In His Thoughts, page 9
“Don’t you think he would have burned them or thrown them away?” Eve asked, raising her eyebrows. “Unless there’s something about the clothes that he explicitly wants us to find, I doubt a killer would risk putting the suit back in circulation.”
“I still think it’s worth at least a preliminary check,” Thompson insisted. Eve sighed.
“Suit yourself,” she said, “In my experience, for what it’s worth, narcissistic sociopaths don’t tend to be big on the concept of charity.”
“Snippy,” Thompson said with a smile that made Eve’s blood churn with indignation. Eve signaled to the waitress for the check.
“Damn right,” she said, “and while we’re at it, Pliny and Fitzgerald may have appointed you my official babysitter, but that doesn’t mean you’re in charge of this case. You’ve been an agent for – what? A year or two? I’ve been putting away serial killers for nearly ten.”
“I was a professor of Criminology for twelve years,” Thompson protested sternly, “and before that I spent seven years on my PhD thesis.”
“During which I am serving combat tours in Afghanistan and Syria," Eve retorted, staring Thompson squarely in the eye. "As far as the chain of command goes, I'm your ranking officer."
"Be that as it may," Thompson replied, her tone now icy, "This case was assigned to me. This isn't the army, Agent Hope. It's civilian intelligence. I was put in charge of this investigation, not only of the murder case but of keeping you in tow while we search. You may have the arrest record on your side, Agent Hope, but this is my case, and you're working on my time."
Under the table, Eve's fists balled. She took a deep breath. The waitress arrived with the check, and Eve seized it off the table.
“Have it your way,” she said, opening her wallet to drop a few bills on the table before standing up, “It’s your case, and you’re welcome to it. But I still think that if we can’t find the common point between these victims, we’re running the risk of finding another body before we get anywhere near finding the killer.”
Eve started to walk away but stopped and turned back.
“And by the way,” she said, “I wasn’t in the Army. I’m a goddamn Marine.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Eve pulled the car to a stop in front of a trim, well-maintained two-story post-war suburban daydream, right down to the Bermuda grass lawn and white picket fence. The street number over the two-car garage read 3430 – Selma Vishni’s registered address.
Eve got out of the Ford and looked back, waiting for her partner to follow. Thompson was still on the phone with her list of urgent care clinics. Each place they’d called on the drive had been hesitant to divulge patient information, even to assist in a murder investigation.
The rejection and fruitless efforts had left Thompson in a foul mood. Eve could see her snapping at an unknown recipient over the phone through the windshield of the car, although she couldn’t hear her partner’s voice.
Thompson appeared to reach the end of her conversation abruptly. She growled something unintelligible at the phone and threw the car door open.
“Bastards, the whole damned lot of them,” Thompson cursed as she rounded the hood.
“Alright, alright,” Eve said, hesitating with her hand on the latchkey wooden gate in the white picket fence. “Get it out of your system and put your sad face on. The Vishnis are in mourning, but we still need them. If we come in too hot and angry, they might just shut down completely.”
“You’re right, you’re right,” Thompson said, inhaling deeply through her nose and letting it out through her lips in a thin stream. “Thanks, Hope.”
“Anytime,” Eve replied with a nod, pushing the gate open, “Come on, let’s get to work.”
The walkway was a clean, straight path that led up a short, narrow porch. The agents took the steps quietly, and Eve reached out to rap gently but audibly on the door.
A moment later, the agents heard the sound of soft footsteps approaching from inside the house.
“Who’s there, please?” came the voice from inside the door.
“Is this the Vishni residence?” Eve called out through the door.
"That's right," the voice replied suspiciously. Eve thought it sounded like a man speaking – Selma's husband, Sankar, most likely. "Who are you?"
“Sir, I’m Special Agent Hope with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I’m here with my partner, Special Agent Thompson. Do you have a minute to speak with us?”
