Speak No Evil

she realized how strange when Jim added, “If you come by after five, maybe we can go out for drinks later.”

“Um, okay.”

They were outside the main police doors when Jim turned and walked back down the block to the forensics lab. Come by after five? For drinks? Did that mean what she thought it meant? She shook her head. No, they were over the relationship thing. They’d broken up nearly two years ago. And he’d never asked her out for drinks or anything social in all that time.

“He wants you back,” Will said.

Carina laughed, dismissing Will’s comment. How did her partner always seem to know what she was thinking?

“No word on Thomas?”

“The patrol says he hasn’t come back. I have a BOLO on his car. We’ll have another shot at him.” A “be on the lookout” was standard procedure when they wanted to talk to a person but not bring them down to the station or into custody.

“Let’s find Doug Masterson.”

Minor drug offenses and a six-month stint at Descanso for possession of cocaine with intent to sell filled Masterson’s rap sheet. He’d been clean-at least, he hadn’t been caught-for the last two years.

They had his photo, description, and age-thirty-four.

After checking out his apartment, his place of work, and known hangouts, they came up empty. No one admitted to seeing him since Sunday afternoon, but his neighbor, a retiree, said he had taken “his girl” up to the mountains for skiing on Sunday and he didn’t expect him back for a couple days.

Carina had showed a picture of Angie to the neighbor. “Is this Masterson’s girl?”

“One of them. Not the one he took skiing, though. Don’t know her name, she’s a new one. He goes through those pretty little things like candy.” He grinned, revealing crooked teeth. The smell of cheap alcohol wafted toward the officers. “Yep, Doug has the lookers all over him.”

In the car, Carina frowned, made notes. “He could have dumped Angie’s body late Sunday night and then left town. But if the neighbor’s right, Masterson couldn’t have killed Angie.”

“Did you smell the booze? I doubt he knows what day of the week it is, let alone what time Masterson left yesterday. If it was yesterday.” Will picked up the radio and put a BOLO on Masterson.

Carina’s money was on Thomas. Means, opportunity, motive. The means was a little difficult right now-where would he have kept her?-but he had no alibi for the time she disappeared, and she had dumped him for another loser. More damning was the fact that he’d lied to them.

“Let’s talk to Abby Ivers again,” she said. She filled Will in on her theory that Abby was hiding something. “We need to be let in on her little secret, or maybe the phrase obstruction of justice will mean something to her.”

They found Abby at the apartment she shared with Jodi. The girls had another friend, Kayla Nichols, with them. The three of them had obviously been crying.

Carina wasn’t going to leave the room without knowing what Abby had hinted at earlier. But after fifteen minutes of the run-around with all three girls-Abby, Jodi, and wannabe lawyer Kayla-first denying, then saying it wasn’t important, then saying Angie would roll over in her grave if she knew they’d told, Carina lost her temper.

She looked each of them in the eye in turn, then focused her steely-eyed gaze on the weakest link, Abby.

“Okay, girls, let me explain something to you. Angie was raped. Then she was suffocated in a garbage bag. Murdered. She’s dead, and if you don’t spill this secret right now, I’m taking you all to jail. You can spend the night in a cold cell and maybe then you’ll try to help, not hinder, our investigation.”

Kayla jumped up. “We have rights, too!”

“Sit down, Kayla,” Carina said. “I can and will arrest you for obstruction of justice. You will be taken into court tomorrow and the judge will make you tell or you’ll be in contempt of court.”

Abby interjected, “No one can know.”

“If it goes to court, it will damn well be public information,” Carina said. “You tell me now, and I promise I will do everything in my power to keep the information private.” Carina hoped she could. If it was material to the prosecution, all bets were off. She didn’t like to deceive the girls, but finding Angie’s killer was more important.

Abby and Jodi looked at each other. Abby burst into tears. Carina rubbed her forehead. She was getting a headache.

Jodi spoke. “Angie, um, she sort of had a double life kind of thing.”

Double life kind of thing? Carina and Will exchanged glances.

“Angie dated a lot of guys,” Jodi continued. “Some not really publicly. But she journaled about it.”

“Journaled? Did she keep the journal at her house? In her purse?” Two officers had been to Angie’s house to search her personal effects, but her purse was missing.

Jodi bit her lip. “No, an online journal. You know, MyJournal dotcom. But,” she continued quickly, “she was anonymous. No one knew about it. I mean, no one would even think that she did the things she wrote about. She’s really sweet.”

“You mean she made them up?”

Jodi shook her head profusely. “Oh no, it’s all true. Well, most of it. I mean, I doubt she ever lied, but I guess she could have sort of exaggerated.”

“Anonymous. How did you know?”

Abby glanced down sheepishly. “One day she borrowed my computer and after she left I looked at the Web page history because I needed something. There it was. I read the entries and knew it was Angie because she talked about us, but not our real names. Only our first initials. I asked her about it, and she told us everything, swore us to secrecy. It’s, um, sort of a sex diary. Her profile was ‘A for Anonymous.’ ”

“Anonymous online,” Will said, his voice flat. “Where everyone in the world can read it.”

“But no one knew it was her!” Abby exclaimed.

“You’re positive she told no one else? What about one of her ex-boyfriends?”

“Oh no, especially not them,” Jodi said. “They would have been pissed off. She detailed some of their, um, sexual failings.” The three girls giggled, then abruptly stopped as the magnitude of the situation hit them.

Carina lost it. Even after being a cop for eleven years, she’d never be so cavalier about murder.

“Give me the Web page. And I’m putting you all on notice, right now. If my partner or I have any other questions, you will answer them. Got it?”

They sobered completely during Carina’s lecture, and Jodi and Abby in particular looked guilty over their behavior. As Abby scribbled something on notebook paper, Jodi said, “I didn’t mean to be disrespectful. I loved Angie, like a sister. I guess…I can’t believe she’s gone.”

Carina forgave the girls their behavior. They were eighteen and facing the brutal death of a friend. It was going to hit them hard over the next day or two, and grief would set in.

Abby handed Carina the paper: Journalme. iloverealmen.com.

“Two more questions. Do you know Steve Thomas?”

They all nodded.

“Why did Angie get a restraining order against him?”

It was Kayla who spoke up. “He threatened her.”

“How?”

“He told her she’d be killed.”

“He threatened to kill her?”

Pause. “Not exactly.”

“What exactly?”

“He said she was being stupid and would get herself killed if she didn’t watch her back. But he was so mean about it, and Steve isn’t normally a mean guy, so we all figured he was jealous about Doug, and when guys get jealous they do stupid things. So Angie got scared and got the restraining order.”

Stupid things? Carina had a few stupid things she’d like to point out to the girls, but she refrained. “Tell me about Doug Masterson.”