T he coffee at Seattle PD’s East Precinct was bitter and strong. Jerry suspected it was because nobody ever bothered to rinse out the coffeemaker, which had been a staple in this office ever since he could remember.
Jerry sipped the awful coffee, then hit redial on his cell phone. It rang exactly five times before going to voice mail again. Morris wasn’t picking up. Had he gone to bed, or back to Lake Stevens? Jerry finally left a message and snapped his phone shut.
It had been awhile since he’d been in the precinct’s control room, but everything looked-and smelled, for that matter-exactly the same. Same beige walls, same gunmetal-gray desks, same beige linoleum. He watched the computer monitor in front of him, which displayed a clear shot of Interview Room 3.
Torrance and his partner were about to begin an interview with Abby Maddox, Ethan Wolfe’s girlfriend. Jerry wasn’t officially supposed to be here, but considering how closely he’d been working with Morris, Torrance knew better than to shut his ex-partner out.
The young woman was sitting at the table in the middle of the small room, her shoulder-length black hair sleek and shiny under the harsh fluorescent lights. Her skin was so pale and translucent, she appeared almost ghostly in the monitor. Jerry had gotten a glimpse of her as she passed him in the main hall and was struck by how beautiful she was up close-supermodel gorgeous. Not Jerry’s type exactly, but undeniably good-looking-tall, slender, with deep blue eyes and full lips. A striking contrast to the other woman in the interview room, Torrance’s new partner. The very blond and very perky Kimberley Kellogg was steadfastly staring at the interviewee with her notebook open and pen ready.
“You sure you don’t want any coffee? Soda? Water?” Torrance asked Maddox.
“I’m fine,” she answered in a husky voice, though it was obviously a lie. She was sitting up straight in the metal chair. “I just don’t understand why I’m here. Why couldn’t we have done this at my apartment? Two police officers show up at my door in the middle of the night and they wouldn’t tell me what’s going on-”
“Thank you for being so cooperative.” Torrance’s tone was pleasant. He was sitting directly across from Maddox, his smile friendly. “We need some information from you. You’re not under arrest or in any kind of trouble.”
“Do I need a lawyer?”
“Of course not,” Torrance said. “You can leave anytime you like. We just want to ask you a few questions about your boyfriend.”
“Ethan?” Maddox’s pretty face was troubled. Her gaze shifted back and forth between the two detectives. “Why, what’d he do?”
“Who says he did anything?” Kellogg said, and Torrance shot his partner a look.
“We think he might know something about the disappearance of Dr. Sheila Tao.” Torrance drummed his fingers lightly on the table. “Do you know who she is?”
Maddox’s eyes were wide and frightened. Jerry felt sorry for her. “She’s his graduate adviser. He works for her. She left town, I thought. Ethan said she was sick.”
Torrance and Kellogg said nothing.
“Oh, God.” Maddox’s hands shook and she clutched her large purse, which was sitting on the table in front of her. “Oh, God, I knew something was up. I knew it.”
Torrance glanced up at the camera. Alone in the control room, Jerry turned the volume up on the monitor.
“What can you tell us, Miss Maddox?” Torrance’s voice was soothing. He was using the tone he always did when he thought the witness might get squirrelly. “Did you suspect something?”
Maddox hung her head, her ebony hair falling over her cheekbones. “He was cheating on me with her. He didn’t think I knew, but of course I did. I’m not stupid.”
“How’d you find out?”
“I caught them once. They didn’t see me. I stopped by his office and she was sitting on the edge of his desk and his hand was up her skirt-” Maddox blinked, but the tears trickled down her face anyway. She dug into her purse for a wad of tissue and blew her nose.
“Has he been acting strange since Dr. Tao disappeared?” Kellogg asked as she scratched notes into her pad. “Anything that might indicate he knew her whereabouts?”
Maddox shook her head. “No, but he’s been gone a lot. I don’t know where he goes, he doesn’t tell me. I work the late shift at Safeway, and sometimes I get in at three, four in the morning. And he’s not home. He’s been distracted for the past few weeks. And difficult.”
“We’ve learned he spends a lot of time up in Lake Stevens.” Torrance watched her face closely. “Any idea why?”
Maddox shook her head again and wiped her eyes. “Is that where Dr. Tao lives?”
Torrance glanced up at the camera again and Jerry knew what the look meant. Abby Maddox had no idea about her boyfriend’s Lake Stevens house.
She started to sniffle, and it wasn’t long before a torrent of sobs escaped from Maddox’s slender chest. Torrance watched dispassionately, but Kellogg, the rookie, obviously felt bad.
“I should have known something was off. I should have known.” Maddox struggled to contain herself, digging into her purse for another tissue.
“We don’t know anything for a fact yet.” The female detective attempted to sound reassuring.
“I should have known,” Maddox repeated, looking across at the two detectives. “I should have done something the moment I found it.”
“To what are you referring?” Torrance asked with a frown.
Maddox reached into her purse. It was hard to tell from the camera angle, but she appeared to be unzipping something. Women’s purses mystified Jerry-they had so many zippers and flaps and compartments, he was amazed women could find anything they’d stashed away. She dug for a bit, then pulled out a wadded-up tissue, which she placed on the table in front of the female detective.
“Open it,” Maddox said.
Kellogg hesitated, and Wolfe’s girlfriend said, “It’s not used or anything. I put something inside it. Something I found a couple of weeks ago in Ethan’s pocket.”
Kellogg looked at Torrance, who gave her a nod. The blonde put her notebook down and reached inside her jacket pocket for a pair of latex gloves. Snapping them on, she unfolded the tissue with the points of her fingers. Something shiny rolled onto the table.
It was a woman’s diamond ring.
Kellogg picked it up and examined it under the lights. Even watching on the computer monitor, Jerry could tell the diamond was huge.
“I found it when I was doing laundry. I’m pretty sure it’s Professor Tao’s. I remember admiring it from a distance when I went to meet Ethan at his office. I don’t know why he’d have it. I thought…” Maddox’s voice choked as another sob racked her. “I thought she’d left it behind and he’d stolen it. We’re broke and I thought maybe he was going to pawn it. Now I’m not so sure.”
Torrance put on a pair of latex gloves as well and took the ring from his partner. Turning it so he could see the inside of the band, he read the inscription aloud. “ ‘Now and forever, Morris.’” He dropped it into a plastic bag and looked at Maddox, his face grim.
“There’s something else,” the young woman said, her voice faltering.
Torrance and Kellogg exchanged a look. What now? Jerry thought.
Maddox rooted around in her purse again and pulled something out with shaking fingers. “I know I’m going to get in trouble because I found this and didn’t tell anyone…” She was barely coherent as she tried to speak through her tears. “It’s just, I didn’t want to believe it. I couldn’t. I couldn’t believe he might have-”
Torrance’s face turned to stone as he took the object from her.
Kellogg looked confused. “What is it?”
Maddox’s hands shook. “Diana St. Clair’s gold medal.”
Jerry’s mouth dropped open.
Maddox’s husky voice lowered to a whisper. “From when she won the Nike Cup last year. I’m sorry. I should have told somebody. But he-I love him. I didn’t want to believe it.”
Diana St. Clair. Holy shit. This was worse than Jerry could have imagined. Morris’s instincts had been dead- on.
“You just happened to have these items in your purse, Miss Maddox?” Torrance said in a neutral voice.