There was a moment of silence from behind the door; then, the agents heard the sound of the bolt being slid back and the chain being unlocked. The door opened, and the agents found themselves looking at a tall, broad-shouldered man in his middle fifties with a neatly trimmed beard and deeply somber expression. He wore a simple yet elegant white cotton kurta unbuttoned at the neck. He looked at the agents with a slackened expression.
“This is about my wife?” the man asked, taking a step out onto the front porch but leaving the door open behind him. He spoke with the kind of total exhaustion that comes over people when they’re grieving a close loved one. From somewhere in the house behind him, the agents could hear somebody playing a slow, sad classical ballad on the piano.
“Yes, I’m afraid it is about your wife,” Eve said, “I’m very sorry for your loss. I know this must be a difficult and painful time for you. Thank you for taking the time to speak with us.”
"I already told the police everything I know," the man said without much inflection. "Selma came home from the office at five-thirty. She ate dinner with me and our son, Arijit. He left around eight to visit a friend across town. Around ten o'clock, Selma left the house again. She said she was going swimming."
“And that was the last time you saw your wife?” Eve asked.
"That's right," said Sankar, looking down at the floor of the porch between his bare feet. "The last thing I said to her was, 'Enjoy your swim – watch out for the sharks!' A stupid joke, but they were the last words I would ever get to say to her. It could have been worse, I suppose. At least we hadn't been arguing."
“Did you argue a lot?” Eve asked. The man shook his head.
“No, Agent Hope, we had a good marriage. A very good, strong, loyal marriage,” the man said quickly, almost harshly, “We disagreed now and then, but we always loved each other and our son first.”
There was something about the sudden change in the man’s tone that raised a flag in Eve’s mind. Her eyes narrowed nearly imperceptibly.
“Why didn’t you go swimming with her?” Thompson inquired. The man cocked his head at the blonde agent.
“I prefer to exercise with a Bow-Flex,” he replied coolly.
“What about your son?” Thompson followed up.
“He swims, but he didn’t go with her that night either. Selma said she wanted to swim alone.”
“Alone?” Eve asked, “Did that strike you as unusual?”
“Not very,” Sankar replied, “She was a deeply independent woman. She ran her own business because she couldn’t stand having a boss or taking orders. She did a lot of her exercise alone, not just swimming but running, biking, cross-fit, whatever struck her fancy.”
“Was your wife regularly in the practice of swimming after hours at the athletic club?” Eve asked.
“Yes, but only recently,” Sankar said.
“How recently?”
“A month, maybe two,” Sankar answered after a moment’s thought. “Our Arijit has been swimming for the Lion’s Hill competitive swim team for several years, but recently Selma told me that she’d worked out some kind of arrangement with the club so that she could have the pool to herself for an hour or so around midnight to work out.”
"Do you know who she might have worked that arrangement out with?" Eve asked. Sankar glanced around the neighborhood uncomfortably as if to ensure that nobody was eavesdropping, then turned and held out his arm towards the open door.
“Why don’t you come inside and sit down,” he offered, adding under his breath, “I don’t need to air this all out on the front lawn. Too many of the neighbors prefer spying over basic cable.”
“Of course, thank you,” Eve said, ducking through the doorway. As she entered the house, the classical music continued to swell. Sankar Vishni shut the door and walked quickly past the agents, pausing briefly in the living room, where Eve saw a tall, lean boy no more than seventeen seated at a baby grand piano.
The boy's hands were moving, slowly yet powerfully, across the keys of the piano, coaxing heart-wrenching chords and melancholic melodies from the strings of the instrument. For a moment, all the adults watched in serene awe of the boy's musical sorrow.
“Arijit, hold on a moment,” the man called out at last, causing the boy to stiffen up and whirl around. His large, dark eyes flickered from the faces and outfits of the newcomers to his father.
“What’s going on?” the boy asked.
“These people are from the FBI. They have a few more questions about Amma. I’m going to speak with them in the kitchen. Why don’t you go up to your room for a little while?”
