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All Fall Down
Erica Spindler
Murder? Or justice…?Men are dying unexpectedly in Charlotte, North Carolina – all victims of bizarre accidents. Or so it seems, until Detective Melanie May realises these men had something in common: they all slipped through the fingers of the justice system, accused of abuse but allowed to walk free.It looks like someone is taking justice into their own hands. And the more Melanie investigates, the more she begins to fear it might even be someone she knows. But one thing is certain, this killer will stop at nothing until all fall down. . .
About the Author
The author of twenty-five books, ERICA SPINDLER is best known for her spine-tingling thrillers. Her novels have been published all over the world, selling over six million copies, and critics have dubbed her stories “thrill-packed, page turners, white knuckle rides, and edge-of-your-seat whodunits.”
Erica is a New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author. In 2002, her novel Bone Cold won the prestigious Daphne du Maurier Award for excellence.
Also by Erica Spindler
SEE JANE DIE
IN SILENCE
DEAD RUN
SHOCKING PINK
BONE COLD
CAUSE FOR ALARM
KILLER TAKES ALL
COPYCAT
All Fall Down
Erica Spindler
www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)
For Dianne Moggy, editor and friend.
Thanks for making the journey so much fun.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In our busy world time is the one thing we never seem to have enough of, yet the following people gave generously of theirs so that I could bring All Fall Down to life. They did so enthusiastically and openly, sharing their expertise and experiences; my heartfelt thanks to each.
Barton M Menser, Assistant District Attorney, State of North Carolina, 26th Prosecutorial District: for explaining the workings of the district attorney’s office.
Keith Bridges, Community Education Coordinator, Charlotte/Mecklenburg Police Department: for educating me about the CMPD, from the size of the force to interrogation procedures.
Elaine and Leon Schneider, friends: for not only sharing Charlotte with me, but their home as well. Special thanks to Elaine for squiring me to all my appointments and greeting me with a smile even when those appointments ran long.
Tommy Patterson, Investigative Group, Inc: for bringing the technical side of surveillance alive for me.
Special Agent Joanne Morley, FBI, Charlotte Field Office: for answering my questions about FBI protocol and for describing the Charlotte Field Office.
Linda West (aka author Linda Lewis), attorney: again and always, for being my legal editor and expert.
David Shilman, pharmaceutical representative, Organon: for information about the professional life of a drug rep.
Bobby Russo, Bobby Russo’s American Black Belt Academy: for information about the art of tae kwon do.
1
Charlotte, North Carolina January, 2000
The closet was small, cramped. Too warm. Dark save for the sliver of dim light from the bedroom beyond. In it, Death waited. Patiently. Without movement or complaint.
Tonight was the night. Soon, the man would come. And like the others, he would pay.
For crimes unpunished. Against the weak. Against those the world had turned their backs on. Death had planned carefully, had left nothing to chance. The woman was away, the children with her. Far away, in the loving and protective arms of family.
From another part of the house came a sound—a thud, then an oath. A door slammed. Excited, Death pressed closer to the door, peering through the narrow space, taking in the scene beyond: the unmade bed, the dirty laundry strewn about, the trash that littered the floor.
The man stumbled into the room, toward the bed, obviously inebriated. Immediately, the small dark space filled with the smell of cigarettes and booze—booze he and his buddies had consumed that night. Laughing. Thumbing their noses at the gods. At justice.
He lost his balance and knocked into the bedside table. The lamp toppled and crashed to the floor. The man fell face first onto the bed, head turned to the side, foot and arm hanging off.
Minutes ticked past. The drunk’s breathing became deep and thick. Soon, his guttural snores filled the room. The snores of a man in an alcohol-induced coma, of one who would not awake easily.
Until it was too late.
The time had come.
Death eased out of the closet and crossed to the bed, stopping beside it and gazing down in disgust. Smoking in bed was dangerous. It was foolhardy. One should never tempt fate that way. But then, this was a stupid man. One who had not learned from his mistakes. The kind of man the world would be better off without.
With the toe of a shoe, Death eased the bedside wastebasket to the spot under the drunk’s dangling hand. The cigarette was the man’s brand; the matches from the bar he had frequented that night. The match flared with the first strike of tip against the friction strip; the flame crackled as it kissed the tobacco, hissing as it caught.
With a small, satisfied smile, Death dropped the glowing cigarette into the filled wastebasket, then turned and walked away.
2
Charlotte, North Carolina Wednesday, March 1, 2000
Officer Melanie May hovered just beyond the motel room’s door, gaze riveted to the bed inside, to the murder victim bound by ankles and wrists to the bed frame.
The young woman was naked. She lay faceup, her eyes open, her mouth sealed with silver duct tape. The blood had flown from her face and the top of her body, downward toward her back, pooling there, giving those areas a ruddy, bluish cast. Rigor mortis appeared to be complete, which meant she had been dead at least eight hours.
Melanie took a shaky step forward. Chief Greer’s call had interrupted her morning shower. A towel clutched to her chest, she’d had to ask him to repeat himself three times. Not only had there not been a homicide in Whistlestop since she joined the force three years ago, as she understood it, there had never been a homicide in the tiny community, located on the outskirts of Charlotte.
He had ordered her to the Sweet Dreams Motel, ASAP.
First order of business had been arranging care for her four-year-old son, Casey. That done, she had hurriedly donned her uniform, strapped on her gun belt and pulled her still-wet, shoulder-length blond hair back into a severe twist. She had speared in the last bobby pin just as the doorbell pealed, announcing that her neighbor had arrived to watch Casey.
