Kiss Me, Kill Me

spread the four photos in front of Barnett.

Barnett didn’t say anything. Suzanne took out the New York Post photo of Barnett and Alanna Andrews kissing in the Barnett box at Yankee Stadium.

“Do you remember this?”

No response.

“Mr. Barnett,” Suzanne said, “please answer the question. Do you remember taking Alanna Andrews to this Yankees game? That is you, correct? And Ms. Andrews?”

Again, he didn’t answer. He stared at the pictures.

Suzanne could play this game all day.

“Mr. Thorpe,” she said, “your client can answer questions now, or he can answer them from Rikers. Jurisdiction can go either way. New York doesn’t have a death penalty. The United States does.”

Thorpe leaned over and whispered in Barnett’s ear.

It still took Barnett a full minute before he replied. “Yes.”

“Yes, this is you and Ms. Andrews kissing?”

He nodded.

“That wasn’t too difficult, was it?”

Thorpe said, “Agent Madeaux, with all due respect, cut to the chase. Of what do you accuse my client?”

“I haven’t accused him of anything except lying to a federal officer about knowing these women.”

Thorpe said, “When you approached him in his office, he was in shock. He didn’t understand what you meant.”

“He didn’t understand, ‘Do you recognize any of these women?’ ” Suzanne shook her head. “I have a witness who says that you met this young lady,” she tapped Jessica Bell’s photograph, “at a New Year’s Eve party. Less than a mile from where this college student”-she pointed to Heather Garcia’s image-“was murdered.”

Barnett was slowly shaking his head. Suzanne continued. “I have solid proof that you knew two of the victims but lied to me about it. When we search your home and office, I’m pretty confident that we’ll find evidence that you killed them.”

“No. No, I didn’t kill anyone.”

“I’ll tell you my theory,” she said. “I think you have some problems, sexually speaking.”

Barnett laughed. “I have no problems in bed.”

“Let me just play this out a bit. There was this website-it’s not there anymore, but fortunately, we have an archive of it. It’s called Party Girl. Are you familiar with it?”

Barnett didn’t say anything, but he was no longer laughing.

“Mr. Barnett, answer the question.”

Thorpe and Barnett consulted, then Barnett said, “I’m not certain.”

“You’re not certain of what? Whether you have sexual problems or that you visited the Party Girl website in order to have online mutual masturbation parties?”

Thorpe cleared his throat. “That’s uncalled-for.”

“On the contrary,” Panetta said, “we have four dead women; two of whom we know your client associated with.”

Barnett said, “I dated Alanna for a while. We broke up about a week after the Yankees game.”

“Why?”

“She found out I was cheating on her.”

“With whom?”

He didn’t say anything.

“Please answer,” Suzanne snapped.

Barnett closed his eyes. “With Erica.”

Suzanne avoided the overwhelming urge to give Vic Panetta a high five.

“Erica Ripley?” Suzanne gave the name of the Cinderella Strangler’s second victim.

“Yes,” he confirmed.

Instead of celebrating, she slid over Kirsten Benton’s senior portrait. “Do you know this girl?”

Barnett was shaking. “Yes,” he whispered.

“How?”

“She’s a friend of Jessica’s.”

“Where is she?”

He stared at her and looked surprised. “What do you mean?”

“She came to New York last weekend to stay with Jessica Bell. Jessica is dead; Kirsten is missing.”

“She told me her name was Ashleigh.”

Suzanne glanced at her notes-they were Lucy Kincaid’s meticulous notes that she’d brought into the interrogation-and sure enough, Kirsten’s Party Girl screen name was Ashleigh. Why would Barnett deny he knew who she really was? Maybe because he didn’t know-he knew the girls by their screen names. Except he had known Jessica’s and Erica’s real names. Suzanne put aside the discrepancy to ponder later, and asked, “Where is Kirsten Benton?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’d better figure it out.”

Thorpe said, “My client said he doesn’t know where the girl is. It sounds to me like you’re fishing.”

“Hardly,” Suzanne snapped. “We have proof that he personally knew three of the four Cinderella Strangler victims.” She slapped her hand on Heather Garcia’s photo. “Did you know Heather?”

Barnett nodded.

“Sleep with her?”

He hesitated, then nodded.

“Did you kill these women?”

“No. No. No. I did not kill anyone. I swear on my father’s grave, I didn’t kill anyone!”

When Suzanne and Panetta walked out of the interview room fifteen minutes later, Barnett was on his way to arraignment for lying to a federal officer-Suzanne’s way of making sure he didn’t flee before she had hard proof he was guilty of murder.

“Good job,” Panetta said.

“I feel like I should take that Lucy Kincaid out to celebrate. I can’t believe I missed the connection between Alanna Andrews and Wade Barnett.”

“His name didn’t come up until this week,” Panetta said. “And it’s me who should be beating myself up. You didn’t even get the case until after New Year’s.”

“We got him now. It’s just a matter of crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s.”

Her boss, SSA Steven Blackford, walked down her cubicle row. “Good work, Suzanne, Detective.” Blackford shook Panetta’s hand. “But it’s not over yet. I have a warrant here that you’ll probably want to execute personally.”

She smiled. Life was good. She’d stopped a killer.

Really, it seemed a sin to have this much fun putting away the bad guys.

NINETEEN

Sean’s cell phone rang when he stepped out of the shower. He grabbed it, not recognizing the number.

“Rogan.”

“This is Trey Danielson.”

Sean quickly dried off as he said, “Where the hell have you been? I called you half a dozen times and told you to get your ass back to Woodbridge.”

“I got the messages, but you don’t understand.”

“Explain yourself.”