Vicious (8 page)

Hayes dipped his head. “I’m familiar with his reputation. Wells and I have run into each other from time to time socially.”

Do tell
. Jess would be asking Lori about that one. She never mentioned having socialized with the man. Not that Jess could blame her. “You’ve been in Admin for years, Lieutenant. Moving directly to a major crimes team could be challenging.”

“My marksmanship score is perfect, every time. I have buddies in SWAT and I routinely take part in their training drills. I enjoy a challenge, Chief.”

Cook cleared his throat and then coughed. Hayes ignored him.

“Physical prowess can bring down the bad guy,” Jess allowed, opting not to permit him to see just how impressed she was even if Cook wasn’t, “but it won’t provide you with the instincts to find a killer. Close attention to detail and understanding the motives that drive those who commit acts of violence are the skills you need to be a part of this team, Lieutenant.”

“I’m a quick study,” he pressed. “We all have to begin somewhere.”

Well, he had her there
. “When can you start?”

“Is now too soon for you?”

His answer surprised her. “Your chief won’t have an issue with you leaving without sufficient notice?”

“I cleared the move with him this morning.”

Confidence was another admirable trait, but too much was not.

“If you would have me,” he said as if reading her mind, or maybe her cocked eyebrow, “Chief McCord was agreeable to an immediate move. Admin is a bit overstaffed so a loss in manpower isn’t an issue.”

Making the decision without having an in-depth look at his personnel file and a proper interview, including a discussion with her team, was not how she’d planned to do this. Lori seemed to think he was a good guy. Harper hadn’t mentioned any complaints or misgivings. SPU desperately needed another warm body. He was here and anxious to start.

“Would you be open to a six-month trial period?” Jess offered. “This is a tight group, Lieutenant. The work we do requires a certain level of trust and cohesiveness.”

“I have no objections to a probationary period,” he assured her.

“Excellent.” She stood and reached across her desk. “Welcome to the team.”

Hayes followed suit and gave her hand another hearty shake. “Thank you, Chief. You won’t regret the decision.”

The obnoxious ringtone Jess despised called out from her bag. Most days she wanted desperately to change the damned thing but it made hers different from everyone else’s.

“Officer Cook, show the lieutenant around,” Jess suggested. They were crammed into one reasonably good-sized room for now so there wasn’t much to see.

While Cook grudgingly gave Hayes a tour, Jess fished around in her bag for her phone. It had stopped ringing by the time she dug past the M&Ms and the other stuff to find it.

“Dammit.” The call was from Virginia but it wasn’t Gant. Patricia Lanier, her realtor. Anticipation had Jess’s nerves jumping as she returned the call. This could be the news on her house she’d been waiting for.

Jess needed the sale on her house in Stafford closed and any equity after all was said and done in her bank account. The last she’d heard the only glitch was narrowing down a workable closing date for both parties. “Hey, Patricia, this is Jess Harris returning your call.”

“Thank you for calling back so quickly, Jess. All is in order and I’m just trying to coordinate the buyer’s schedule with yours. Would Thursday, September thirtieth, or Friday, October first, work for you?”

Jess checked her calendar. Since most crimes weren’t scheduled with the police in advance, the dates appeared to be clear. “Either one works for me. Can we do this in the early afternoon?” Flying to Virginia and back in the same day would be optimal.

“I’m certain we can arrange an afternoon closing. I’ll confirm with you soon.”

The call ended and Jess was grateful she could check that one off her need-to-do list. Though she was in no hurry to buy another house, it would be a relief not to be paying for a place where she no longer lived.

Her apartment here pretty much fell into that same category at the moment.

As much as she appreciated Dan wanting her at his house with him, she missed her little garage apartment. She even missed Mr. Louis. He was a bit strange but a very attentive landlord. Jess liked him. The poor man had to be wondering what the heck was going on with his tenant. She really should stop by today or tomorrow.

There were a million things she needed to do. Like go shopping. The same five suitable work outfits wouldn’t do forever. Her hand went to her belly. How long would it be before she would need maternity clothing? She bit her lip. Her sister would have all kinds of ideas about that. Jess cringed. Their styles were totally different. Lil was happiest in comfortable flats and cotton dresses with lovely flowers. She hated high heels. Jess loved them. She’d kicked them off more than once to chase down a bad guy. Not that the need to give chase happened very often in her current position or in her last decade with the Bureau.