Now, not quite twenty minutes later, she was staring in horror at her first murder victim and praying she didn’t puke.
To steady herself, she shifted her gaze to the room’s other occupants. From the number of them, it appeared she was the last to make the scene. Her partner, Bobby Taggerty—his rail-thin frame and shock of bright red hair making him look like a walking matchstick—was photographing the scene. Her chief stood in the corner of the room, engaged in a heated discussion with two men she recognized as homicide investigators with the Charlotte/Mecklenburg force. Outside, keeping the Whistlestop PD first officers company, were two Charlotte/Mecklenburg uniforms. A man she didn’t recognize—but whom she assumed was also CMPD, probably on the forensics team—squatted beside the bed, examining the corpse.
What was the CMPD doing here already? Melanie wondered, frowning. And why in such great numbers? Sure, the WPD was a tiny force operating within the large area serviced by the CMPD—a department of fourteen hundred sworn officers and state-of-the-art facilities, including a crime lab. And sure, her force had an interagency aid agreement with the bigger department. But still, protocol demanded an initial WPD investigation followed by a Whistlestop request for aid.
This was no ordinary murder. Something big had gone down.
And she wasn’t about to be muscled out. Even by muscles as impressive as the CMPD’s.
Determined to assert that fact, Melanie strode across the threshold, stopping short as the stench of the room hit her. Not from decomposition, which had not yet begun, but with the evacuation of bladder and bowel that sometimes occurred with violent death.
Melanie brought a hand to her nose, stomach heaving. She squeezed her eyes shut and swallowed hard. She couldn’t throw up, not in front of the CMPD guys. They already thought the Whistlestop force was rinky-dink, made up of wannabes and couldn’t-hack-its. She wasn’t about to prove them right—even if she agreed with their assessment.
“Hey, you? Sweetpants.” Melanie opened her eyes. The man beside the bed motioned her forward, his expression disgusted. “You going to fall apart or get your ass in here and do a job? I could use a hand.”
From the corners of her eyes she saw her chief and the investigators glance her way, and, annoyed, she crossed to the man. “The name’s May. Officer May. Not �Hey You’ or �Sweetpants.’ “
“Whatever.” He handed her a pair of latex gloves. “Put those on and come down here.”
She snatched the gloves from his hand, pulled them on, then knelt beside him. “You have a name?” “Parks.”
When he spoke, she caught a whiff of alcohol on his breath. From that and the looks of him, she decided this murder had dragged him away from one hell of a binge. “CMPD?”
“FBI.” He made a sound of impatience. “Can we get started now? Chickie here’s not getting any fresher.”
Melanie didn’t hide her surprise or her dislike of Parks, though he appeared to care less what she thought of him. “What do you need me to do?”
“See that? Under her ass?” He indicated the shiny tip of something peeking out from beneath the body. “I’m going to hoist her up. I need you to get it for me.”
She nodded, understanding. Although the victim had not been a large woman, death would make her difficult to maneuver, even for a man built as strongly as Parks. With a grunt of exertion, he inched the victim’s hindquarters off the mattress. Melanie grabbed the shiny scrap—a foil condom wrapper, open and empty.
Parks took the packet from her hands and examined it a moment, eyebrows drawn together in thought. Melanie watched him, wondering why he was at the scene. Why had this victim’s murder rated not only the representation of two police forces but also the FBI?
He lifted his bloodshot gaze to hers. “You got any idea what happened here, May? Got a good guess?”
“Judging by the bluish tint to her skin and the lack of any visible wound, I suspect she was smothered. Probably with a bed pillow.” She pointed to the one just to the left of the woman’s head. “Beyond that, not yet.”
“Read the scene. Everything we need to know is right here.” He indicated the skimpy lingerie draped over the chair and the empty champagne bottle on the floor. “See those? They tell me she came to play. Nobody forced her into this room or onto this bed.”
“And being tied up was part of the fun and games?”
“In my opinion, yes. Think about it. There are no visible bruises on her body. It would take a lot of strength to tie a struggling adult prone to a bed. Even a huge man couldn’t do it without exerting extreme force on the victim. Also, check out her wrists and ankles. They’re in almost perfect condition. They’d be torn up if she’d fought for long.”
Melanie did as he suggested and saw that he was right. There were only slight burns from the ropes, ones indicative of a short struggle.
“This guy’s in his late twenties to mid-thirties. Handsome. If he’s not successful, he looks like he is. He’s going to drive an expensive car, something foreign. Sporty. A BMW or Jag.”
Melanie made a sound of disbelief. “There’s no way you can know that.”
“No? Take a look at the victim. This girl wasn’t just any skank. She was a babe. Young, gorgeous, rich. The best family, the best—”
“Wait a minute,” Melanie interrupted. “Who is she?”
“Joli Andersen. Cleve Andersen’s youngest daughter.”
“Son of a bitch,” Melanie muttered. Now she understood. The Andersens were one of Charlotte’s oldest and most influential families. They were big into banking, politics and on the boards of a number of Charlotte’s most visible civic and charitable organizations. Melanie didn’t doubt that Cleve Andersen had a direct line to both the mayor’s and governor’s office.
“That’s why you’re here,” she said. “And the CMPD honchos. Because she’s an Andersen.”