“Okay, Appa,” the boy said, getting up from the piano stool and nodding to the agents respectfully before darting silently up the stairs. Eve watched as he disappeared around the corner of the landing of the second floor.
“Nice boy,” Eve said with a friendly smile, which Sankar managed to return.
"Yes, Arijit is a good boy. He's top of his class in high school, and he's in the fastest heat for both butterfly and breaststroke for the swim team. He's been accepted into Brown University this coming fall, with scholarships for both music and swimming. We're – that is, I'm very proud of him. I'm very worried about what losing his mother at a time like this will do to him."
"It's not easy to lose a parent at any time," Eve agreed sympathetically as Sankar ushered them into the kitchen and bade them sit down at a small wooden table. A wicker basket of fruit with a sympathy card tied to the handle sat untouched in the cellophane in the center of a circular table
“Can I get you anything?” Sankar asked, moving somewhat anxiously around the kitchen and looking as if he didn’t quite know what to do with his hands. “Coffee? Tea? Water?”
"Coffee would be great if it isn't too much trouble," Thompson said.
Sankar picked up a coffee pot from the warmer beside the microwave, still about half full, and fetched down two mugs from the cupboard. He poured coffee for the agents and brought out cream and sugar, which he left on the table. The agents thanked him, and Thomson added cream to her mug as he returned the pot to the warmer. Eve sipped her coffee black.
“Mr. Vishni,” she said, looking up as the man returned to join the agents at the table. “We were starting to discuss the arrangement your wife had with the Lion’s Hill Athletic Club – could you illuminate us on that at all?”
“I wish I could,” the man said, “She didn’t tell me much about it herself, just that she’d worked something out some kind of deal with the athletic club. When I asked for more details, she just told me that she was too tired for a long explanation and that I had nothing to worry about. I guess hindsight makes fools of us all.”
Clearing her throat discreetly, Eve leaned forward on her elbows, tenting her fingers over the coffee mug.
“Is it all possible that Selma was going to meet up with somebody at the pool?” she asked delicately, “Perhaps a swimming partner or a friend? Somebody that she didn’t want to mention to you or your son?”
Sankar eyed the agents suspiciously.
“What are you insinuating?” he asked flatly.
“Mr. Vishni,” Eve said in an empathetic tone, subtly changing her tack without altering her empathetic inflection, “Are you aware that your wife was taking Xanax the night she died?”
“Not specifically,” he replied, his remaining pinned on Eve’s, “I know that she took Xanax sometimes. It was prescribed to treat her anxiety. Was she abusing it?”
“We believe so, unfortunately,” Eve replied gravely, “Her ‘prescription’ was phony, and she was buying it regularly from a dealer at the athletic club.”
"At Lion's Hill?" the man shouted, springing to his feet with the passion of his outrage, "Unbelievable! I'm going to throw that club into the ground! Just wait until I get my hands on that Harding!"
The agents paused, looking first at each other, then back at Sankar. The bearded man seemed to have heard the way his words sounded after they came out of his mouth because he sat back down quickly and eyed the agents with a somewhat embarrassed expression.
“I don’t mean that literally, of course,” he said, “But somebody has to be held responsible for what happened to my Selma. All those late-night swims…”
“Who is Harding?” Eve asked. Sankar chewed his lower lip as if he didn’t want to answer right away, then shook his head.
“He’s the head coach of my son’s swim team and kind of a bigshot on the club’s board of directors,” the man replied at last.
“A man of wealth and status?” Thompson asked, chiming in on Eve’s line of question. Sankar frowned.
"Selma seemed to think so," he grumbled, "but I never saw what was so great about him. What, just because he coaches a swim team for prep schoolers in his spare time, that makes him a saint? No, no. All that tells me is that he doesn't have enough to keep him busy while the rest of us are at work."
“Maybe he does,” Eve said, “If he’s in a position to let Selma use the pool after hours, maybe he knew something about the drug purchases too.”
