Chapter Fourteen

Faith rolled her shoulders and worked a kink out of her neck. EMS had cleared them at the scene but warned them to take it easy for the next couple of days due to some mild bruising. All in all, they were lucky. Even with the last-second brake application, Michael had hit Elena's car at close to forty miles per hour, and an electronic fault prevented the cruiser's airbags from deploying. If the angle of impact had been a degree or two to the left or right, they could be in the hospital right now.

Elena had been lucky as well. Her airbags had deployed, and the force had been directed at an angle that sent most of it away from the driver's seat. She was also treated for minor bruising and now sat across from Detective Simonich, who had insisted on interviewing her first.

That interview, it seemed, hadn't gone well. Wanda stood and sighed, then walked out of the interrogation room and joined the federal agents behind the two-way mirror.

"We might have a problem," Wanda said. "It sounds like our suspect wants to lawyer up."

Faith frowned. At the moment, the only evidence they had linking Elena to the murders was tangential. If Elena got a lawyer, finding the rest of what they needed to convict would be incredibly time-consuming and tedious, and if it turned out Elena wasn't the killer, then they would only be wasting time until the killer claimed another victim. They needed to talk to her now. "Has she answered any questions so far?"

"So far, she's admitted to evading law enforcement and reckless driving. She refuses to answer any questions before talking to a lawyer."

"We'll try talking to her," Faith replied. "It's worth a shot, at least."

Wanda frowned, clearly upset at the potential of having her thunder stolen. She didn't protest, though. "Go ahead. And good luck to you."

The three agents entered the interrogation room. Turk trotted to Elena's side and sat, watching her closely, tail switching back and forth. He had managed to escape the crash without even minor injuries, and his body was coiled to strike.

Elena wouldn't give him any trouble. She seemed desperate to shrink into her chair as much as possible. Her lips trembled, and she refused to meet Faith's eyes as she sat across from her. Michael positioned himself behind Faith, his arms folded.

Faith decided to start on the offensive. "Three women are dead, Miss Vargas. Do you understand that?"

She shifted in her chair. "I didn't have anything to do with that."

Well, she was talking, at least. That was good.

"I'd like to believe you," Faith replied. "But I have you linked to all three of them. All three of them were lured with high-frequency sound waves outside of the range of normal human hearing. Sound waves that could have been produced by equipment you sell."

"I sell equipment to a lot of people."

"Not many of those people have enhanced hearing," Michael said. "In fact, almost none of them do. In fact, it turns out I can count the number of your customers with enhanced hearing on one hand and have two fingers left to throw up a peace sign."

Elena stiffened slightly. "I'd like to talk to my lawyer."

Faith folded her hands on the table and leaned forward. "Here's the thing: you're not acting like an innocent person. See, you didn't even talk to us when we showed up at your house. You didn't even give us a chance to say that we were there to see you. You took one look at our car and fled the scene. That looks very bad. You want a lawyer, and that's your right, but you didn't tell us that until after you led us on a car chase through city traffic, nearly causing multiple accidents before the chase ended when you couldn't hop on the Interstate and flee north. Were you heading to Canada?"

"No! I mean… I want my lawyer. I'm not answering any more questions until I get one."

Faith sighed. "I want you to think about how this looks. We come to talk to you. We don't even get to introduce ourselves before you lead us on a car chase. You flee and force us to literally hit you head on to stop you. Now you won't talk about the three murdered women, all with enhanced hearing who were lured to their deaths by high-frequency sound equipment that you sell. There are a lot of things adding up here to make you look really bad, and if this goes to court, you're going to see your name attached to everything I just said all over the evening news. This is your chance—your one chance—to convince us that you didn't kill those women. Otherwise, we're looking at pressing charges. Then you'll get a lawyer whether we want you to have one or not."

Michael cocked his head. "You're hiding something else, aren't you?"

Elena flinched. "I want my lawyer."

Faith raised an eyebrow and sat back in her chair. Michael nodded and said, "You see that camera?" He pointed at the camera in the corner of the room behind and to his left.

Elena didn't respond.

"Watch that red light," Michael said.

He left the room, and Faith and Michael sat in silence, watching her. Faith resisted the urge to keep pushing. They were nearly out of options but to give Elena her lawyer, and Faith wanted to give Michael a chance to run with whatever he was trying before they gave up and let her make the call.

Elena gasped, and Faith turned to see the red light had blinked off. A moment later, Michael walked back into the room. He smiled at Elena. "See that? That camera's off now. It's just us talking to you. One thing you'll notice about us is that we're the FBI. We're not the Redmond Police. We're not the Seattle Police. We're here for one case: the murders of Maria Gonzalez, Rebecca Wells and Emily Chen. Anything else that might have occurred, any other reason you might have run, that's nothing we care about. Now, if you murdered these women, the next words out of your mouth need to be your favorite phrase: ‘I want my lawyer.' Because if you murdered them, our job is going to be pursuing consecutive life sentences, and you'll want to hope your lawyer's very good at their job so you can enjoy as many days in the sun as possible before that happens.

"On the other hand, if you didn't murder them, you need to convince me now that that's the case. You need to show me that you're innocent so we can stop wasting our time with you and go find a killer. I truly could not care less about anything else you might or might not have done. You understand?"

Elena was silent for a long moment. She took a deep breath and released it slowly. "You… you're only here for the murders."

