Eric said.
“No, I mean your sister-in-law. Your wife has never been declared dead and you haven’t gotten a divorce, right? So, legally, Stella is still your wife.”
Eric closed his laptop. “Technically, yes. But she hasn’t been my wife since she left me twenty years ago. And why would you be chatting with my sister-in-law?”
“She saw your name in the news connected with our recent murder victims and thought we should be aware of your history.”
“My history?”
“She claims her sister didn't just go missing. She says she was murdered.”
He paused, apparently expecting him to respond.
When he didn't, Blondie added, “By you.”
This news didn't exactly come as a shock. Although, Eric had conceded the reason her sister made those wild accusations all those years ago was due to grief. It had probably been easier for her to believe that he’d killed her sister than to bear the truth: Stella had left them all for a life she deemed better. But he had hoped by now Maggie would've come to her senses.
He himself had considered that something terrible could've happened to Stella. The media had several theories regarding her disappearance, one of them being that she’d been taken by a shark while surfing. It was possible, but not likely. No body parts or surf board had ever been found. And me, kill Stella? It was preposterous.
He sighed. “I hope this wasn't the only reason you came to see me. No wonder you two have so many homicides left unsolved if this is the best you can do with your time.”
Another frown. “So, you're not even going to deny it?”
“Look, I'm sure hearing her claim I'm a murderer was like music to your ears. I don't know why, but you both seem like you're dying to arrest me for murder. Probably just so you can close your case. If I had killed her, then where is her body? And why wasn't I arrested for her murder all those years ago? Hmm? Did my lovely sister-in-law have any explanation for that?”
“Solving a homicide without a body is extremely difficult, especially in the absence of other physical evidence,” Marky Mark said.
It was the first thing he'd said since they'd come into Eric’s office. It was also the first thing he'd ever said to him that actually made sense.
“She figures you dumped her sister's body in the ocean from your fishing boat,” Blondie said.
“Well, she obviously doesn't remember my boat very well. You'd have to be crazy to take that boat outside the calm waters of the bay. It was much too small to handle the open ocean.”
Blondie smirked. “That's funny, because crazy was the exact word she used to describe you.”
“I'm not the one telling twenty-year-old conspiracy theories to the police.”
Blondie cupped his hand and ran his thumb and index along the corners of his mouth, as if feeling for crumbs left over from his lunch. “Sounded a lot more like the truth than a conspiracy theory to me. But what do I know?”
“Apparently not enough to solve your own homicide cases.”
His eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “We're actually pretty close to making an arrest in three of our homicides.”
Yeah right, he thought.
“Don't leave town, doctor. I suspect we'll be speaking to you again soon.”
Marky Mark opened his door and Blondie followed him out.
“Looking forward to it,” Eric said before the door shut behind them.
He opened his laptop but, despite his best efforts, couldn't get back into the head space he needed to write his novel. There was no way they were close to arresting him for those murders. They had to be bluffing. But what if they weren’t? What if he had somehow made a mistake along the way? He was almost certain he hadn't, but was he certain enough to bet his freedom on it? His life? He'd have to kill Dwayne sooner than he had planned. And start preparing for his escape.
He glanced at the clock on the lower right corner of his screen. Time for his next appointment. Stupid cops. They cost him
nearly an hour of creative productivity.
“Cancel my last appointment for me. I've got to take care of a few things this afternoon,” he said to his secretary on his way out of the office.
“Your next appointment will be here any minute. I think it's a little too late to cancel.”
Nobody asked you what you think, he thought. He ignored her retort and continued moving toward the office doors. Remembering this was probably the last time he would ever see her, he turned around.
“And I think you should've given me a heads up before letting those two cops waltz into my office unannounced.”
“I'm sure they had good reason to see you. Plus, I thought they might’ve wanted to have the element of surprise.”
He stared back at her while he turned the door handle. He wished he was staying in town long enough to be able to kill her next.
“I don't pay you to think. Just to do your damn job.” He let the door slam behind him and walked to his car.
