Merciless (5 page)

“She might have been more polite if you’d asked the questions, but the bottom line doesn’t change. Carlson is one smart attorney and she won’t give away shit until she’s looked at all the angles.” Kier glanced at his notes. “We need to find Sierra Day’s husband.”

“I made a few calls while you were inside. Brian Humphrey works at a nonprofit in Arlington.”

“I thought he was an actor.”

“Only on nights and weekends. Computer technical work pays the bills.”

Malcolm checked his watch. “Yeah, I want to get to him before Burgess or one of his friends tips the guy off, and he lawyers up.” He shook his head. “Damn, I hate lawyers.”

Wednesday, October 5, 9
A.M.

Malcolm and Garrison arrived at Humphrey’s office building near Van Dorn Street. The square building had a smooth façade made of pressed uniform brick. Tinted windows, which likely did not even open, lined each of the five floors. The boxy structure was so nondescript Malcolm would have missed it if not looking at it. “9901. This is the place.The Parker Pest Control Building.”

The detectives got out of the car and crossed the parking lot. The bright sun had taken the edge off the morning chill, but the air still had a bite. They moved to the lobby, checked the floor for Computer Science Arts, and took the elevator to the fifth floor.

A receptionist sat behind a gray desk, a phone cradled under her ear as she maneuvered through a series of calls. Her mousy brown hair was pulled into a ponytail, and her beige sweater-blouse barely covered the folds of her belly. She was as unforgettable as the building where she worked.

When she reached a stopping point, she glanced up at the officers. “Yes?”

Malcolm pulled out his badge. “Detective Malcolm Kier. This is my partner, Detective Garrison. We’d like to see Brian Humphrey.”

Brown eyes widened. “Is Brian in some kind of trouble?”

“Why would he be in trouble?” Garrison said. His relaxed demeanor drained the challenge from the question.

“Oh, he wouldn’t be in trouble. But I wouldn’t doubt that his soon-to-be ex called the cops on him.”

“Really?”

“It’s no secret that his divorce has been a mess. When he blocked his soon-to-be ex from his cell phone she started calling the front desk. She is very clever and can change her voice so I’d send the calls through. She’s an actress.”

“Really?” Garrison grinned.

Malcolm marveled at the way his partner could cajole with that smile. His own grin, he’d been told, was more akin to a snarl.

“The last time I let her call through, they got into a huge fight, and when Brian came out his face was so red. He told me to hold all calls until he could get her to stop bugging him.”

“What did she want?” Malcolm asked.

The woman’s gaze shifted to Malcolm and lost what little warmth it had gained. “Money.”

“They fight about anything else?”

“If the weather changed, they fought.” The phone rang, and she answered it. When she’d forwarded the call she glanced up. “Why don’t I get Brian up here?”

“That would be great.”

Minutes after being paged, Brian Humphrey appeared.
Malcolm had expected him to be bland and lifeless like the building, but instead he was surprised to see a tall man with broad shoulders and a lean build. He had dark hair, complete with a wave in the front, chiseled features, and tanned skin. He reminded Malcolm of a Disney hero. He’d glimpsed a few when his nephew and niece watched cartoons at his parents’ place. What was that guy’s name in the last video the kids had been playing over Christmas?
Beauty and the Beast
. Brian Humphrey looked like Gaston.

Malcolm held up his badge. “Mr. Humphrey?”

“Yes.” His voice was a deep baritone, and no doubt the guy had a singing voice as smooth as Gaston’s.

“We’d like to talk to you about your wife, Sierra Day.”

Humphrey’s face grew contemptuous. “She will officially be my ex-wife as soon as I can get her to sign the papers. And I prefer to think of her as my ex.”

“Is there some place we can chat in private?” Garrison said. “Maybe your office.”

Humphrey didn’t need to glance at the receptionist to know she gawked at them. “Sure. It’s small, but it’s private.”

They wove down a hallway created by the configurations of twenty or so gray cubicles. Throughout the central room, the voices of office workers mingled with the tap of fingertips on keyboards and the whir of a copy machine. All conversation ceased as they passed. They reached a small office in the back corner.

Humphrey shut the door behind them. “Delores, she’s the receptionist, has put the word out on the jungle beat that you are here.”

“We have that effect,” Malcolm said. People got nervous around cops.

