Chapter 14

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Martinez and I watched Astrid Nielsen through the two-way window for a few minutes. Holding her in lockup for the last few hours hadn't seemed to have any effect on her. She looked calm and composed, and her uniform was hardly rumpled.

"She's waived an attorney," Martinez said. "She literally gets caught red-handed killing a man and she's waived her right to counsel. What sense does that make?"

"Maybe she thinks she's justified," I said.

"Doesn't mean she's not going to prison," he said. "Murder is murder, no matter what you think your cause is. And you've already discovered that Alan Goble wasn't the man who murdered and raped Evie Lidle, so there's a deeper motivation there somewhere."

"Ahh, a woman scorned," I said.

"You have everything you need?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said. "Ready as I'll ever be."

There was nothing special about the interrogation room. It looked like every interrogation room on any cop TV show. It was small and windowless, and the color was a dingy yellow that looked like it had been painted with urine. There was a two-way mirror, a metal table, and four chairs.

"Ms. Nielsen," Martinez said as we walked in. "Sorry to keep you waiting."

Her mouth curved in an ironic smile, but she didn't say anything.

"You remember Dr. Graves?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. "Could I have some water?"

"Sure," he said, looking at the tech who was getting everything on record on the other side of the mirror.

"I'm going to read your rights to you again," Martinez said. "And this interview is being recorded."

She nodded again as Martinez read off the Miranda rights.

"Are you waiving your right to counsel?" Martinez asked.

"Yes," she said. "For now. I'd prefer to just come clean and get everything on record. In my experience attorneys slow things down."

"Most people aren't so anxious to go to jail," Martinez said.

"Believe me," she said. "I'm not either. But I'll let the process work."

I narrowed my eyes in thought. No one was this cooperative. At some point, self-preservation would kick in. It always did.

"Why don't we start at the beginning," Martinez said. "Help us understand how things could have spiraled so far downward between the time that we first talked to you, to the moment you pulled the trigger."

There was a knock at the door and a deputy came in with a bottle of water. Martinez unscrewed the top and handed it to her. She took a drink before she answered.

"Alan and I had a sexual relationship," she said, licking her lips. "We have, off and on, for close to ten years. The arrangement suited us both. Neither of us were proprietary and we got together when the mood struck."

"When was the last time the two of you got together?" Martinez asked.

"You mean when did we last have sex?"

"Yeah, that's what I mean."

"Sunday," she said. "We're both off on Sundays, so that's usually our regular hookup."

"Why did you tell us he was responsible for Evie Lidle's murder?" he asked, changing course. "Dr. Graves did his autopsy. We know he didn't kill her."

"The body always tells a story," I told her, opening the file folder I had. Martinez had told me to use it at my own discretion, but there was something about Astrid Nielsen that was sending up all my red flags. She hadn't reacted to anything. Not killing a man. And not being arrested and put in jail. She was either a sociopath or an excellent actress."

I put a couple of pictures of Alan Goble on the table. His body was pristine except for the three neat bullet holes in his chest. And then I put a picture of Evie Lidle.

"You see," I said. "I know he didn't kill her because Evie Lidle put up a fight. She fought her attacker. She scratched and clawed and kicked. See all these bruises?" I pointed to her arms. "She was blocking her body every time he struck her. Most likely with a belt."

Astrid stared at the photographs, her face paling slightly, and she licked her lips again.

"So why," I asked, "would you tell us that he did it when you know and we know that he didn't?"

"Maybe you were jealous," Martinez said, picking up the thread. "Maybe you got word that while we were all talking he was screwing someone else out in the staff garage."

Her head jerked up at that. "Don't lie to me," she said. "I know he wasn't with anyone else."

"How do you know that?" Martinez asked.

"Because he was in my house because we had an appointment," she said. "For sex."

"Busy boy," I said. "I pulled someone else's DNA from him during the autopsy. And seminal fluid. You know what that means?"

"Not to mention we've already questioned her and gotten a confirmation of the time and place," Martinez added. "You're telling me he was planning to roll straight from her arms into yours? A guy like that gets off on the juggling and the lies more than he does the women. Maybe you got tired of him playing you."

Color rose in her cheeks and anger flashed in her eyes. "I don't believe you."

"I think you do," Martinez said. "And I think that's the real reason you shot him."

"You're wrong," she said, her fury cold. "Why don't you talk to Emma Lidle. Tell me how wrong I am."

Martinez's brows rose. "Emma Lidle? Evie's sister?"

"There's a reason she left home," she said. "Just like there's a reason Evie is dead."

"You're saying Alan Goble sexually assaulted both of these girls?"

