Читать книгу Tinted Windows - Блейк Пирс - Страница 9

“So they were definitely screwing, right?”

The question was a blunt one, yet the sort of thing Chloe had fully expected Rhodes to ask once they got back into the car.

“That’s the feeling I got,” Chloe said. “You noticed she had been crying, right?”

“Yeah, the redness and slight puffiness around her eyes. The little tremor and creak in her voice.”

“So it’s clear why she’d not want to confess to the affair,” Chloe said. “Especially if what she said about her husband meeting Bjurman is true. Makes sense she’d want to cover her ass. If the man she was sleeping with on the side is all of a sudden dead, it makes the task of hiding the affair that much easier.”

“Still, I think we should check out the story about her husband being away on business,” Rhodes said. “We could probably get our new friends Anderson and Benson to hunt that information down.”

“You think the killer could have been the husband?” Chloe asked.

“Probably not. But seeing as how the murders so far seem to be unconnected, we need to check every box, I suppose.”

Chloe nodded. She liked it when she and Rhodes were so perfectly in sync. Their partnership had certainly started off rocky, so it was good to be reminded of just how far they had come every now and then.

“Hey, Fine?”

“Yeah?”

“What really happened out there in Texas?”

Chloe felt those thoughts of their in-sync partnership come to a screeching halt. She resented that Rhodes was going there—with or without Johnson’s guidance—but did not want to show that it angered her. She knew that would make it appear she had something to hide.

“Do you want the story with or without all of the family drama that comes attached with it?”

Rhodes grinned. “Without. I know how you hate dredging that shit up.”

Chloe hesitated for a moment, unsure of how to proceed. If Rhodes was playing a part, she was playing it well.

“Dad and Danielle got into some sort of skirmish at his apartment. I don’t even know what it was fully about because Danielle won’t give me all the details. But in the end, I just think Dad snapped and…”

“Yeah?”

“Rhodes, I hope you don’t take this personally, but I don’t really feel like talking about it. Not right now. It’s going to mess with my head and keep me from focusing on the case. You can understand that, right?”

“Of course.”

Chloe couldn’t tell if there was disappointment in her face and voice or not. She hated to think that Rhodes might actually be spying on her, tasked to report anything she learned to Johnson and those above him. But for right now, she had to be incredibly careful of every word that came out of her mouth.

Yet the silence that then fell between them indicated that Rhodes had not been expecting to be shut down in such a way. The moment sat thick between them as Rhodes guided the car into Colin.

It was so thick that when Chloe’s cell phone rang, she jumped a bit. Hoping Rhodes hadn’t seen her reaction, she answered the call quickly.

“This is Agent Fine.”

“Agent Fine, it’s Deputy Anderson,” came Anderson’s singsong voice. “Thought you should know that we just got notified that an officer in Colin just arrested a man. They’re pretty sure it’s Steven Fielding’s killer.”

“Any possible connection to Bjurman?” Chloe asked.

“We don’t know yet. But I told them I’d let you know. They’re literally just now processing him. He should be ready for questioning as soon as you get to the department.”

Chloe gave her thanks and ended the call. “That was Anderson. Looks like the Colin PD got the killer.”

“Both victims?”

“No one knows yet.”

“Well then, let’s find out,” Rhodes said, sinking her foot down harder on the gas.

***

The Colin Police Department was easily the smallest Chloe had ever stepped foot into. The front lobby was perfectly square, containing a small waiting area, the minuscule bullpen, and a small snack area. The place smelled of aerosol spray and strong coffee. It did seem to be in good shape, though, everything in its right place, and a sense of order to it all. Several seconds after Chloe and Rhodes made their entrance, they were met by a small but muscular man who looked to be in a very big hurry. He was dressed in his uniform blues, the shirt of which was partially sticking to him due to the sweat that was clearly visible along the chest. The tag above his left breast read Cooper.

“You the agents?” he asked.

“That’s us,” Rhodes said. “Agents Rhodes and Fine.”

“Fantastic,” Cooper said. “Come on back.”