“Bingo. With a vic like this one, word always travels fast. Housekeeper finds the body and, after screaming, runs for the motel manager. First thing he does is check chickie’s ID. Then the scenario gets really interesting. He panics and calls the CMPD and tells the dispatcher not only what’s gone down, but who’s dead. Next thing I know, my butt’s being hauled out of bed to lend aid and offer expertise.”
Melanie absorbed his words. “So, the family already knows?”
“Hell, yes. Before you or your chief did, Sweet-pants.” He returned his attention to his analysis of the scene. “The chain of events only underscores my theory. This girl was accustomed to the best of everything. No way she was going slumming with some gas-station attendant.”
“What about drugs? Or rebellion from her parents?”
“There’s no sign of drug use here. As for rebellion, look at the way she dressed, her Z3 parked outside, her history. It doesn’t fit.”
Melanie frowned, recalling the things she had read about the Andersens’ youngest daughter, acknowledging that he was right. “So why’d she go to a motel room with some guy she didn’t know?”
“Who said she didn’t know him?”
Melanie shifted her gaze to Joli Andersen’s once-beautiful face, now frozen in death, to her wide-open, terrified gaze, imagining the girl’s last moments. “And then he killed her.”
“Yes. But he didn’t plan to. My bet is, she began to complain when the game turned unpleasant. Or maybe he couldn’t get it up and she began to belittle him or laugh. This guy’s the classic inadequate, her criticism would have sent him over the edge. He taped her mouth to shut her up, but then she began to struggle in earnest. That upset him more. She wasn’t acting the way she was supposed to, the way he had imagined it in his head. So he presses a pillow over her face to get her to shut up and behave.”
“If he didn’t plan it, how come the tape?” Melanie shook her head. “In my book, that’s coming prepared.”
“I didn’t say he hadn’t acted out this scene before. He no doubt has, dozens of times, and some of those times with hookers. Understand, this is like a play he’s written in his head, one he keeps adding to, fine-tuning. The beautiful girl. The rope. Her submission. The tape. And tonight, the murder. Ask around with the professional girls, somebody will turn up who knows this guy.”
Melanie gazed at him, half-awed, half-disbelieving. Though his analysis all made sense, it seemed to her that he would have to be psychic to know all he professed to. “Don’t you think what you’re doing is a little bit dangerous? Basically, you’re just guessing.”
“What do you think police work is? Educated guessing, following gut instincts. Luck. Besides, I’m a damn good guesser.” He glanced over his shoulder, holding up the foil packet. “Any of you come across a used rubber?”
No one had. One of the CMPD guys ambled over. He took the packet and held it up, squinting at the small print on the front. “Lambskin.” He shook his head, making a sound of disgust. “You’d think these people would have gotten the message by now. Only latex protects.”
Parks frowned. “I doubt he had sex with her. Not the kind of sex he’d need a condom for.”
“No? The packet’s open, right? Rubber’s missing.” The CMPD honcho dropped the packet into an evidence bag, sealed and marked it. “He probably took it with him. Or flushed it.”
Parks shook his head. “She brought the condom, not him.”
The investigator arched his eyebrows. “How do you figure?”
“The last thing on his mind was protection. Look at this place, he made no attempt to clean up. I can see fingerprints on the champagne bottle from here.”
“So?”
“So,” Parks continued, “why would this disorganized inadequate flush a used condom but leave his fingerprints? My bet is, this place is swimming in biological and trace evidence.”
While Parks repeated his theory to the investigator, Melanie examined the area around the bed, careful not to inadvertently disturb or destroy evidence. She had a hunch. If Joli had brought the condom and the killer hadn’t used it, she would bet it was still on or around the bed, just as the packet had been.
Her hunch paid off, and Melanie held up the still-coiled condom. “This what you boys were looking for?” When the two men looked at her, she grinned. “The space between the mattress and the frame. You might check it out next time.”
Parks smiled; the investigator looked irritated and snatched it from her. “He never even got around to fucking her. Sick bastard.”
“He got around to it all right,” Parks countered, standing and yanking off his gloves. “He just didn’t do it with his penis. Check her body cavities. I wouldn’t doubt he left something behind. Hairbrush. Comb. Car keys. If you’re really lucky, they’ll be his.”
Melanie stared at him, mouth dry, the horror of his words sinking in. For the last minutes she had been able to focus on the job, not the crime. She had been able to forget that the victim they were talking so dispassionately about had been, only hours before, a living, breathing human being; a person who’d had hopes, fears and dreams, just like she did.
She couldn’t pretend anymore.
Hand to her mouth, Melanie jumped to her feet and sprinted from the room. She made it as far as the first parked car, a white Ford Explorer. Hand on the vehicle’s left front panel for support, she doubled over and puked.
Parks came up behind her. He held out a wad of toilet paper. “You okay?”
“Fine.” She took the tissue and wiped her mouth, totally humiliated. “Thanks.”
“Your first stiff?”
She managed a yes, not meeting his eyes.
“Tough luck, her getting whacked in Whistlestop. A couple blocks over and you would have avoided all this unpleasantness.”
She looked at him then. “Are you always this awful?”
“Pretty much.” A ghost of a smile touched his mouth, then disappeared. “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about, you know. Some people just aren’t cut out for this type of work.”
“People like me, you mean? The kind of cop the Whistlestop force was made for?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.” She straightened, furious, sickness forgotten. “You don’t know anything about me. You don’t have a clue what’s right for me or what I can or cannot handle.”