"Mr. Vishni, do you know where we could find this, Mr. Harding?" Thompson asked.
"I sure do," Sankar nodded vehemently, getting up from the table and finding a notepad on the kitchen counter. He picked up a pen and scribbled down the address. "That prick never lost an opportunity to show off his big fancy trust-fund house. He hosted swim team dinners there all the time."
“Thank you, Mr. Vishni,” Eve said, “You’ve been very helpful.”
"Glad to help," he muttered absently, adding half to himself, "I swear if I find out that walking sunscreen commercial laid a hand on my wife…" Sankar said, shaking his head and wisely leaving the threat unfinished.
“Do you think we should be worried about Mr. Vishni going after this Harding person?” Thompson asked as they walked down the path and through the white picket gate.
“Nope,” Eve said, briskly crossing the street toward the car, “because we’re going to pick him up first, and he’s not going to leave our sight until we’re sure he’s innocent.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Woah,” Eve said, pulling the Ford to a stop in front of a tall, mechanized gate barring the entrance of a long, smoothly paved driveway and peeling the sunglasses from her face.
The house beyond was a sloping, glass-faced new-age megalith, a testament to post-modern architectural design. Cloistered in a manicured paradise of lawns, trees, and blooming floral shrubs, the house looked like an enormous glass teardrop jutting to point in the sky. The peak of the spire appeared to be made of gold.
“Some house,” Thompson said, “Vishni wasn’t exaggerating about the trust fund.”
The eyes of both agents fell on the digital keypad, which stood on a post beside the gate. There was, as Eve could see, an intercom built into it.
"What do you say?" Thompson asked, gesturing with her chin in the direction of the intercom, "Do we try our luck and ask to be buzzed in? If he's guilty or skittish, he might make a run for it or simply refuse to open the gate."
“That’s a chance we’ll have to take. It’s better than going over the fence like thieves,” Eve said, eyeing the unfriendly points on the tips of the iron rods of the gate. She pulled the car a little closer to the standing keypad and rolled her window down.
"Here goes nothing," she said and reached out to press the call button on the keypad.
There was a quiet buzzing sound.
For a moment, nothing happened. Eve tried the buzzer again, this time giving the button a gentle double-tap. This time, a voice came on the line.
“Yeah? Who is it?” the voice that came through the little speaker in the box sounded masculine and annoyed.
“Mr. Harding?” Eve inquired.
“That’s right,” the voice replied, somewhat suspiciously, “What do you want?”
"A few minutes of your time, Mr. Harding," Eve replied. She couldn't see a security camera anywhere, but she gave a friendly smile anyway. A house like this was likely to have multiple layers of covert security in place. "We've got a few questions about a friend of yours – Selma Vishni."
There was another pause. The silence was tense. Eve looked over at Thompson, who raised her eyebrows as if to say, "Moment of truth."
Then, with a smooth grinding of unseen mechanisms, the gate began to open. Eve let out her breath with relief.
“Come on in. We’ll talk it over inside,” said the voice over the intercom, no longer sounding annoyed.
"Thanks," Eve replied earnestly and rolled her window back up as she eased the car forward. She nosed up the massive driveway and parked behind a convertible Audi R8, which in turn was parked behind a vintage Lamborghini Countach. The spiral driveway made it impossible to block the cars in.
“He’s certainly got expensive taste,” Thompson commented as she undid her seatbelt and sprung the passenger door open.
“Gawdy and pretentious, in my opinion,” Eve replied.
“The house or the cars?”
“Yes.”
The intricately etched glass door of the house opened as the agents started to walk up the front steps. They found themselves looking at a well-built man in his late thirties. He was roughly 5'8", Eve estimated, broad-shouldered and lean, with a stubble growing back on his shaved head in a horseshoe pattern of baldness. His skin was tan and smooth as if he spent many hours engaged in outdoor leisure, as opposed to the leathery tan one acquires through hard labor in the sun. He wore expensive sunglasses on top of his head.
