buzzing in my head since I’d first seen the photo of the tattoo, questions I wasn’t eager to ask my brother, but had to nonetheless.
“When’s the last time you spoke with Wren?”
He stopped pacing and squinted at me. His mouth got tight. “We went through all that last week. Nothing’s changed since then.”
“Everything’s changed. Did you hear from her after you hired me…or see her?”
He gripped the edge of the conference table, and his knuckles turned white. “What the fuck are you implying?”
“I’m not implying anything, I-”
“The hell you’re not!” He slapped his palm on the tabletop. “Next you’ll want to know whether I’ve got an alibi. Jesus, I thought you were working for me.”
“I am, but I need to know where we stand. Mike will need to know too.”
“Then don’t dance around it- you think I had something to do with this.”
“That’s not what I was asking,” I said, but I wasn’t sure it was true. David was sure it wasn’t.
“Bullshit,” he said. His shoulders slumped and the air went out of him, and he turned to the window. “I haven’t heard anything from her since before I hired you. I had nothing to do with this.”
“Where were you this weekend?”
David made a sour laugh. “I knew we’d get to that.”
“I’m just trying to build a timeline.”
“Right,” he snorted. “I was in London. I left Friday afternoon and came back yesterday, and I was in meetings most of the time. Is that good enough?” It wasn’t, not until we knew when Holly had died, but I didn’t tell David that. I took another deep breath.
“What about Stephanie?” I asked.
He stiffened. “What about her?”
“What does she know about Wren? What did you tell her?”
“Why does that matter?” I looked at David and said nothing. “Whatnow you think she was involved?”
“It’s a question the police will ask.”
At the mention of the police he took a half step back. He ran a hand over his gray face. “I didn’t tell her anything,” he said. “We didn’t talk about it. I don’t know what she knows.”
“She knew something, that much was clear when she came to see me. How could you not-”
“We didn’t talk about it,” he said tightly, and turned on his heel to the window again. Mike saved me from asking more.
He paused in the doorway, a tall, slender figure in impeccable gray pinstripe and a wine-red tie. Partnership had etched fine lines around his narrow features, but his face, still pink from shaving, was somehow still a student’s face, easier to imagine bent over some dusty tome than hypnotizing juries and scaring other lawyers. He ran fingers through his thinning black hair and glanced from me to David, and back again. A smile appeared.
“Sorry to have kept you waiting so long,” he said, and put out a hand to David. “I’ve heard a lot about you.” David gave him a disbelieving look but there was no irony in Mike’s voice and nothing but sincerity in his smile. He was good at that.
“I saw you on television a few weeks ago,” David said cautiously. “Court TV.”
“A very slow news day,” Mike said, and smiled modestly. “And now, why don’t you tell me what’s going on.”
And we did. David was hesitant at first, staring at the carpet or at the architectural prints on the wall, but he gritted his teeth and got the facts out. I went over what I knew, reciting once more the refrain: Holly, Wren, Cassandra. Mike listened closely and made notes on a yellow pad. He interrupted only a few times with questions, and all of those were about dates and times. David concluded with an exhausted sigh and sat back in his chair, looking at Mike and for a light at the end of the tunnel.
Mike tapped his chin with long fingers. When he finally spoke, his voice was without emotion. “We don’t know the circumstances of this woman’s death yet. The police are calling it suspicious, which in theory could mean suicide, but…” He looked at me.
“They’re being cute with their language,” I said, “and close to the vest about the condition of the body and the cause of death. And besides the tattoo, they haven’t given out any pictures. Reading between the lines, I wouldn’t bet on suicide.”
Mike nodded. “I agree, and in any event we have to plan for the worst, which in this case means a finding of homicide.”
“Jesus,” David muttered.
Mike gave him a sympathetic look and continued. “If the circumstances were different, it might be possible to sit this out. After all, if media attention to the story remains relatively low, it’s entirely plausible that you could’ve missed the articles in the papers, or not recognized the descriptions they give, or the picture of the tattoo. In which case, you might just wait for the police to contact you. It wouldn’t win you a good citizenship award, but it’s not illegal and it would probably be the safest course of action. And I imagine it’s what the other men in her videos are doing right nowholding their breath, keeping their heads down, and praying. Those of them who saw the story in the paper and recognized the tattoo, anyway. But, unfortunately, that’s not our situation.
“Our situation is that this woman was actively harassing youcalling, coming by your home, threatening you. And we must assume the police will learn this fairly quickly, if and when they identify the body.”
“Learn it how?” David interrupted. “How the hell will they connect me with her?”
I answered him. “Dumping Holly’s phone records will probably be enough, but they’ll also search her place, and who knows what they’ll find there. Her videos, I’d guess, and whatever information she collected about you.” I didn’t think David could get much paler, but somehow he managed.
“To the police it will suggest motive,” Mike said. “Which means they’ll be keen to speak with you, and with your wife, as well. And they’ll look at you even harder when they find that you were disturbed enough by the harassment to hire a PI to locate Holly. If you were upset enough for that, they’ll reason, you might’ve been up for something more desperate. They’ll find it hard to believe that you missed the Jane Doe story in the press, and they’ll wonder why- if you have nothing to hide- you didn’t come forward on your own.
“That’s not an appealing picture, David, and that’s why I don’t think you can wait for the police to find you. You need to get out in front of this, and go to them.”
“Go to the police?” David nearly jumped out of his seat. He went to the window and sank his hands in his pockets and rocked from one foot to the other. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered.
“It demonstrates that you’re cooperative,” Mike said, “that you have nothing to hide. You lay out all the facts yourself and you defuse a lot of suspicion.”
But David wasn’t listening. “ ‘If and when,’ you said-‘if and when they identify the body.’ There’s a chance they won’t.”
“Not a good one,” I said. “Holly had family and friends and people she worked with. Even if she wasn’t close to any of them, they knew her. One of them will see the stories and make the connection, or get worried enough to file a missing persons with the cops, and they’ll make the connection themselves. And that’s without worrying about whether her fingerprints are on record someplace, or her DNA, or if there was a dry cleaning tag in her clothing. It’s just a matter of time.”
Still David didn’t seem to hear. “If I go to the cops and the press gets hold of it…that’s the end.”
“Talking to the police is no crime,” Mike said.
“Being dragged into this…a dead girl, sex videos…no, that would be it.” David rubbed his forehead. “What if it turns out she’s a suicide? What if it turns out the girl in the paper isn’t even her?”
Mike’s voice was steady and soft. “I know people in the department. I’ll put out feelers. If it turns out the police think her death was suicide, then obviously there’s no need to do anything. As for whether she’s Wren or not, we can try and get a better description of the body- where exactly the tattoo is, birthmarks- but beyond that, I’m not sure how much we can know beforehand.”
David breathed a long, shaking sigh. His legs wobbled and he collapsed into a chair and looked at me. The bottom had fallen out of his eyes. “So what you’re telling me is I’m fucked. The police will identify her, find her videos, trace her calls, and- bang- I’m the prime suspect. And my only choice is whether I’m fucked now or later.”