“You’re right, I don’t. And let’s keep it that way, shall we?”
Without another word, he climbed into the Explorer, started it and drove away.
3
By three that afternoon, Melanie was running on nerves and caffeine. After throwing up, she had retrieved a Coke from the motel vending machine, rinsed her mouth with it, then gotten back to work. The CMPD forensic team had arrived, and she and Bobby had worked alongside them, logging in and bagging evidence. The medical examiner had come, followed by the body-removal service the county contracted to transport bodies to the morgue. She and Bobby had then reported to WPD headquarters to officially start their day.
Melanie poured herself another cup of coffee, ignoring both her sour stomach and dull headache. She didn’t have time for queasiness or fatigue—the shit had only just begun hitting the fan. And no wonder. With this case there was plenty of it to go around: the FBI was involved, the CMPD, Charlotte’s most powerful citizen and of course, Whistlestop’s little band of blue. The victim had been young, beautiful and rich; her death gruesome and kinky.
Front page, made to order.
“May!” Chief Greer bellowed from the doorway to his office. “Taggerty! Get in here. Now!”
Melanie looked at Bobby, who rolled his eyes. Something had definitely sent their boss into orbit. And Chief Gary Greer in orbit was a sight to behold. Six-foot-four, built like a bull and with skin the color of fine dark chocolate, he commanded both respect and fear. But despite his overwhelming physical presence—or perhaps because of it—he rarely lost his temper. When he did, everybody hopped to attention.
In fact, Melanie had seen him this angry only once before: when he had discovered that one of the officers on night patrol had been letting hookers walk in exchange for blow jobs.
Melanie grabbed her notepad and jumped to her feet. Bobby followed her. When they reached the man’s office, he ordered them to sit.
“I just got off the phone with Chief Lyons. Bastard politely suggested we bow out of this investigation. For the good of all involved, turn the entire thing over to the CMPD.”
“What!” Melanie jumped to her feet. “You didn’t agree—”
“Hell no! I told him to kiss my hairy, black butt.” He laughed. “That put old Jack in his place.”
Melanie smiled. Her chief had been a homicide investigator with the CMPD himself, and a highly decorated one at that. Four years ago he had been shot in the line of duty; the incident had nearly cost him his life. After he’d recovered, his wife gave him an ultimatum—the job or the marriage. Only forty-six and too young to be put out to pasture, he’d chosen the marriage and accepted this position. Although outwardly comfortable with his decision, Melanie suspected that he, like she, longed for real crimes to investigate.
“They’re not going to push us out,” he continued, yanking at his tie to loosen it. “The murder occurred in our community, and I have citizens to account to. Like it or not, they’re stuck with us.”
His mouth thinned. “This is a big one. All eyes are going to be on us. Pressure for a quick resolution is going to come from all quarters and it’s going to be intense. The press is going nuts already, and Andersen’s begun pulling in markers. Keep your heads and do your job. Don’t let the heat get to you.
“The truth is,” he continued, “the CMPD’s more experienced. They have more manpower, better facilities, deeper pockets. Fine, we accept their help. But that’s as far as we bend. Any questions?”
“Yeah,” Melanie said. “The FBI guy, Parks. What’s his story?”
“Wondered how long it’d take you to ask.” Her chief smiled, his first of the afternoon. “A bit of an asshole, isn’t he?”
Bobby laughed. “A bit? That guy was a walking, talking pucker.”
“And no stranger to the bottle,” Melanie added.
The chief frowned, looking from one to the other of them. “He’d been drinking?”
“Drinking?” she repeated. “No, that word implies restraint. Moderation. Parks looked and smelled like he’d been on a year-long binge.”
Her chief seemed to digest that information, his expression tight. “Connor Parks is a profiler. Until a year ago he was a bigwig at Quantico, what was then called the Behavioral Science Unit. I don’t know the details, but rumor has it he publicly embarrassed the Bureau. He was censured and demoted.”
A profiler. No wonder. Melanie had attended an FBI-sponsored seminar on profiling a year or so ago. She had found the information presented fascinating. The way the agent had explained it, every killer unwittingly left a signature at the scene of his crime. It was the profiler’s job to read that signature, to put himself or herself in the head of both predator and prey and re-create the how, why and most importantly, the who of the event.
Which was exactly what Parks had been attempting to do today.
“So what’s he doing in Charlotte working on our puny case?” Bobby asked.
“Charlotte’s his demotion.” The chief looked from her to Bobby once more. “Make no mistake. The man’s good at what he does, booze or not. Use him.”
“With that personality, he’d better be good,” she muttered, jotting a note to call him, then meeting her chief’s gaze again. “What’s next?”
“I want you to question the victim’s friends, her family members and fellow students. Find out who she was seeing, where she hung out and what she was into. But first, get over to CMPD headquarters. Make sure they haven’t already sent somebody out. If they have, find out who and track them down. We have to appear a united front. Andersen will flip if it looks like we’re not. Next thing I know, the mayor’ll be crawling up my ass.”
That’d be a neat trick. To hide her smile, Melanie glanced down at her notes.
“Anything else?” Bobby asked.
“Yeah,” he barked. “Get moving!”
They did, jumping to their feet and hurrying out of their boss’s office. The first thing Melanie did was call her twin sister, Mia. The other woman picked up right away. “Mia, it’s Mel.”
“Melanie! My God, I was just watching channel six. That poor girl!” She lowered her voice. “Was it awful?”
