скачать книгу бесплатно
We cross the road and knock on the door. After a minute or so a woman in her forties, dressed like she’s twenty, answers.
“Yeah?” She chews gum loudly.
We take out our ID and identify ourselves.
She narrows her eyes. “What do you want?” There’s a hint of both annoyance and concern in her voice.
“We’d like to talk to Todd Fischer. Is he home?” Carson is a long drive if Fischer’s not in, but unannounced visits are always more effective in this game.
“Todd!” the woman yells without moving farther into the house.
After a few seconds with no response she yells again. “Todd! Get your ass down here.”
Heavy footsteps sound above us, moving toward the stairs. “Mom, I told you not to disturb me.” Todd’s feet appear on the steps. “What is it?”
“Cops are here to see you.”
“Oh… Okay.” He doesn’t seem surprised.
Once he’s halfway down the stairs he comes into full view. Todd Fischer is about six-one, tall and lanky, with black hair and pale skin that looks paler against his red lips and rosy cheeks.
“Is this about Sherry?” He moves off the stairs and toward us.
His mother turns to him. “Told you no good would come out of dating some rich bitch.”
He gives his mother a scathing look. “Give it a rest, Mom.”
“Whatever.” She pops the gum in her mouth.
He turns back to us, hands shoved deep in his pockets. “She’s really missing then?”
We don’t have a chance to answer before his mum blurts, “You don’t have to talk to them, Todd.”
“I’ll handle this, Mom. You go back to…whatever you were doing.”
She gives us a sneer. “Whatever.” She chews her gum noisily and moves off to the left and the background hum of a TV set.
“We can talk in the kitchen.” Todd leads us in the opposite direction, through an extremely messy room that is presumably the dining area but is sparsely furnished and covered in old newspapers and bric-a-brac.
Following him through a swinging door, we move into a seventies-style kitchen. The decor is red and white, which makes it look almost retro rather than dated. A splash of paint and new appliances and it could look good. Certainly a few less dishes in the sink would help.
Todd looks around and sighs. “Sorry about the mess.” He shakes his head. “Can I get you a drink? Coffee?”
At the rate we’re going, I’ll be getting the caffeine shakes soon.
“Sure,” I say politely.
Todd flicks on the kettle and then starts opening cupboards, obviously searching for clean cups. “I can’t believe Sherry’s really missing.”
“Have you spoken to the Taylors recently?” Sloan takes a seat at the kitchen table. The chairs are metal-framed with patterned vinyl for your butt and a curved, thin backrest. They remind me of our kitchen set during my childhood. But ours was brand-new, and the Fischers’ is over thirty years old.
“They rang this morning. To see if Sherry was with me.” He takes three cups from the pile of dirty dishes, squirts dishwashing liquid into each of them and runs the hot-water tap for a minute before half filling each cup.
“When did you see her last?” Sloan asks.
He takes a dish brush to the cups. “Last night.”
Last night? Could Todd have been the mystery date? It seems unlikely Sherry would lie to her best friend if she was going out with her ex.
“The Taylors didn’t know that, did they?”
He shakes his head. “Sherry doesn’t want them to know.”
“Why?” Sloan leans her elbow on the table.
“She doesn’t want her mom getting her hopes up.”
“So you get on well with the Taylors?”
“Real well. Mrs. Taylor is, was, like a mom to me. It’s been hard not seeing them for the past few months.” He takes a chair, puts it beside the counter and stands on it. Reaching into the very top cupboard he withdraws a packet of Oreos and a small plate.
“Your hiding spot?” I give him a smile.
“Uh-huh. Mom would eat them in one sitting if she knew they were here.”
“Really?” Todd’s mum is less than ten pounds overweight.
“Don’t let her fool you. She binges for a few days, then hardly eats for days on end.” He shakes his head. “It’s crazy.”
Sloan moves around, unable to get comfy in the chair. “Was last night the first time you’ve seen Sherry since you broke up?”
He gives a little snort. “Hardly. Sherry and I split up four months ago, but we’ve still been seeing each other.”
“Sexually?” Sloan’s tone is harsh.
Todd winces. “I love Sherry, Detective. And I always will.”
“Was the feeling mutual?” Sloan’s voice is softer now.
He sighs. “Not exactly.” He rinses the cups and pulls a plunger down from a high cupboard before leaning on the sink. His shoulders rise and fall in a labored breath. “She was obsessed with that professor of hers.”
“Professor?” Sloan’s voice is casual, but I know her curiosity is truly piqued—as is mine.
“Yes. She had a crush on him. It’s why she broke it off with me.” He places three scoops of coffee into the plunger and fills it with boiling water. “She said if we were meant to be together she wouldn’t have feelings for any other guy.”
“Do you know his name?”
Todd turns around. “Carrington. He’s her acting professor.” He stares at his shoes. “I guess she could be with him.”
No, she’s not with Carrington…she’s in the morgue.
So far I’m only getting a good vibe off Todd and I’m finding it hard not to tell him that Sherry’s dead.
