“She’s had trouble with two men in the last year,” he said instantly. “The guys were best friends. She went out with the one, who then told his friend about what a great time he’d had, so the second friend worked it, and Elena decided to give him a run. After that, the two friends hated each other and constantly vied for her attention.”
“That doesn’t sound like a good dating system,” he said.
“No, not at all,” Joe said with a chuckle. “The thing is, in her case, I don’t think she did it for anything but fun, but it ended up ruining a long-term friendship, and both of the men never quite let it go.”
“Okay, and who were these guys?” Richard asked.
“One is Eric Cross and the other …” His voice trailed off. “Hang on. I’ll think of it. Um, … it’s … Gerard. Yeah, Gerard, but I don’t know his last name. Oh maybe Bagota.”
“That’s good enough,” he said. “I’m sure we can get it from Eric.”
“I probably have Eric’s phone number too.”
“And how do you know him?”
“We used to be buds.”
“Until?”
“Until he slept with Elena and wanted to use me to get to her.”
“Sounds like she spawned some really deep emotions.”
“Absolutely,” Joe said. “And that’s not necessarily a good thing.”
“Got it,” Richard said. “I need you to think about the friends, the circumstances, anybody in Elena’s life over the last year who might have a reason to kill her or who might have wanted to take her out in revenge.”
“It’s a competitive business,” Joe said. “It’s one of the reasons I left it.”
“In what way?”
“People like Cayce, they can put your name on the map. So Elena was considered one of the best because she was Cayce’s personal model of choice.”
“So anybody else who worked for her, then what?”
“Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? Anybody else who works for Cayce now has an opportunity to move up.”
“What about a model named Naomi?”
“She’s okay, but she aggressively wants to climb the ladder.”
“I met her. She was working with Cayce.”
“Yeah. She’s been doing a little more, trying to get higher up.”
“But does that not give her the same cachet?”
“Not necessarily, no,” he said. “It depends on how often Cayce uses her. Whoever Cayce chooses to replace Elena with now will determine the repositioning within the modeling world.”
“What if Cayce chooses somebody completely different?”
“If she’s smart, she will,” Joe said. “Like pluck up a brand-new talent, make all those old ones go away.”
“Why would that be the smart thing?”
“Because they will all fight now, and, if Cayce didn’t use them before, she won’t want to use them now.”
“That makes some sense.” After ascertaining that Joe was with people the night Elena went missing, and the following morning, having slept over with a partner himself, getting names and contact information for them, Richard said, “But, like I said, if you think of anything else or anybody else, anybody who might want to do this or who held some sort of grudge or ill will, please contact me.”
“Will do. Oh hang on, here’s the other number. I just found it.”
After he hung up, Richard looked over to see Andy sitting at his desk beside him, pondering cell phone records. “Anything there?” he asked his partner, as he wrote down the two men’s phone numbers on his calendar to call as soon as possible. Then dialed the first one as he listened to Andy.
“A lot of hang-ups,” Andy said.
“Meaning, they called, and Elena didn’t answer?”
“In the beginning, she answered. We’ve got calls lasting ten seconds, fifteen seconds, and then she didn’t bother answering.”
“How many calls after that?”
“Another five, ten, fifteen,” he said, counting off the sheet.
“Those are fairly determined hang-ups,” Richard said.
“Absolutely, but I’m not getting any trace on the phone number.”
“It’ll be a burner phone,” Richard said. Just then a man answered the number he was calling. “Eric Cross?”
“Yeah, who’s calling?”
“Detective Richard Henderson.”
“Damn, this is about Elena, isn’t it?”
“Sure is.” Richard then proceeded to ask him similar questions to the ones he’d asked Joe.
“I haven’t seen her in forever. I wish I had, but I had one night with her, and that was it,” Eric said wistfully. “I’d have done anything for her.”
“Including kill her?”
The shocked silence was followed by a blast of “Noooo. Never. I loved her.” And, with that, he burst into tears and hung up.
Richard groaned. It was always rough dealing with those left behind to suffer through the aftermath of death. And murder made it that much harder on everyone. He looked at Andy, even as Richard dialed the second number. “Have they cleared her apartment yet?”
“Yes. You want to head over there?”
“Yeah, I do. I was there once, but they were already working on it.”
“That’s because George got there ahead of you.”
Richard stifled the words threatening to jump from his mouth. George was part of the team but liked to think he was the lead on all cases.
“And don’t forget. George had just come off a couple heavy cases. He charged in the same as you and I would, if we had been there.”
“I know,” Richard said in exasperation. “I just wanted to be first on scene.” He lifted his phone as a voice answered. He identified himself and explained the call. The response was almost identical to Eric’s, just without the tears.
“You have to understand, Detective,” Gerard said in a whisper. “Everyone wanted to be with her. I can’t imagine killing someone like that. The world is a much darker place today.”
As soon as he hung up from the call, Richard said to Andy, “Let’s go. Getting out for a bit will help clear my head.”
The two men hopped up, grabbed their phones and keys. Andy smiled. “I’ll drive.”
The two of them joked and laughed as they headed to Andy’s small pickup truck. As Richard climbed into the front seat, he looked around. “Why do you even keep this thing? It’s not much bigger than a can opener.”
“That’s not the point,” Andy said cheerfully. “It’s my rig. And