“Worse,” Melanie replied grimly. “That’s why I’m calling. I need a favor.” “Shoot.”
“It’s crazy around here, and I don’t expect it to let up in time for me to pick Casey up at preschool. Would you mind?” Melanie glanced at the picture of her four-year-old son on her desk, her lips lifting in an involuntary smile. “I’d ask Stan to do it but I don’t have the time for one of his lectures about why I need to quit my job and how my being a cop is bad for Casey.”
“He’s full of crap. But, yes, I’d love to get Casey from school. And since I’ll be in the neighborhood, I suppose you’d like me to head around the corner and pick up your uniforms at that dry cleaners?”
“You’re a lifesaver. On both accounts.”
From the corners of her eyes, she saw that Bobby was ready and waiting at the door. “Look, when you pick him up this time, don’t pretend to be me. It really freaks his teachers out.”
“Lightweights.” Mia cackled, sounding absolutely wicked. “What’s the good of being an identical twin if I can’t have a little fun with it? Besides, Casey likes it. It’s our little game.”
Melanie shook her head. Actually, she and Mia were both identical twins and triplets. When Melanie told people so, they always laughed, thinking she was making a joke. But it was true. She and Mia were identical twins but they also had a fraternal triplet sister, Ashley.
What made it even more fun was Ashley’s striking resemblance to her sisters. When together, the three fair-haired, blue-eyed look-alikes drew the startled gazes of passersby. Even their friends had been known to do double takes.
“Remember how we used to trick our teachers?” Mia murmured, her tone amused.
“I’m thirty-two, not ninety-two. Of course, I remember. You were always the instigator. And I was the one who always got blamed.”
“Try reversing that, sister dear.”
Bobby cleared his throat, tapped his watch and pointed at the chief’s office. She nodded in acknowledgment. “I would if I had the time, Mia. Right now I’ve got to go solve a murder.”
Her sister’s wish of “Go for it, Sherlock” ringing in her ears, Melanie hung up the phone and hurried to meet her partner.
4
The Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s office was located in Uptown Charlotte, in the old county courthouse building. Built in the days before the advent of the office high-rise—those unadorned rectangles filled with low-ceiling rooms jammed with vanilla cubicles, each no bigger or smaller than the other—the courthouse was now a part of Government Plaza, residing with modern-day, state-of-the-art wonders like the Law Enforcement Center.
Rabbit warrens, Assistant District Attorney Veronica Ford called such buildings. Monuments to the depersonalization of modern life. In contrast, the old courthouse possessed an aura of faded grandeur. To Veronica, it fit her image of a place where the wheels of justice turned slowly but surely, a place where, though sometimes mired in a flawed, old-fashioned system, justice had its way.
Just as it fit her image of Charlotte, a city of both the old South and the new, a city of blooming trees and skyscrapers, of southern gentility and frenzied commerce. A city she had felt at home in from the moment she’d arrived, nine months before.
Even though running late for a team meeting, Veronica eschewed the rickety but reliable elevator and took the wide, curving central staircase to the second floor, trailing her hand along its ornate wrought-iron handrail. Veronica loved the law. She loved her part in it, relished the fact that without her the world would not be quite as good a place to live. She believed that—perhaps naively, perhaps with conceit.
But if she didn’t, what would be the point of working for the D.A.? She could make a helluva lot more money with a lot less stress practicing corporate law.
“Afternoon, Jen,” she called to the receptionist as she stepped onto the top landing.
Pregnant with her first child, the young woman was positively glowing with happiness. She smiled at Veronica. “Morning to you, too.”
“Any messages?”
“Several.” The woman indicated a stack of pink message slips. “Nothing urgent.”
Veronica crossed to the reception desk, set her Starbucks travel mug down and handed the other woman a take-out bag from the same establishment. She grinned. “I brought the baby a little something.”
“One of the cranberry-nut scones? The baby loves those.”
“The very ones.”
The receptionist squealed with pleasure and dug into the bag. “You are a complete peach, Veronica Ford. The baby and I thank you.”
Veronica laughed and flipped quickly through the messages, seeing nothing that couldn’t wait until after her meeting. “How late am I? Rick here yet?”
Rick Zanders was the Person’s Team supervisor. The lawyers on the Person’s Team, of which Veronica was one, handled all violent crimes committed against a person—with the exception of homicide and crimes against children. Those included rape, assault, battery, sexual assault and kidnapping. The team met every Wednesday afternoon to discuss the status of ongoing cases, to be informed about what was new, to discuss strategy and offer assistance when needed.
“Only a couple minutes before you, and he had several calls to make before the meeting.” She glanced at her watch, then over her shoulder. “I bet you still have ten minutes. Apparently, Rick knows the Andersen family personally.” Jen lowered her voice. “You heard about the murder?”
“I heard.” Veronica frowned. “What’s everyone saying? Is there anything more than what’s in the media? Any suspects?”
“Not that I’ve heard. But I bet Rick has some of the details.” She shuddered. “It’s so awful. She was a really nice girl. So pretty, too.”
Veronica thought of the attractive blonde she had seen pictured on television that morning. She hadn’t been in Charlotte long enough to have met any of the Andersens personally, but she had heard of them. As she understood it, Joli Andersen had had a bright future ahead of her.
“They said on TV that she was strangled,” Jen continued, whispering.
“Suffocated,” Veronica corrected.