Still, she stared at her shoes. How much longer would she feel comfortable in her beloved Mary Jane pumps? A lot was going to have to change.

Her cell vibrated and she checked the screen. A text from Wells. Jess opened it.

On the way with Slater. He’s a little banged up but he was that way when we found him.

A photo of Rod Slater followed the text.

“Ouch,” Jess muttered. Apparently, Mr. Slater had been up to no good. Whatever he’d gotten himself into, it looked very much like he’d come out on the losing end. He had a nasty black eye, a bruised and swollen jaw, and a split lip. With all those injuries maybe he’d behave himself in the interview and Jess wouldn’t have to unleash Harper’s bad cop side.

Her gaze drifted across the room to the newest member of their team. Taking Hayes on without due consideration was out of the ordinary for her. Like buying a pig in a poke. She wondered if Hayes had a bad side. Certainly he’d had a colorful one in the past.

Time would tell.

7

Interview Room 2, 1:59 p.m.

“Mr. Slater, you have a history of domestic violence.” Jess gave the man a moment to think about her statement. “I’d be remiss in my duties in this case if I didn’t consider you a suspect, wouldn’t you agree?”

“I have an alibi.” He might have pulled off the look of insolence to go along with the tone if not for the one eye being swollen shut. “That’s why I don’t need a lawyer. I got nothing to hide.”

Rodney Slater sat directly across the worn table from Jess. He looked like hell, smelled like cigarettes and cheap bourbon. His clothes were wrinkled and his hair was mussed. Evidently, the bender he’d started over the weekend had continued into the workweek. One of the perks of being self-employed, Jess supposed. He was his own boss, as he’d so proudly proclaimed when the interview started.

Unfortunately, daddy had entrusted his only son with the family business. Dear old Rod hadn’t worked for a single thing he owned. It gave him a bad attitude, in Jess’s opinion. The entitlement mentality was not attractive on anyone over the age of five.

Harper sat next to her. He silently stared at Slater. Didn’t seem to faze the cocky guy. He was one self-centered piece of work.

“You claim you were at Chasers, a pool hall, from eight Sunday night until the manager locked the doors just after midnight,” Jess read from her notes.

“That’s right. Ask my friends if you don’t believe me.”

“I most certainly will.” Jess tapped her pencil against her pad. “There’s just one thing that keeps bugging me, Mr. Slater. I’m having trouble believing your story about how you came to have all those nasty bruises. Why didn’t you call the police after two Hispanic males attempted to rob you? They didn’t take your cell phone, did they?”

“They didn’t get anything. Like I told you,” he ran his fingers through his tousled hair, “I beat the crap out of ‘em and they ran. Calling the cops wasn’t necessary. Don’t you have better things to do, like hang out at the donut shop?”

The joys of interviewing idiots
. Jess adapted an expression of concern that was about as fake as the story he’d just confirmed. “You must be in serious pain, Mr. Slater. Your hands and forearms are all scratched up. Men don’t usually fight openhanded. You use your fists.” She balled her fingers. “Makes me wonder if you had a physical altercation with your girlfriend.”

He worked up the energy to pull off a listless shrug. “What can I say? Mexicans fight like girls.” He tossed a look at Harper. “It’s nothing. Hydros make sure of that.”

Next to her, Jess felt her detective stiffen. Harper’s Hispanic heritage was obvious, and Jess knew for a fact there was nothing girlish about the way he handled himself in a physical altercation. She’d take Harper as her backup any time, any place.

“I assume you have a prescription for those,” the detective tossed at the arrogant man. Hydrocodone was one of the most abused pain relievers on the market.

“Wouldn’t’ve mentioned ‘em if I didn’t.” Slater snorted a laugh. “I’m not that stupid.”

Jess wouldn’t touch that one with a ten-foot pole. “Did you have a physical altercation with your girlfriend, Mr. Slater? Remember, we’re recording this interview. You need to be very careful how you answer.”

“Don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Is that right?” Harper countered. “Several witnesses saw you coming and going from Lisa Templeton’s home on numerous occasions. She wasn’t your girlfriend?”