Sloan, on the other hand, doesn’t seem bothered. “Tell us about last night. What time did you see her?”
“Late. About midnight.”
“Did you have a fight?” I ask.
“No.” He slowly pushes the plunger down. “But she was…different.” He looks up again. “She called me around midnight and she was upset.”
“Go on.”
“We arranged to meet in Santa Monica.” He pours out three cups of coffee and places them on the kitchen table before opening the fridge and peering inside. “Dammit.” Closing the fridge he looks around, his eyes finally resting on a carton of milk on the counter. He shakes his head. “How many times do I have to tell her to put the milk away?” He picks it up from the counter and smells it before looking up at us. “I’m sorry, but it is fine.” He puts the milk on the table.
I get the distinct impression that this mother-son relationship doesn’t have a mother in it. I often wonder how women like Todd’s mum get their babies past the first two years of life. Then again, sometimes they don’t.
“Whereabouts did you meet in Santa Monica?” I ask, curious as to how close they were to Temescal Gateway Park.
“There’s a little spot we used to go, right where the oceanfront walk starts.”
I look at Sloan, hoping she’ll know the area.
She nods for both my benefit and Todd’s. “I know it. Not too far from Temescal Gateway Park.”
That places Todd and our victim right near the crime scene. Could I be wrong about him?
Todd doesn’t pick up on the reference. If he’s seen today’s news he’d know a woman’s body was found in the park this morning, but so far the reports haven’t carried her name.
“Go on.” I give him a generic prompt rather than asking a question that would lead us down a specific path.
“She wouldn’t tell me what was wrong. I comforted her, held her and told her I loved her. And then about ten minutes later she was all hot and heavy.” He looks down and stares into his coffee cup. “I knew she wasn’t herself and I did try to stop things a few times to make sure she was okay. But she was insistent. Voracious even. I’d never seen her like that.”
“Do you know where she’d been earlier in the night?”
“At some Goth club. Researching an acting piece for class.”
“Really?” I keep my voice casual, even though the link between the victim and the Goth culture is big news. It could place her right in After Dark with vampires.
He smiles. “She was all decked out in the gear. I didn’t even recognize her at first…but she was in her car, so I knew it must have been Sherry. I wondered if that was why she was so…you know. The outfit sure was sexy.”
“What else did she say?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Not much. We were busy.”
“Did she behave differently during sex? Besides being more assertive?”
“Not really—um, what do you mean?” His face reddens slightly.
I take us down the Goth and vampire path. “You know, anything kinky? Like a desire to drink blood?”
“No!” His coffee cup connects heavily with the table and he scrunches his face up. “It was just research. She wasn’t into that scene.”
“So,” Sloan says, “you had sex, then what?”
“She said she was tired and wanted to go home. I tried to find out what had upset her, but she said she was fine.”
“And do you think she was?” Todd and Sherry were together for a long time. Hopefully he knew his girlfriend well enough to know if she was hiding her true feelings.
“I’m not sure, to be honest. She seemed okay, but Sherry’s an exceptional actress.”
“So what time did she head off?”
“About one.”
We’ve filled in part of Sherry’s timeline for last night at least from midnight to 1:00 a.m.—assuming Todd is telling us the truth. And we’ve probably found the source of the semen from the postmortem rape kit.
“Did you use a condom, Todd?” I ask.
“No.” He looks down. “Stupid, I know. But neither of us had one and Sherry assured me the timing was safe…you know, in terms of her cycle.” He looks up again. “Hang on, what’s with the question about condoms?”
I take a deep breath. I give Sloan a quick glance and once I have a little nod from her I start. “I’m afraid we’ve got some bad news, Todd.”
His brow furrows. “What do you mean?”
I lean toward him. “We found Sherry, but she’s dead. Murdered.”
“What?” He stands up, sending his chair flying backward. “No, you’ve got it wrong! She can’t be dead.”
I stand up, too, and rest my hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, but it is Sherry.”
He’s silent for a bit. “Do her parents know?”
“Yes. We informed them a couple of hours ago.”
He blows out a breath and runs his hand through his hair. “I can’t…I can’t believe it. I was with her like twelve hours ago.” He paces.
Sloan and I are both silent and the silence gives Todd enough time to get up to speed. He stops pacing abruptly.
“Oh my God…you think—” he swallows hard “—you think I had something to do with this? That’s why you didn’t tell me straight away.”
Sloan looks up. “So far you were the last person to see her.”
“But I didn’t kill her! I loved Sherry.”
Unfortunately in our line of work, love is often the reason people kill, not the reason they don’t. As a behavioral analyst my cases tend to be more complex—serial killers, serial rapists, cold cases—but Sloan would be lapping up the circumstantial and physical evidence. After all, if Sherry’s got Todd’s DNA in her and he admits to seeing her at 1:00 a.m., right near Temescal Gateway Park…
Sloan stands up. “We’d like to take a DNA sample for comparison. It’s just a swab inside your cheek.”