“Do you think they’ll catch the guy?” The receptionist laid a hand protectively over her swollen belly. “Knowing a person like that is walking the streets of Charlotte gives me the creeps. I mean, if someone like Joli Andersen can get killed, anybody can.”
Veronica knew Jen wasn’t alone in her fears, not today. No doubt those same words, or a variation of them, had been uttered in nearly every household in Charlotte over the past few hours. A murder like this one, a victim like Joli Andersen, drove home just how dangerous the world was. And just how fickle fate.
“I can assure you of one thing, Jen, this will probably be the most intensive manhunt Charlotte has ever seen.” Veronica stuffed her messages into her pocket, then collected her coffee cup and briefcase. “And when they do catch him, we’ll nail him.”
The receptionist smiled, looking relieved. “Justice always wins out.”
After agreeing, Veronica made her way to the conference room. There, the other lawyers—with the exception of Rick—were already assembled. And as she had known they would be, they were all talking about the same thing—Joli Andersen’s murder. She called out a hello, dropped her things at a vacant spot at the table and ambled over to a group of her colleagues. They all began talking to her at once.
“Isn’t it unbelievable?”
“I heard Rick dated Joli for a while. This is going to hit him really hard.”
“Are you sure? He’s quite a bit older than—”
“—heard that the FBI’s been called in.”
“A top profiler. Rumor has it that—”
“The crime involved some sort of kinky sex.”
Veronica jumped on the last, the first bit of new information that interested her. “Where did you hear that? That wasn’t on any of the news reports.”
The other attorney looked at her. “A friend in homicide. He didn’t give specifics, but indicated it was … unpleasant.”
Rick entered the room, his face ashen. Immediately all conversation ceased, and the assembled ADAs took their seats. He cleared his throat. “Before any of you ask, I don’t know much more than you do. The murder occurred in Whistlestop. At a motel. She was suffocated. They have no suspects as of yet, but the FBI is putting together a profile of the killer. Apparently there was biological evidence left at the scene, though I don’t know of what nature. In deference to the Andersen family, the police have agreed to keep the most prurient aspects of the crime from the press.”
He ran a hand across his forehead; Veronica saw that it shook. From the looks of him, Veronica suspected the rumor about him and the young Joli was true. She wondered if their past relationship might also make him a suspect. Probably, she decided. In this investigation, no stone would be left unturned.
“Why don’t we get down to business?” Rick murmured. “What have we got? Anything new?”
Laurie Carter spoke up. “I’ve got a pretty good assault with a deadly weapon. Two neighboring housewives get into an argument over a cup of borrowed sugar. The argument turns ugly and neighbor one whacks neighbor two with a sauté pan.”
Laughter rippled around the table. A lawyer named Ned House arched his eyebrows. “A sauté pan’s your deadly weapon?”
“Hey,” one of the other female prosecutors piped up, “you ever try to pick up one of those suckers? They’re heavy.”
“It did the trick,” Laurie said dryly. “Landed our victim in the hospital. Concussion, stitches, broken nose. The whole bit.”
Rick shook his head. “You’re joking, right?”
“No way. And here’s where the story really gets fun. Turns out neighbor two’s been borrowing more than sugar from her neighbor. Seems she and Mrs. Sauté Pan’s husband have been doing the suburban cha-cha-cha when they thought nobody was looking.”
Ned made a clucking sound with his tongue. “And people think the �burbs are safe.”
“Plead it down,” Veronica murmured. “Sure she did it, but the jury’s going to sympathize with the scorned wife.”
“Unless the jury’s predominantly male,” Ned countered.
Veronica shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. This is a country founded by Puritans. In the back of their minds, the jurors, male or female, are going to figure the slut deserved it.”
Rick agreed. “Simple assault’s the best you’re going to get out of it. Plead it down.”
They moved on, discussing two other assaults and an attempted rape. Each time, the other lawyers looked to Veronica for her opinion. Although she had only been with the Charlotte D.A.’s office nine months, she had been with the Charleston District Attorney for three years before that. There, she had earned the reputation of being a careful prosecutor who went after each viable case with a vengeance.
The truth was, she hated bullies. Hated the cowardly scum that roamed the streets preying on those weaker than themselves. On women. Children. The elderly. She had dedicated her life to making the scum pay.
That dedication had translated into a ninety-seven percent conviction rate. It never failed to astound her how awed the other prosecutors were by that number. To her, it hadn’t been hard to achieve. If she went forward with a case, she believed she could win it. And she never stopped until she had.
Rick turned to her. “Veronica, how’s the Alvarez date-rape case coming?”
The other lawyers looked expectantly at her. When this case had first come in, Rick had recommended against it. It’d be tough to win, he’d said. Date rape was always iffy from a trial standpoint. And this case was more so because the girl involved had a reputation and the boy was a national merit scholar, the captain of his high-school football team and from a prominent family.
But Veronica had fought for the case. She had seen Angie Alvarez’s bruises. She had listened to her story and seen the real terror in her eyes. This was America, Veronica had told Rick. Just because a boy could throw a football or his daddy had money didn’t make him above the law. “No” meant “no” for everybody.
She had vowed to Rick—and herself—that she would make this case work. And now she had.
Veronica smiled, remembering how, during their first interview, the boy had smirked at her. Cocky little prick. She had him now.
“I have another girl,” she said.
Rick straightened. “And she’s willing to testify?”
“Willing and ready.”
“What kept her quiet before?”