He glanced around the guy’s office. There was a large
window behind Humphrey’s desk, but tinted glass and mini-blinds filtered out most of the sunlight. Pictures taken of Humphrey in various plays covered the walls. Humphrey as Hamlet. Humphrey as a clown. Humphrey as Sherlock Holmes. In a few spots, only a nail and a shadow imprint of a frame remained. It didn’t take much of a leap to guess Sierra had been in those pictures.

On the desk were a half-eaten bagel, a diet soda, and a well-worn script.

“So what do you do for Computer Science Arts?”

“I manage databases for nonprofits and other marketing entities. It’s all very dry and boring, and as you can see from the walls, I have greater aspirations.”

Garrison nodded. “Just paying the light bill.”

“We’ve all got to eat.” Humphrey stood behind his desk, his posture erect, his fingertips pressed to the desk as if addressing a great crowd. “So what does Sierra want from me now? Has she trumped up more lies about me?”

“What kind of lies did she tell about you?” Malcolm asked.

“That I tried to dupe her out of money. That I cheated on her. That I would have loved to see her dead. You name it, Sierra made it up.”

“Did you want her dead?” Malcolm asked.

“Believe me there were times when I could have cheerfully strangled her. She did nothing but break my heart from the moment we said our
I dos
. But I never would have hurt her. It wasn’t worth the effort.”

“How long have you two been married?” Malcolm asked.

“Six months. We’ve been separated for most of that time.”

“Why?”

“Because Sierra took up with another actor. When I found out I tossed her out.”

“So why is she giving you so much trouble with the divorce?”

“Because two weeks after she left, my grandfather died and left me a nice bit of money. Sierra believes she is entitled to half of it. But I can promise you she won’t get a dime. She didn’t even know my grandfather.”

Is. Believes.
He spoke of her in present tense. “When is the last time you saw her?” Malcolm asked.

“A couple of weeks. She stormed in here making more of her dramatic threats. I threatened to call the cops, and she left.”

“When was that exactly?”

He flipped through the pages of his calendar. “Thirteen days ago. It was a Friday. So tell me, what is this all about? What has Sierra done?”

Malcolm never enjoyed this part of the investigation. “We have a body that we are trying to identify. The description of our victim matches a missing persons report filed by Terry Burgess of the West End Theater.”

Some anger seeped from Humphrey’s features. “Terry filed a missing persons report on Sierra?”

“Ten days ago.”

Humphrey frowned. “That means Sierra missed play practice.”

“Burgess thinks she’d not miss practice for anything in the world.”

“She would if there was a better opportunity. But it would have to be a huge opportunity.”

“Such as?”

“That I don’t know. Her attorney might know. Her name is Angie Carlson.” He coated Carlson’s name with disgust. “But then again, you might have better luck
getting blood from a stone.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Do you think Sierra is dead?”

“That’s what we’re trying to determine. Do you have the name of her dentist?”

Humphrey sat down as if the air had been siphoned right out of him. “You need dental records to identify the body? My God, what happened?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

Humphrey blew out a breath. “Sierra’s dentist is Scott Marcus. He’s in Arlington and in the book. She saw him right before we got married. Veneers. Which
I
paid for.”

“You said Sierra was having an affair. Do you have a name?”

He dug long fingers through his thick black hair. “Sure. Marty Gold. I don’t know where he lives, but he’s in a play at the Springfield Theatre now.”

“Did Sierra live with him?”

“She did for a while, but they broke up. I hear she’s renting space from a friend. Zoe Morgan. A dancer. In Alexandria.” He looked up at them. “I didn’t kill her.”

The line sounded clear and perfect, as if Humphrey played to an audience of hundreds.

“We didn’t say that you did.”

“But I am the husband, and cops always blame the husband.”

“Not always,” Malcolm said. Though Humphrey was right. When a woman was killed, statistics proved an acquaintance did the deed.

“What can you tell us about Sierra? Her likes, habits, friends. Anything so we can piece together the last couple of weeks.”

“There’s not much to Sierra. If she wasn’t on the stage she was trying to get on the stage. She’d walk over broken glass barefoot to get the right part. She wanted
Broadway, and she wanted Hollywood. She craved fame like a drug.” He shook his head. “I knew that about her, even sensed that I was a temporary fix, and I still married her.”

“Those blank spots in the wall have her picture in them?”