"I'm saying there's more going on here than meets the eye," she said. "It goes deeper than Emma and Evie. There are secrets in that house. Now that's all I'm going to say without an attorney. The Lidles are powerful people, and Robert Lidle thinks Alan is a trophy in his trophy case. He can do no wrong. But I know different. Alan is a liar and he's got a dark side that he rarely shows."

"Yet it didn't bother you enough to keep you from going to bed with him," Martinez said.

She shrugged. "He could be charming and attentive when he wanted to be. And I have needs just like any woman. It's not like my job allows me to meet a lot of eligible men."

Her words were full of bitterness and regret and I wondered how much she'd given up for the Lidles to be her "family."

"What kind of vehicle do you drive?" Martinez asked.

"A dark blue Highlander. Why?"

"Just curious," he said. "You've still never told us exactly why you're pointing a finger at Alan Goble. Did he give Kitty Lidle an overdose of her medicine? Because you were the last one to see her alive according to you."

"I've told you everything you need to know without signing my own death warrant," she said. "I believe I'll ask for that attorney now."

Twenty minutes later I made a detour to the breakroom to get a Snickers and a can of soda. I needed the extra jolt to get me through what was bound to be a long night.

I heard a dog bark before I'd made it to conference room A. And then I heard the laughter, and I peeped around the corner of the door, unsure of what I'd see.

"He's a good boy," Doug said, rolling around on the floor with something furry that did manage to resemble Oscar the Grouch. "And he's smart too."

I was relieved to see the dog wasn't green, but his fur was a mixture of gray and black that curled over his body like a bad wave perm.

Jack whistled between his teeth and both Oscar and Doug sat up and at attention.

"Wow, nice trick," I said, smirking at Jack. "You'll have Doug house-trained before long."

"Y'all are hilarious," Doug said. "I almost always remember to put down the toilet seat now and pick up my wet towels off the floor."

"Sounds like you'll be a great mentor for Oscar," Jack said. "Now we need to figure out how helpful Margot is going to be on this case. Make sure you're set up and ready to go."

"Margot is always ready," he said. "Aren't you, darling?"

"I am ready to function to the best of my programmed capabilities," Margot purred. Her voice sounded like a late-night sex operator, sultry and smooth.

"Margot?" I asked. "Another name change?"

"What can I say?" Doug said. "She's a woman. Always changing. Always evolving. Women are beautiful creatures."

"Let me know when you actually meet one in the flesh," Martinez said, grinning. "We'd all buy tickets to see that."

"There's no reason for Douglas to have connections with a human female," Margot said. "I am perfectly capable of providing him all the companionship that he needs as a human male."

My brows rose and I looked at Jack, and then I ran a finger across my throat and mouthed the words, "She's going to kill us all."

Jack smiled, but there was an edge of worry to it.

"That's enough, Margot," Doug said, dashing over to the laptop and typing in some commands. "Some things are better left unsaid."

"I hope you sleep with one eye open," Martinez said, while he and Derby from IT set up the digital murder board.

I thought I heard Derby mutter something about Margot being creepy under his breath, but I couldn't be sure. Derby was a tall thin man with glasses and a pointed chin. He was towheaded and his hair had a mind of its own, no matter how ruthlessly he tried to comb it down. He was a smart cop and a whiz when it came to computers, and he led his crew well. But even he recognized there was something otherworldly about Doug's abilities. Doug and his Uncle Ben both would have made Einstein look like a moron in certain circles.

While they were occupied getting the room set up, I noticed Oscar eyeing me warily. I held out the back of my hand and he came over and sniffed.

"You have excellent manners," I told him, looking into black-button eyes and a face you couldn't help but fall in love with. I let out a sigh and said, "Hell."

Oscar took that as permission because he stuck his head under my hand and wouldn't move until I scratched his ears.

"More of that later," I promised him. "Conference rooms are meant for work. If you're going to be a police dog you'll have to learn that."

He woofed softly and then trotted off to the sofa against the far wall, jumping up on it, turning around twice, and then making himself comfortable.

"Sorry I'm late," Lieutenant Daniels said as she came in. "Was waiting on Cheney in the lab."

Daniels was a stickler for the details—you had to be when you ran the crime-scene techs—but there was a kindness about her that made her relate well to victims. There'd been a time when she'd been my shoulder to cry on after a particularly violent case, and I'd never forget her compassion.

"We're just getting set up," Jack said. "Come on in. Pizza is on the way."

"You read my mind," Doug said. "It's hard for my fingers to do the walking when my stomach is talking."

I took a seat next to Jack at the conference table, and put my autopsy reports in front of me so they'd be readily available. The day had seemed like an eternity, and it felt like it had been a week since I'd stood over Evie Lidle's body instead of a little over twelve hours before.

Derby and Doug had their heads together, each of them sitting in front of their laptops, and one by one, items began to fill the digital screen along the wall. Daniels took a seat across from me and pulled a candy bar out of her pocket, and it reminded me of the Snickers I had yet to eat. I was trying to decide if it would ruin my dinner when Evie Lidle's picture flashed on-screen.