“Fear. Her mother warned her that if she sought justice, the opposite would happen, her reputation would be ruined and no nice boy would ever have anything to do with her. Her mother begged her to put it behind her and go on as if nothing had happened.”
“What changed?”
“Simple. She hasn’t been able to put it behind her.” Veronica dropped her hands to her lap so the other prosecutors wouldn’t see her flexing her fingers. She didn’t want them to know how deeply this case had affected her. “Besides, there’s safety in numbers. And believe me, this boy’s been busy.”
“There are more girls?” Laurie said, shaking her head, expression disgusted.
“Looks like there might be. My witnesses have heard rumors. I’ve got someone checking into a couple of them.”
“Nail this creep to the wall,” Laurie muttered.
“Done.” Veronica smiled, determined. “At this point it’s just a matter of how high and how many nails.”
5
It was nearly seven that evening before Melanie was able to leave work to pick Casey up at her sister’s. It had been an exhilarating, exhausting, eye-opening day. She had learned more in the past twelve hours than she had from all her classes at the academy combined or from the police manuals she pored over at every opportunity.
Homicide investigation, she had discovered, was a tedious process. It required patience, logic, intuition and tenacity, qualities that could be honed but not necessarily learned. Dealing with the victim’s family and friends called for not only a sensitive and deft hand, but a thick skin and quick mind as well.
Those closest to Joli had painted the portrait of a happy, well-adjusted young woman, one who liked men and who liked to party. From those interviews, Melanie had assembled a list of the clubs Joli had frequented and of the men she had dated in the past year. The list of both had been extensive.
Everyone Melanie had spoken with had either been in shock or been grieving. Dealing with their pain had been the most difficult part of the day for the Whistlestop cops, perhaps even more upsetting than the crime scene itself. She’d been unable to remain detached—she had looked into their eyes and felt their loss keenly.
After a time, she had found herself avoiding their gazes.
Melanie pulled up in front of her sister’s palatial, plantation-style home. Like Melanie’s ex-husband, her sister had chosen to reside in southeast Charlotte, an area populated by the very affluent and dotted with one exclusive, gated community after another. Melanie had always found the area too grand, almost overwhelming in its obvious wealth.
She climbed out of the car. Casey was playing with action figures on the front porch; Mia was on the porch swing, watching him. Smiling, Melanie took a moment to drink in the picture they made. The breeze stirring Mia’s fair hair and filmy cotton dress, the gentle rock of the swing, Casey’s happy chatter. Nice. Domestic and warm. Like something out of an Andrew Wyeth painting.
Melanie cocked her head. Most of the time, when she looked at her twin, she simply saw her sister, Mia. But sometimes, like now, she experienced a strange sort of dГ©jГ vu. A sense that she was looking at herself. A different version of herself, from her previous lifetime, before her divorce.
Casey glanced up and caught sight of her and jumped to his feet. “Mom!” he shouted and tore down the steps to meet her.
She opened her arms; he launched himself into them, hugging her tightly. She squeezed her eyes shut and hugged him back, his sweetness chasing away the ugliness of the day.
She loved him so much it hurt. Before Casey she hadn’t believed such a thing possible. How could loving someone hurt?
Then her obstetrician had laid Casey in her arms and against her heart, and she had understood. Instantly. Irrevocably.
“Did you have fun?” she asked, loosening her grip on him and gazing into his eyes, eyes the same bright blue as hers and her sisters’.
He nodded excitedly. “Aunt Mia took me for ice cream. Then we went to the park an’ she pushed me on the swing. I went down the big slide, Mom!”
“The big slide?” She widened her eyes to show that she was properly amazed and impressed. He had been wanting to go down that slide for weeks, but each time he had started up the ladder he had chickened out before he reached the top.
“I was really scared, but Aunt Mia followed me up. And she went down right behind me, just like she promised.”
She kissed his cheek. “That’s my big, brave boy. You must be really proud of yourself.”
He bobbed his head, grinning from ear to ear. “But you hav’to be careful, �cause you can fall like Aunt Mia did. She hurt her eye.”
Melanie lifted her gaze to her sister, standing at the edge of the porch, facing them. Melanie made a sound of dismay. Her sister’s right eye was black and blue, the right side of her face swollen. “You fell off the slide?”
“Of course not.” She smiled at Casey. “Silly Mommy. Actually, I tripped on a shoe.”
“One of Uncle Boyd’s big, stupid boots,” Casey chimed in.
“We don’t say stupid,” Melanie corrected, frowning at her son, then returning her attention to her sister. “It’s not like you to be clumsy.”
Mia ignored the comment. “Have time for a glass of wine? Boyd has a meeting tonight, so I’m fancy-free.”
As when they’d spoken on the phone earlier, Melanie picked up on something in her sister’s tone that troubled her. “After this day?” she said lightly. “I’ll make time.”
She ruffled her son’s hair, an unruly mop of golden curls, then nudged him toward the porch. After collecting his toys, the three went inside. Melanie switched on the Cartoon Channel, then headed into the kitchen where she found Mia opening a bottle of Chardonnay.
Melanie sank onto one of the iron and wicker bar stools that lined the breakfast counter. “You want to talk about it?” she asked.
“Talk about what?” Mia poured a glass of the chilled wine, slid it across to Melanie, then poured another for herself.
“I don’t know. Whatever it is I’m hearing in your voice. Something’s bothering you.”
Mia gazed at her a moment, then turned and crossed to the breakfront, slid open the middle drawer and came out with a pack of cigarettes. She shook one out and, hands shaking, lit it.