He stopped at the bank one last time on his way home to make another withdrawal. Once back at his apartment, he packed a carry-on bag with basic toiletries, a few changes of clothes, his laptop for writing his novel, and twenty-two thousand in cash. He separated the ten thousand that would go through airport security and the other twelve he would use to purchase his ticket and take through on his person.
He turned off his car stereo and drove to the airport in silence. He parked in the short-term parking and dropped off his bag at the baggage storage outside of security before getting back in his car to drive home. He kept the stereo off while he sat in traffic on I-5 and finalized his plan to ensure he killed Dwayne before the weekend was over—and not get caught.
If Eric was under surveillance, and his recent encounter with those two schmuck detectives told him he was, then he couldn't take his own car to kill Dwayne tomorrow. Fortunately, sweet old Margaret across the hall owned a Buick she hardly ever used. He'd seen her come and go in the parking garage. She had her groceries delivered every week and was too old to be driving, but she seemed to still get out and about occasionally.
She would probably have let him borrow it if he asked, but he didn't want to involve her in any of this. Plus, he didn't want her to tell the cops he had borrowed her car, in case they came looking for him before he was safely out of the country.
Eric waited until midnight and listened outside her door a few minutes to make sure the TV was off and no other noise came from inside her apartment. He pulled his trusty lock-picking kit out of his pajama pant pocket and did a quick look around the hall to make sure he was alone.
He, of course, was the only person in the silent hallway. He smiled to himself. Now that he had killed the little drummer boy, there were no tenants left on the floor to be witnesses.
The door unlocked with a click after he worked his magic with the pick. He slowly stepped inside the dark apartment. From what he could tell, the floorplan was the same as his. He’d traded his slippers for socks before coming out of his apartment, and he padded silently through the entryway toward the kitchen. Not that he needed to worry old Margaret would hear him; she was practically deaf in her old age.
Once he had reached the vicinity of the kitchen, he used the light on his phone to look for her purse. He could make out the kitchen counters now, and noticed they were neat and sparse. The way kitchen counter tops should be. But her purse was not sitting atop them like he’d hoped.
Eric drummed his fingers on the tidy kitchen workspace. He was hoping to avoid having to go in her bedroom, but it was looking like he might have no choice. He'd probably give the sweet old lady a cardiac arrest if she awoke to find a man lurking around in her room. But perhaps it was in the living room.
He used his phone to scan the adjacent room. Empty sitting chair, empty coffee table. He moved his light toward the couch and was startled by both the body lying on it and the sound that came out of Margaret. Instinctively, he shut off the light and jumped behind the couch. It sounded somewhere between a hack and cough, followed by a deep clearing of the throat.
He crouched low to the ground, motionless while he listened. He couldn't kill Margaret. If she came toward him, he would overpower her as gently as possible and race out of her apartment. Except that he still needed her car keys.
Margaret went quiet before exhaling deeply. He waited as her heavy breathing changed to a loud, even snore. He stood slowly and turned his phone light back on. He could see the outline of the old woman lying on her back as he slipped past the couch. He moved down the hall into the bedroom and shined his light on the bedside table. There sat her small black leather purse.
Right. She sleeps in the living room but keeps her purse in her bedroom. Go figure. He’d just opened the bag and shined his light inside when Margaret made a horrendous choking sound from the other room. The dreadful noise continued for nearly a minute. He thought how ironic it would be if she died while he was stealing her car keys. But then she sharply cleared her throat and returned to her rhythmic snoring.
Old people, he thought. He went back to searching for her keys. He found them in a side pocket and crept back to his apartment before she made any more death-defying noises.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Eric got up early Saturday morning and started the day with an hour of yoga. He needed to be calm. He needed to be centered. He needed to kill Dwayne and then flee the country before his friends at Seattle Homicide realized he had gone.