Slater made a face then winced. “She managed a shop in one of my buildings. Your witnesses must’ve seen me dropping by her place when she rented the apartment over the shop. She was just a tenant. Not my type at all.”

Harper made one of those male sounds that were more grunt than anything else. In Jess’s experience, it meant he’d had enough of this guy. She was right there with him.

Jess opened the folder in front of her and removed a series of photos that had been printed from the ones saved on the victim’s cell phone. “If this is what you do with the women who aren’t your type, I’m confident there are laws against what you save for those who are.”

She fanned the photos in front of him. Most of them showed Slater and Templeton in various forms of sexual activity. His face wasn’t visible in all the photos, but the tattoos on his chest and shoulders were and that was sufficient to identify him. With Slater this close and his partially unbuttoned shirt revealing a good portion of the Phoenix inked on his chest, denial would be just a little difficult.

He lifted one shoulder in another of those uncaring shrugs. “We had sex. Often. Big deal. She needed lots of favors and this is how we settled things.”

Outrage started a resolute climb up Jess’s spine. “But Lisa didn’t worship you the way you prefer your women to.” The statements made by the victims of his prior arrests had one allegation in common:
He wanted me to worship him
. “In fact,” Jess went on, “Lisa Templeton was in love with another woman. I imagine that was quite a blow to your manhood.”

He snorted. “She was a dumb bitch. Couldn’t make up her mind what she wanted. I was done with her anyway.”

“Is that why you kicked her out of the apartment over the shop two weeks ago?” Jess folded her arms over her chest and eyed him with blatant suspicion. “You found out you weren’t the love of her life and that made you angry.”

“That was business,” he argued. “She didn’t pay her rent on time.”

“Had she always paid it on time in the past?” Jess countered. Templeton had lived over the shop she managed for two years. Had one failure to pay on time justified her eviction?

“Doesn’t matter. I wanted her out and she got out.”

“There are laws that protect tenants, Mr. Slater.” Jess leaned forward so he’d know she really wanted to hear his answer to the next question. “Did you break those laws?”

He had the guts to smile even with his split lip. “Didn’t have to. She understood what I wanted.”

“So the two of you settled that situation too,” Jess surmised.

He leaned back in his chair. “That’s right.”

Jess gathered another stack of photos from the file and spread them on top of the first ones. “Is this how you settled things, Mr. Slater?”

“What the—?” He shoved back from the table, his chair scraping across the tile.

“Did you murder her?” Jess demanded. “Did you crack open her chest and dig out her heart just to feel its warmth in your hands? Or was it a symbolic gesture about the loss of her love?”

Slater shot to his feet. “I had nothing to do with that! I didn’t kill nobody!”

Jess stood but Harper was already on the other side of the table with a warning hand on Slater’s arm. “You need to sit down, sir.” Though spoken quietly, Harper’s words carried a distinct promise of what Slater should expect if he did not comply.

“Is this,” Jess snatched up one of the photos and shoved it toward Slater, “how you settle the issues in your sex life?”

Whatever Rod Slater had done or not done, he went still as stone and glared at Jess with his one good eye. “That’s all I got to say without a lawyer present.”

“You waived your right to an attorney, Mr. Slater,” Jess reminded him, not that it mattered if he’d now decided otherwise.

“I changed my mind.” He looked around the room, found the camera high on the wall in one corner and stared directly at it. “I want a lawyer! Now!”

Jess shuffled the photos back into her folder and tucked it into her bag. “You calm down, Mr. Slater.” She gave him a sugary smile. “Sergeant Harper will make sure your attorney is notified.”

“Take your seat, sir.” Harper ushered Slater back into the chair. “Write down your attorney’s name and number and I’ll get him on the phone for you.”

Jess gave Harper a nod and left the room. Lori and Hayes waited for her in the corridor. Both had observed the interview.

“We’ll be holding Mr. Slater for a few hours as a person of interest. If he’s smart he’ll agree to let forensics take a few samples.” Jess drew in a big breath. “Meanwhile, Detective Wells, I’d like you and Sergeant Harper to continue questioning the friends and coworkers of both victims. If we can put Slater anywhere near those women on Sunday night, we can push harder for him to agree to submit the samples necessary to eliminate him as a suspect.”