He led them through the small bullpen and to a hallway that extended into the rather cramped back half of the building. He didn’t bother taking them into an office, but to the far back of the building where there was an honest-to-God holding cell situated by a single room—which Chloe assumed was where they had stored the suspect.

“Here’s what we’ve got,” Cooper said. “We got a call about an hour ago from Rock and Sam’s, a local bar just up the road. The bartender, Sam, is a good friend of mine, so I can vouch for his story. He said this guy came in, a guy he’s seen before named Carol Hughes. He comes in for lunch all the time. Hughes ordered his usual and when he reached out to grab his beer, Sam said he noticed the watch on the guy’s wrist. It was a fancy one, one that sort of didn’t really seem like it would be seen on this guy. Not only that, but Sam had seen the exact same watch a few times in the past—on the wrist of Steven Fielding.”

“Really?” Rhodes asked. “He thinks he saw the same watch on some other guy’s wrist?”

“Well, it’s a pretty unique watch. It’s gold—not sure if it’s real gold or not—and it has the Tennessee Volunteers logo on the face. Sam said he distinctly remembers seeing that logo on the watch when Steven wore it several weeks back, talking shit about college football. So when he saw it on Hughes’s wrist, he then remembered how he’d heard Steven had been murdered in some sort of messed up burglary just a few days ago. He discreetly called us. I answered the call myself and went down to the bar to pick the guy up. He just about pissed his pants when he saw the law in the bar. Put up a fight, but never admitted anything.”

“That does seem pretty cut and dry,” Chloe said.

“If you need to see the watch, it’s just now been bagged up and is in evidence. Dusted it for prints and it looks like there are two sets on it. I’d bet my house on them belonging to Fielding and our suspect.”

“That’s not necessary,” Chloe said. “I think speaking to the suspect will be enough.”

“Help yourself. And let me know if you need anything.”

With that, Cooper unlocked the door to the single room by the holding cell. As Chloe had suspected, it was what served as an interrogation room. There was the cliché table near the center of the room, to which Carol Hughes’s right wrist had been handcuffed. When Chloe and Rhodes entered the room, he looked like he might jump straight out of the chair.

He was a very plain-looking man. He was in need of a haircut, as his sideburns were bushy and his brow was covered by a mess of sweaty hair. He looked up at them with wide eyes and then a confused look dawned on his face. Chloe was beginning to wonder if she and Rhodes had been paired up to experiment with a line of thought that suspects would often find themselves baffled that two petite women had been sent in. She wondered if such befuddlement might be disarming to criminals. If the bureau was looking for evidence that this was the case, Hughes would have been a great study.

“Who the hell are you?” he asked.

Chloe showed her badge and ID as she approached the table. There was no chair on her side, so she and Rhodes simply stood. They stood by the table, making sure Hughes felt closed in and trapped.

“What was your relationship with Steven Fielding?” Chloe asked.

“None. I’d seen him at the bar. Seemed like he might have some money.”

“Seems pretty stupid to wear a watch you stole from his home. Especially after you killed him. Wouldn’t you agree?”

A flash of anger crossed Hughes’s face, but it was temporary. Apparently, the anger had been quickly drowned out by the realization of just how much trouble he was in.

“I didn’t meant to do it,” he said.

“To do what?” Rhodes asked.

Hughes struggled with something for a moment. Chloe had seen it before; even when presented with their guilt and knowing full well that they had been caught, it was often very hard for humans to admit that they had crossed that mortal line.

“Look, I know it was wrong, but I just needed some extra cash, you know? I lost my job three months ago and bills…man, they just keep adding up. And my woman, she won’t…she won’t even think about marrying me until I’m stable…”

“So burglary seemed like the appropriate answer?” Rhodes asked.

Chloe had been thinking the same thing, but she had never seen the point in antagonizing a suspect. It usually just caused the suspect to delay things a bit more. Honestly, in the case of Hughes, she had also been biting back a comment about how if he had been out of work for the past three months, it probably wasn’t the best idea to keep frequenting bars.