“I just took those down about a month ago. I guess until then I was holding on to something. But she drove the final nail in the coffin so I threw them in the trash.”

“What was that nail?”

“She called my dad and told him she’d been pregnant with our child and that I’d forced her to have an abortion.”

“Any truth?”

“Hell, no. It was hard for Dad to hear it. I always knew she was selfish but never evil.”

“Did she hit the bars?”

“Not a lot. She didn’t drink or smoke for fear it would ruin her figure and face. Vain could have been her middle name. And she didn’t go out unless it benefited her career.”

“Family?”

“None to speak of. Distant cousins. Parents dead and no siblings.”

Malcolm pulled a card from his pocket and laid it on Humphrey’s desk. “If you think of anything else, you’ll call me?”

“Sure.” He picked up the card and flicked the edge with his fingertip. “When do you think you’ll know if the body is Sierra?”

“Day or two.”

“I’d lay odds it’s her.”

“Why?”

“I’ve not heard from her since Thursday a week ago.
She takes great pride in driving me nuts with her calls and notes.”

“We’ll let you know.”

“Figures I’d be left holding the bag.”

“What’s that mean?”

“If she’d had the decency to sign the damn divorce papers, the state would have had to bury her. Now I’ll have to do it.”

Minutes later in the car, Malcolm started the engine. “You have to wonder what those two saw in each other.”

Garrison settled in the passenger’s side as he checked his phone for messages or missed calls. “It doesn’t take a genius. They both are lookers. Made a handsome couple.”

“Oh, I bet the wedding album was a work of art.”

Garrison flipped open his phone and hit three on his speed dial. It was the number for the Alexandria Homicide department.

“This is Sinclair.” Detective Jennifer Sinclair was a member of the city’s four-person homicide team. Standing at five-foot-eleven with brown hair and a toned body, Jennifer conjured images of Amazons.

The other member of the team was Detective Daniel Rokov. His dark hair and olive skin testified to his Russian gypsy roots.

Kier had put both Rokov and Sinclair on notice this morning when they’d found the body. This case would hit the media sooner than later, and the fact that the body had been reduced to bones would garner big headlines. He wanted answers for the press and the community as soon as possible.

“It’s Garrison. I have the name of a dentist I need for you and Rokov to visit. He should have dental records on our possible Jane Doe.” He rattled off the name.

“Will do. I also plugged this case into the ViCAP system.” ViCAP was a national database dedicated to tracking violent crimes. Not all cases made it into the system, but it was always worth a try.

“Great. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

The Other listened to the police scanner, tapping his fingers against his thigh, waiting for any mention of the bones. There’d been none. But he knew the cops had found his precious gift because he’d driven by Angel Park and seen the police activity.

The cops had been careful to keep their chatter off the radios, no doubt because they were worried about the media. His bones would make a great story.

Now as he sat in the dimly lighted room and stared down at the delicate white carving, he had an unexpected moment of panic so acute, it sent adrenaline slicing through his body. He set down the carving and flexed his fingers, working the ache and stiffness from his joints.

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” he whispered. “This is what you wanted.”

In a moment of boldness and bravado, he’d decided to leave the bones where they could be found. After all, games were always more fun when you had a playmate. And what was the point of greatness if it went unrecognized?

So he’d left the bones out. And they had been found.

So why was he afraid? Why was he suddenly worried that cops would storm his stronghold and drag him to a small gray cell?

Breathe. Relax.

He’d lived in the shadows for a very long time, and he’d
grown so tired of hiding. He’d grown tired of wanting things and not being able to have them. He’d grown weary of denying his true self.

He’d wanted the cops to know what he could do. He wanted to be feared. He wanted to be that terrifying bedtime story that kids told each other when they needed to stir dread.

And now they would know.

For a few panic-stricken moments, he’d considered leaving town. Maybe it had been foolish to poke a stick at the cops. He’d been killing quietly for three years. He’d been creating his carvings, taking pleasure in polishing them and displaying them. Why the need for attention now?

Should he leave town? That’s what he’d always done when things didn’t go well. He ran and hid.

The Other paced the workroom, even considered running upstairs and packing a bag. What would he pack? How long should he hide this time?

But as the seconds ticked past and the rush of fear abated, he discovered a small kernel of excitement taking root. As he paced and moved about the small room, anticipation grew and grew until it overwhelmed the fear completely.