Melanie watched as her sister took a deep drag, holding the smoke in a moment as if it had medicinal powers before she released it. She said nothing, though she despised her sister’s habit—one Mia resorted to only when troubled. “It must be bad,” Melanie murmured. “I haven’t seen you with a cigarette in months.”
Mia took another drag. She looked at Melanie. “Boyd’s cheating on me.”
“Oh, Mia.” Melanie reached across the counter and covered her sister’s hand with one of her own. “Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure.” She sucked in a trembling breath. “He’s out at night, a lot. Sometimes until really late. He always has a plausible excuse for going out. A meeting with the hospital administrators. Or the hospital board. Or one of his medical societies.” She made a sound of disgust. “It’s always something.”
“And you think he’s lying?”
“I know he is. When he comes home … the way he looks … the way he … smells.” She made a sound of shame, turned and crossed to the sink. She bowed her head. “Like cheap perfume and … sex.”
Melanie dropped her hands to her lap, angry for her sister. She hadn’t wanted Mia to marry Boyd Donaldson, had tried to talk her out of it. Despite his good looks and professional reputation, something about the man had always seemed off to her, like a picture slightly out of focus. She hadn’t trusted him, had resented the prenuptial agreement he had forced Mia to sign.
Now she wished she hadn’t been quite so vocal with her criticisms. If she hadn’t been, maybe Mia would have felt free to come to her for help sooner.
“Have you checked up on him?” Melanie asked. “Hired someone to follow him or called the hospital when he’s supposed to be there? Anything like that?”
“No.” She flipped on the water, doused what was left of her cigarette, then dropped it in the trash. “I’ve been afraid to. It’s like a part of me … doesn’t want to know for certain.”
Because faced with proof, she would be forced to act. Not exactly her twin’s strong suit.
“Oh, Mia, I understand. I do. But you can’t stick your head in the sand with this one. If he’s cheating, you have to know for certain. From the standpoint of your health alone—”
“Don’t start with me. Please, Melanie. I feel awful enough already, thank you.” Mia passed a hand over her face. “It’s my life and my marriage and I’ll muddle my way through somehow.”
“So butt out?” Melanie said stiffly, feelings hurt. “Fine. Just don’t expect me to be your sounding board, because I can’t sit back and do nothing. It’s not my way.”
“But it’s mine?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Maybe you didn’t have to.”
The two women locked gazes; Mia backed down first. “Actually, I took your advice already. I thought, okay, what would Melanie do? So I confronted him. And guess what?”
Melanie swallowed hard, her mouth dry. “What?”
“He went berserk.” Mia indicated her black eye. “You see the result.” Melanie stared at her sister a moment, not wanting to believe what she was hearing. “You don’t mean … he hit you?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
“That son-of-a-bitch!” Melanie leaped to her feet. “That no-good, two-timing … I’ll kill the bastard. I swear, I’ll—”
Melanie bit back the words, struggling to get hold of her anger. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and counted to ten. Growing up, she’d had a reputation for being a hothead. Her temper had gotten her into trouble time and again—once nearly landing her in reform school. If not for an understanding social worker, she would have ended up there.
As an adult she had learned to control her hair-trigger emotions. To think before she acted. To consider the consequences of her actions.
But old habits died hard. And when it came to her sisters, particularly Mia, she had always been ferociously, even blindly, protective.
“What are you going to do?” she managed to ask through gritted teeth.
Mia sighed, the sound too young and helpless for a thirty-two-year old woman. “What can I do?”
“What can you …” Melanie made a sound of disbelief. “Call the cops. Have his butt hauled in, then press charges. Leave him, for heaven’s sake!”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“It is. You just do it.”
“The way you left Stan?”
“Yes.” Melanie went around the counter to her sister. She caught her hands and looked her straight in the eyes. “Leaving Stan was the hardest thing I ever did. But it was the best. I knew that then. I know it now.”
Mia started to cry. “I’m not strong like you, Mellie. I’m not brave. I never have been.”
“You can be.” She squeezed her sister’s fingers. “I’ll help you.”
Mia shook her head. “No, you can’t. I’m just a sniveling, stupid excuse for a—”
“Stop it! That’s our father talking. And Boyd. It’s not true.” She searched her sister’s gaze. “You don’t think I was scared when I left Stan? I was scared shitless. I’d never had to take care of myself, let alone a child, too. I didn’t know how I would support us, if I could. And I was terrified he’d try to take Casey away from me.”
Melanie shuddered, remembering her terror, the way she had second-guessed her every decision. Her ex-husband was a prominent lawyer, a partner in one of Charlotte’s top firms. He could have wrested custody away from her without even breaking a sweat—he still could. As it was, he had pulled strings and gotten her application to the CMPD academy denied.
She had left him anyway. For herself. And Casey. She hadn’t been the person Stan needed or wanted, though for a long time she had tried to mold herself into that woman. One who needed a man to lean on, one who was satisfied to sit back and let her husband call the shots while she tended to house and home. She had failed miserably. And in the process had become a person she had neither known nor liked.
Their marriage had become a battleground. And a battleground had been no place to raise a child.
“You can do it,” she said again, fiercely. “I know you can, Mia.”
Mia shook her head, her expression defeated. “I wish I were like you. But I’m not.”
Melanie drew her sister into her arms and held her tightly. “It’s going to be all right. We’ll get through this. I’ll get you through this. I promise.”
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