“Walk us through what happened,” Chloe said.

“I’d been following him for a few days, getting to know his schedule. I didn’t think he’d be home. I was going to get in, get out, and that would be that.” He paused here for a moment and at first, Chloe thought he might start crying. But what she had seen as fear slowly dissolved into terror. Hughes was realizing the gravity of what he had done and it was finally starting to sink in, to drag him down.

“But when I came in through the front door, he was right there, on the couch. I had a crowbar in my hand because I was expecting to have to break into the house. When he came at me and we started fighting, I just…I lost it. I was surprised and scared and I just…I started hitting him with the crowbar. And I couldn’t stop…I couldn’t…”

“What did cause you to stop?” Rhodes asked.

“I heard the garage door opening. I guess it was his wife coming home. I had that part down, too. I wanted to be in and out before she got there, you know? I never wanted to hurt or kill anyone…but I heard that garage door and I stopped. I saw what I had done and…”

He stopped here, still unable to bring himself to say it.

“Go on,” Chloe prodded.

“I knew he was dead and I felt like I had to take something. I saw the watch, though it was gold. Grabbed his wallet out of his pocket and took the cash inside. Eighty-two bucks.”

“And you left?” Chloe asked. “Right out the door?”

Hughes nodded. “I could even hear the garage door coming back down. I must have missed his wife by no more than thirty seconds.”

“You knew he was dead when he left?” Rhodes asked.

“Not for sure.” He was trembling now, the links on the cuffs rattling against the bar he was handcuffed to. “But the way his head looked…and all the blood, I figured there was no way he was still alive. Or if he wasn’t dead then…he would be soon…”

“Mr. Hughes, do you know a man named Viktor Bjurman?”

The question seemed to jar him, perhaps because it was seemingly unrelated to his own actions. After thinking about it for a moment, he shook his head. “No. No, I can’t say that I do.”

“Have you been to Pine Point anytime in the past week or so?” Chloe asked.

“Yes. There’s a little health food store there. I get my vitamins from them. That was…last Friday, I think.”

Chloe stepped away from the table. She eyed Hughes, considering the story and his answers. Even a poor liar could concoct a story like that. But it took a true sociopath to be able to get down the little details like trembling and having their expression soaked in genuine fear. Based on her experience and her gut instincts, she knew he was telling the truth—and he was terrified of what the consequences might be. The fact that he had even offered up a small personal detail like the vitamins sealed the deal for her.

And given that, she was quite confident that this was not the man who killed Viktor Bjurman. Which meant the deaths were not linked at all. Sure, it felt rather good to be right, but it was equally frustrating as they were now back to square one on Bjurman’s murder.

“Mr. Hughes, we’re going to have the local PD work with you to draw up a timeline of where you’ve been and the things you’ve done over the course of the moment you inadvertently killed Mr. Fielding and the moment you were arrested. If you do it well enough, the bureau won’t have to get involved. Do you understand?”

He nodded, still looking like a confused kid in math class. “I just don’t understand how all of this happened. I don’t…”

“Anything else, Agent Rhodes?” Chloe asked.

“Nothing.”

The agents left Hughes where he sat, with a scared and now quite confused look on his face. As soon as they were back out in the hallway, Cooper came rushing back down the hall toward them. There was another officer with him now and they both looked just as confused as Hughes had when they’d walked out.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

“No,” Chloe said. “You and your men have done some great work. He’s your guy for sure, just not the one we were looking for. If you could find out where he’s been the last few days so we can rule him out as Viktor Bjurman’s murderer, that would be great.”

“Yeah…I didn’t think he did that one, too,” Cooper said. “As shaky and terrified as he is, I don’t even see him being capable of doing what he did to Fielding. I mean, Christ…did you see the pictures?”

Not wanting to sway the officers one way or the other, Chloe only nodded. She handed Cooper her business card and said, “Please, once you get some sort of timeline down, would you mind giving us a call?”

“Of course,” Cooper said, though it was clear he had not yet wrapped his head around why they were already leaving.