It wasn't the picture taken at the crime scene, but a school picture as she was dressed in her uniform with a white button-down shirt and a navy sweater with a logo over the pocket. Her smile was sweet and her eyes kind, and I hated that someone had decided she hadn't deserved a chance to live the rest of her life.

Martinez's suit was finally starting to show its wear. A five o'clock shadow hinted on his cheeks and he'd ditched the coat and tie. He'd rolled up his sleeves and unbuttoned his collar. This was his investigation, so we waited for him to start.

"Officers responded to a 911 call this morning at five thirty-eight from a passing jogger who discovered the body of Evie Lidle," he said. Next to Evie's school picture an image of her broken body appeared on-screen.

"Sweet Jesus," Daniels said reverently.

I glanced at Doug to make sure he was okay, but his head was still buried in his laptop. He'd worked several cases with us before, and he was no stranger to death. But it wasn't a career for everyone, and though his mind seemed decades older than his body Jack and I tried to keep an eye on how he handled things. Doug wanted to be a cop. He already had a bachelor's degree and was working on his master's. And he was valuable to the team. But Doug was still a kid in many ways.

Martinez continued. "An autopsy was conducted shortly after, determining cause of death as blunt force trauma to the head. Forensics lab confirmed that the large rocks taken as evidence from the scene did have blood, tissue, and brain matter, indicating they were used as the murder weapon.

"The lab techs are still going through trash at the park and surrounding areas, but so far her clothes or the ligatures used to tie her hands and strangle her haven't been recovered. Daniels and her team did recover a piece of chewing gum and a navy baseball cap from the scene. There's a small embroidered logo in the corner in navy thread, but we've not found a match for it yet in the system. Not all logos are registered."

There was a close-up shot of the logo. It looked like a Venn diagram made of a small, medium, and large triangle.

"Latent fingerprints from the murder weapon and taken from the victim haven't turned up in the database either."

Daniels hmmphed. "Not used to a life of crime. He left DNA all over that site."

"Or maybe he's never had one fight back before," Martinez said. "We need to dig deeper into the Lidle family."

Derby whistled. "Oh, that's going to go over well."

"I hope it does," Martinez said. "Because we've been lied to more than once today. Put up our list of interviews from the day."

Derby typed in commands, and driver's license pictures of dozens of people appeared on the screen, including the elderly neighbors who had been camped out that morning, and several others I didn't recognize. Plank had been busy canvassing the area.

"After interviewing the mother of the deceased, we determined that the victim had been staying at her grandparents' home since Sunday morning because of a stomach virus. Another 911 call is placed just after noon from Robert and Kitty Lidle's address. The call was made by the house manager, Astrid Nielsen. Kitty Lidle was found unresponsive and taken to King George Memorial where she's in the intensive care unit on a ventilator."

Martinez shifted his attention to Daniels. "Daniels, your team collected items to have tested to see what Kitty had ingested to send her into respiratory failure."

"That's why I was hounding Cheney," Daniels said. "We got negative results from the tea leaves, the chicken noodle soup, the bowls, and the chamomile tea."

I could see the frustration on Martinez's face at the news.

"But," she said, holding up a finger, "one of the decanters of brandy that my team found in a cutout in the staff passageway held traces of promethazine. The decanter was only about a third full, and the tablets are dissolvable. There was enough in there to settle the stomach of a rhinoceros."

"And put one to sleep?" Martinez asked, looking at me.

"Definitely," I said.

"So a decanter that anyone in that house could have had access to," he said. "Kitty Lidle's drinking wasn't a secret to those who know her. The respiratory failure is a side effect of the drug, but only to those who have a reaction. It's a common prescription, so the killer probably didn't expect her to have such an extreme reaction."

"It would also depend on her medical history," I said. "It sounds as if she's been a functioning alcoholic for most of her adult life. This would do damage to and weaken her liver and pancreas. We know she smoked from time to time. On a healthy person it probably wouldn't have had the effect it did."

"As it is now," Martinez said, "we might end up with two counts of murder. Unless there's a miracle and she makes it through the night."

"What about the third victim?" Jack asked. "The head of security guy. Any connection between his murder and the others?"

"That's where we need to start digging," Martinez said.

There was a knock at the door and someone brought in a stack of pizza boxes and left. I had the forethought to grab a roll of paper towels, but everyone dug in. It had been a long day, and I was starving. The smell of melted cheese and sauce had me close to a whimper.

"I need a full background check on Goble," Martinez said, neatly tucking into his own slice. "See what you can pull up on him."

Derby did the honors and Alan Goble's picture presented itself on the wall.