Before going to bed the night before, he’d texted Dwayne using his burner phone. He told him to meet him at a cafe on Bainbridge Island that Eric sometimes frequented on the weekends. It was in walking distance from the ferry that came across the sound from downtown Seattle. But thanks to good old Margaret next door, he wouldn't be walking.
He told Dwayne to meet him at four o’clock. After a shower and two cups of coffee, he sat down at his desk to work on his novel. He was nearly halfway done. His progress was slower than he’d hoped, but once he killed Dwayne and fled the country, he would have all the time in the world to finish it.
With his laptop packed into his bag at the airport, he was forced to write on his old iPad that he hardly ever used. He felt himself relax after he typed his first three hundred words. The double-spaced page filled with his typed words was food for his soul. He needed to write like he needed to breathe. He’d once told himself he’d stop writing once he published his bestseller, but he knew now that he needed to write to survive.
Two thousand words later, it was nearly time to carry out his plan. He uploaded his new chapter onto the cloud. Satisfied that his work was saved, he turned off the iPad.
He donned his baseball cap before he pulled on his jacket and took one last look around his apartment. Although he’d always despised Seattle's long gray winters, he was struck by an overwhelming sense of nostalgia as he prepared to leave his current home for the last time. He felt the sides of his jacket to ensure he had his cellphone in one pocket and a necktie and burner phone in the other.
“Well, I guess this is good-bye,” he said to his apartment.
He grabbed Margaret's keys off the kitchen counter and his iPad from his desk. He couldn't leave it behind in case the cops came to look through his stuff. He'd have to dispose of it on his way to kill Dwayne. He locked the door behind him and headed downstairs to the parking garage.
Sweet old Margaret had even parked her Buick out of view from the security cameras. Bless her heart. The Buick ran surprisingly well for how little she used it. He made it to the ferry dock without incident. He slowed the car and rolled down his window when he reached the ticket booth.
“Bainbridge or Bremerton?”
“Bainbridge.”
“Just the car and driver?” the woman asked from inside the booth.
“Yes.”
“That'll be $18.70.”
He handed her a twenty through the window.
“You’ll be on the three o’clock boat,” she said as she handed him his change.
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“Thank you.”
He pulled into the row behind other idle cars and turned off the engine. His stomach growled, breaking the silence in the car. He must’ve forgotten to eat lunch. With twenty-five minutes to spare, he got out and walked down the street to Ivar’s.
The wait was short, and he ordered a large clam chowder. The young girl behind the counter handed him a big paper bowl covered with a plastic lid.
“Spoons are to your right,” she said.
“Could I also get a bag for this?” he asked.
“A bag?” She furrowed her brow and gave him a look that said, What kind of weirdo carries his bowl of soup in a bag?
He didn't find his request that odd.
She handed him a white, medium-sized paper bag with an Ivar's logo on the side.
He watched her brow furrow again as he took off the lid to his soup, tucked the bag under his arm, and ate as he walked back to the ferry.
He got back to the Buick and set his half-eaten bowl of chowder on the armrest, something he would never do in his BMW. He didn't even drink water in it, let alone clam chowder. But he was sure good old Margaret wouldn't mind. The ten-year-old Buick had seen better days. Or had it? he wondered.
He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out his iPad. He dropped it inside the Ivar's bag and rolled down the top, closing it in. Holding the bag from the top, he walked over to the nearest rubbish bin and tossed it inside. The ferry had just arrived. Cars and walk-on passengers had started to disembark. He hurried back to the Buick as a group of seagulls squawked overhead.
After driving onto the ferry, he turned off the car engine but didn't go upstairs to the passenger deck. The car smelled strongly of clam chowder from his near-empty bowl he’d moved over onto the passenger seat. Bored, he streamed music from his phone while he went over his plan to kill Dwayne one more time.
“Zombie” by The Cranberries started to play when they had almost reached the island. He turned up the volume and lost himself in the music. Not in a way that distracted him from what he was about to do. Instead, he became more focused. The chorus came on, and he played air drums against the steering wheel until the end of the song.
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