“Thank you for your time,” Rhodes said as they passed by him and back toward the front of the building.

Chloe hated that they left in a borderline rude fashion, but there had truly been no point in them sticking around. Chloe racked her brain as they headed back for their car, trying to think of even the smallest thing they could do to one hundred percent verify that Carol Hughes had not killed Bjurman—even though any law enforcement agent worth his salt would be able to tell by just spending two minutes alone with the guy.

“Good for the Colin PD,” Rhodes said as she got behind the wheel. “I doubt these guys ever really get that kind of action.”

“Yeah, good for them,” Chloe said. Then she added: “You saw it, too, right? He was terrified of what he had done…almost like he still didn’t even believe it.”

“Yeah, I saw it. Not exactly the way you’d expect a man that has brutally killed two men to react to being questioned by federal agents.”

“Still, we should try to find an alibi. See what Cooper and his men come up with.”

“Agreed,” Rhodes said. “But what do we do until then?”

Chloe thought about it for a moment and finally gave a shrug. “Lunch?”

It was admitting defeat without actually admitting defeat. Chloe hated to think of a killer being brought to justice as a defeat but the seemingly cut-and-dry case of Carol Hughes did put something of a damper on the Bjurman case. Chloe knew that without any link between Bjurman and Fielding, she and Rhodes would be called off the case, leaving Bjurman’s death as an unsolved murder to be handled by local law enforcement.

And it was that fear that revealed something else to her: the fact that she was so hard pressed to keep this case because she was not ready to return to the drama waiting for her with Danielle back home.

***

Lunch consisted of a greasy yet delicious pizza at a local pizza joint, and side salads. They ate in relative silence, certain that Johnson or one of his underlings would be calling any minute now to tell them to come on in. Rhodes had called bureau headquarters after leaving the Colin PD to update the case and even in that, things had felt rather final. Chloe had no doubt that their visit to Pine Point was already coming to an end.

“Anything still pricking you the wrong way?” Rhodes asked.

“Why do you ask?”

Rhodes shrugged and wiped her hands on a napkin that had already accumulated a lot of the grease from their margherita pizza. “You look bothered….like you’ve lost something.”

“Maybe a little,” Chloe admitted. “I have no doubt that Hughes did not kill Bjurman. But the whole Bjurman thing…something about Theresa Diaz seems off to me. Even if she had come out and admitted to sleeping with Bjurman—which I’m pretty certain of, by the way—I think there might still be something to her…something she might be hiding.”

“If they were sleeping together, maybe it was more than an affair,” Rhodes suggested. “Maybe they were in love?”

“Possibly.”

They fell into silence again, mulling it over. About a quarter of the pizza remained, though both agents had had their fill.

Chloe felt a slight shift inside of her as returning home became more and more of a possibility. While she was indeed happy to be away from all of the Danielle drama—even if only an hour and a half removed—she was still very much worried about how her sister was going to react when (more than likely if, Chloe figured) the FBI contacted her. The entire ordeal created a boiling knot of worry within her, so she did her best to push it to the side.

When Rhodes’s phone rang while they were waiting for the check, they both jumped a bit. They both figured it would be Johnson, and Chloe did her best not to feel slighted that he had opted to contact Rhodes over her.

Chloe listened closely, trying to act as if she really wasn’t all that interested in what was being said. But in listening to Rhodes’s side of the very brief call, Chloe heard all she needed to. When Rhodes ended the call, the expression on her face confirmed it. It was an expression of mild irritation and a faded sort of relief.

“He wants us to check in with the Colin PD before we leave, and then come on home,” Rhodes said. “And if you ask me, that should put us back in DC at the perfect time to go grab a few drinks before calling it a day.”

They settled up the bill and headed back to the Colin Police Department. On their way back into Colin, they drove directly past the curb where Viktor Bjurman had been murdered. With no patrol cars or crime scene tape to section the area off, it looked like any normal corner on any city in America. Something about that unnerved Chloe, knowing there were answers on that corner that may never be found—answers that, as of now, would forever remain out of Chloe’s reach.