"Just that," Michael replied.

She nodded. "I didn't kill them. I… You need my alibi, right? For last night?"

"Yes," Faith replied. "We'll start with last night."

She took a deep breath and looked back up at the camera. The red light remained off. "And you're not going to tell the police what I'm about to tell you?"

"I won't repeat a word you say," Michael promised.

Elena sighed and sat a little taller. "I was in Eureka."

Michael frowned. "Eureka?"

"Yes. It's a little city on the Pacific Coast in Northern California."

"I know where it is. I just… What were you doing there?"

"I was selling some equipment."

Faith frowned. "I thought you left Pacific Audio Solutions."

"I did. This was a private sale."

"To whom?"

Elena's eyes narrowed. "I can prove that I was in a hotel in Eureka last night. That proves I didn't kill Emily. Do you need alibis for the other nights? The other one, the girl from Bethel Records, she was… that was three days ago, right?"

"Right."

"Well, I was in… I was out of town that night too."

"Uh uh," Faith said. "You have to do better than that."

Elena frowned. "I was in Tijuana. I mean, San Diego."

"Which is it? Tijuana or San Diego?"

Elena's eyes shifted to the left.

"I strongly suggest you don't lie to me," Faith warned.

Elena fidgeted in her seat. "I stayed at a hotel in San Diego and went to Tijuana during the day. I can prove that I was in San Diego too. I have the hotel bookings, and you can call them and get the security footage."

Faith had a feeling she knew where this was going, but she still needed to make sure. "Elena? That equipment might have been used to kill three women. Maybe you didn't stab them, but if you sold the murder weapon unknowingly to a killer, you need to tell us—"

"It wasn't to a killer. It…" she pressed her palms to her face briefly, then sat up. "I sold some equipment in Tijuana. I drove down to make the sale personally because the guy wanted to see it. He's not… he didn't kill anyone. He owns a record label in Tijuana."

"Can you give us his contact information?" Michael asked.

"No! Are you…" Elena facepalmed again and muttered something in Spanish before saying, "Fuck, I didn't kill them, okay? Isn't that enough?"

"No," Faith replied. "It isn't."

"Why don't you want to give us this guy's contact? We get a phone number, we leave, and you can go back to your life."

"Because…" Elena looked back at the camera. It remained dark. "It wasn't my equipment, okay? I stole it from Pacific when I left. They fired me over some bullshit reason, and I didn't have any other jobs lined up, so I took some synthesizers, mixers and a few microphones and stuff. I know a guy in Tijuana who sells to artists who can't afford to work with a studio. He buys the stuff bootleg and sells them at a premium in Mexico."

"So you took a trip to Tijuana to unload this stuff, and that's where you were when Rebecca Wells and Emily Chen were killed."

"Yes. I can prove that's where I was. But you don't care about the theft, right? You're not going to tell the police about it, right?"

"Right," Michael said. "Can you get us the names of these hotels?"

"Sure. It was the Pink Lady in Eureka and the Radisson in San Diego."

"Phone numbers?"

"I don't remember. But you can look them up. There's only one Pink Lady in Eureka, and the Radisson is the one on Coronado Street."

"We'll do that," Michael said. "If you see us again, it'll be because you're lying to us."

"I'm not lying. I promise."

"Okay. Then, in that case, I wish you luck."

The three agents stepped outside. Wanda greeted them with a grin. "I never thought I'd say this about a fed, but you are genius, Prince. We just got a confession for grand theft and transporting stolen goods across state lines."

"Technically, you didn't," Michael said. "She was manipulated into believing that the police wouldn't hear what she just said. You'll have to get that information another way."

Wanda flipped her hand. "Now that we know where to look, finding proof should be a piece of cake. Crooks are never as smart as they think they are. Time for round three. Maybe now that she knows she's not being threatened with murder in the first, she'll be more willing to talk to me. If the theft is the right dollar amount, I might be able to get a plea deal and get a real confession by the end of the day."

She headed to the interrogation room, and Michael frowned at her. "God, I hate cops like that. Never mind that three people are dead, and we're still looking for a killer. She gets her collar, and it's all sunshine and roses."

Faith pursed her lips. "I don't know how I feel about what just happened in there."

"It sucks. There's no two ways about it. We'll call the hotels, but we both know they're going to confirm Elena's alibi."

"I don't mean that. I mean that little stunt you pulled turning the camera off but not mentioning that the cops were watching. That's… I mean, I know I'm not one to talk about bending rules, but that felt icky."

"You're not one to talk about bending rules," Michael agreed, "and that was icky. But it was a lot less icky then three women with their carotid arteries severed and a psychopath out there looking for a fourth. Would you rather we had waited for the fourth to pop up while we waited a week for an arraignment and another for an indictment then six months for a trial?"

Faith frowned. "No."

"Me either. So let's let the locals sweat the small stuff, and let's go find the big fish." He softened his voice. "I'm not proud of it, but it's the lesser of two evils."

The three agents left the precinct and headed back to their hotel. On the way, Faith verified Elena's alibi and confirmed that she wasn't their killer. Michael's small evil had put away a slightly larger evil, but they were still hunting the great evil that prowled the streets looking for another victim. Michael was right that they had saved time by avoiding the lawyer and clearing Elena as a suspect, but it was hard to see today as a victory.

Once more, they were back to square one, and their killer was still on the loose.