"Degrees in psychology and cyber security," Martinez read down. "Then went into the Naval Academy as an officer. Did eight years. Military records are sealed. Then did some specialized training at Quantico for the next eighteen months. But didn't end up at the FBI."

"Psych eval," Jack said. "I bet he didn't pass it. FBI wouldn't touch a guy like that. They generally like people who will follow orders. He's black ops. Probably a SEAL. Whatever training he was doing at Quantico wasn't for the benefit of the FBI."

"CIA?" Martinez asked.

"That would be my guess," Jack said. "He would have fit in better there. They don't care about the rules, and Goble would've found the assignments more challenging."

"All of his files are sealed," Derby said. "We'd be flagging all kinds of alphabet agencies if I tried to poke into it."

"Probably doesn't matter anyway," Martinez said.

I saw Jack give Doug a pointed look and Doug nodded. Sometimes Doug's skills were better utilized when everyone else didn't have knowledge of his activities. Doug could be in and out of any agency files in a matter of moments with no one the wiser.

"Looks like his stint at the CIA, or wherever he was, was short lived," Martinez continued. "Robert Lidle hired him to head up the family's security detail back when he was running for Senate. Robert would have had the connections and access to a guy like that. He must have met Goble's price point."

"That we do have access to," Derby said. "Makes it much easier when people are dead and you don't have to mess with warrants."

"I'm in the wrong line of work," Daniels said. "Guy's pulling in a cool three hundred and fifty thousand a year."

"Not too shabby," Martinez said. "Owns a nice house in Bowling Green. Got some real estate investments and a diversified portfolio. He's got a lot of cash stashed in different places."

"You can do that when you're making that much money," Daniels said. "Seriously. I didn't even know people could make that kind of money."

"Shifty," Doug said, reading the numbers on the screen like it was English. "That cyber security background came in handy."

"What do you mean?" Martinez asked.

Doug ran his fingers over his keyboard and numbers started to separate themselves on the screen and realign.

"These are all electronic transfers," Doug said. "Not from payroll or dividends from his different accounts. They're all large sums. A hundred thousand here. Fifty thousand there. Another hundred thousand over here. It probably totals more than a million a year for the last decade or so."

"Blackmail?" I asked.

"Not sure," Doug said. "But I wouldn't think so. Not that I have a great knowledge of blackmail procedures. The accounts transferring the money are all different, but when you dig a little deeper they're essentially coming from the same account. There are several layers to each account, pinging all over the world to different banks. But when you strip it all down it's all coming out of New York."

"Who owns it?" Jack asked.

"That's going to take some time," Doug said. "Maybe a lot of time. It's a sophisticated program. And it's got all kinds of security and firewalls."

"Like something an expert in cyber security could come up with?" I asked.

"Depends on his level of skill, but yeah, that's a possibility." Then Doug grinned. "But I'm better."

"While we're making a list of crap we don't have the answer to," Martinez said. "I need you to see if you can find Emma Lidle. Look for credit cards, apartments, anything that might be in her name. And if you don't find anything in her name start looking for same listed under Robert or Kitty Lidle. They probably have so many properties and developments that no one would notice if she took up residence."

"Wait," Daniels said. "Who's Emma Lidle?"

"Everett and Jenny Lidle's oldest daughter," Martinez said. "Jenny told us this morning that Emma had taken off as soon as she'd graduated from high school. They haven't seen or heard from her since, but Jenny said they thought Robert had been helping Emma out financially."

"When we questioned Astrid Nielsen, she's the one who brought up Emma," I said. "She was caught red-handed shooting Alan Goble, and her excuse was that he'd been responsible for Evie's murder. Autopsy reports prove otherwise, but that doesn't mean he wasn't the man on the inside who got her out of the house."

I looked at Daniels for confirmation and she said, "We found no evidence of struggle or anything else, other than the drugged decanter, that Evie left the home against her will."

"So potentially lured her from the house," I said. "Astrid alluded that there might have been sexual abuse involving Emma as well. And when that much cash is going through channels…" I shrugged, letting my thoughts trail off because it was too horrific to imagine.

"You think Alan Goble was involved in a sex-trafficking operation?" Martinez asked.

"I think it's possible," I said. "What kind of price do you think people would pay for the granddaughter of someone like Robert and Kitty Lidle?"

"Maybe they're looking for ransom instead," Martinez said. "These aren't street or foster kids. How would the trafficking come into play and then expect them to just rejoin the family as if nothing happened? Keep the silence."

"There are lots of ways," I said. "That's what groomers do. They'd either shame the kid into staying silent, or maybe threaten with their life or the lives of people they love. Maybe the going rate of an heiress's granddaughter is a hundred thousand dollars."

"This guy has millions in transactions," Martinez said. "Do you know what that could mean?"

"Yeah," I said, nodding soberly. "I do."