The Heights Read online

  I GRAB A DIET COKE from the vending machine then enter the interview room. I hold the can out in a peace offering to the obviously agitated woman across from me, taking her in now that she seems to be getting under control. “Brought you a drink.” I open the can and slide it to her before taking the seat opposite hers.

  She’s in her late thirties but seems as though she’s lived a hard life. She’s gaunt in the way some drug addicts are, and I briefly consider that she might be on drugs. Opiates, maybe, given the epidemic around here. Could be meth. Or maybe she’s just skinny. Her face doesn’t say addict—she just looks exhausted. Her brown hair, which was perhaps once cut and styled but has grown out, hangs in front of her face, and her roots are graying at the temples. She slouches over the table and extends a hand to grab the drink. Her nails are painted light pink, but the paint is chipped. Overall, she looks as though she used to care about her appearance but stopped relatively recently. “Thanks,” she mumbles before taking a sip.

  “What was that about back there?”

  “What was what about?” she asks in a tired voice. She slumps back in her chair and rolls her eyes.

  “Why’d you lose your shit?”

  “Is he fucking you too? Just tell me. I won’t be mad.” Anders said she was off her meds, but the vibe I’m getting is more resigned than crazy.

  “No. But that makes me wonder who he is fucking. Tell me the story.”

  She sips her Diet Coke. “What story?”

  “How long have you been married?”

  “Too long. I should have left his cheating ass years ago, but here we are.”

  “How long is that, exactly?”

  She squints at me and flips her hair out of her face. “Shit, we’re coming up on twenty-five years. Why am I here? If it’s because of Anders’s black eye, I can explain. That asshole has been cheating on me for too long, and I’m sick of it.” She looks as if she’s trying to come up with a more compelling reason. “That and he... uh... he does stuff that doesn’t sit right with me.”

  “What does that mean?” If we need to hold her, we could probably book her on domestic abuse, but her husband doesn’t seem like the type to cooperate with us long enough to get a warrant for her.

  She sighs as if I’m the stupidest person in the world. “His weird kinky shit. I mean, I knew about it before, but he acted like it was no big deal. At first, I was cool with it—I mean, back when he was faithful to me—but then it got out of hand. What’s the word? It escalated.”

  I haven’t forgotten the black business card that I found in Heather Martin’s office or the bondage tape, and kinky shit makes for good blackmail material. I stay quiet to leave room for her to talk.

  “Look, I know this looks bad. I shouldn’t have hit him in the face. But after I saw the emails, I just lost it.” She sips her Diet Coke as though it’s no big deal that she clocked her husband in the face with a cooler, and she seems to have forgotten that she punched me a couple of times earlier today too.

  I briefly wonder if it was a full-sized cooler or a smaller one. “How long have you known?” I’m shooting in the dark. I still don’t know exactly what we’re talking about, but she seems like she needs room.

  “Can you take this stupid handcuff off of me?” She gestures with her eyes to her left hand, which is cuffed to a ring on the table.

  I stand and slide my keys out of my pocket. “Sure.” I chuckle, but it’s an act. “That can’t be very comfortable.”

  After I uncuff her, she rubs her wrist. “Thanks.” She flexes her fingers, makes a fist, then stretches her hand. “Listen, I don’t want to press charges or anything. I mean, I’m willing to answer your questions, but all of this is some kind of misunderstanding.”

  I sit down again, wondering what the hell she would press charges for. “What is a misunderstanding?”

  “The whole thing. Why you came to talk to him. Why we’re here right now. He didn’t mean for that guy to die. He’s just a stupid fuck.”

  “Winona, I’m confused about what we’re talking about here. Are we talking about you assaulting your husband, you assaulting me, Anders cheating on you, or what you may have done to a woman he was sleeping with?”

  “Wait—what? I didn’t do anything to any woman. It’s not her fault he’s how he is. If she gets into that stuff, that’s up to her.”

  “How is he, exactly? Say more about that. If you can show me that what you did was self-defense, we should be able to get this cleared up pretty quickly,” I lie.

  She sighs again, and the exhale sounds almost like a growl. “I can’t believe he called the police for something that happened three days ago.”

  I don’t tell her that he didn’t call the police or point out that it would be very strange indeed for him to do so only to run from us.

  “Anyway, I found the emails. He and some rich bitch were screwing. He said in the emails that he had pictures and was going to share them with her husband or some shit. He was arranging meeting times. And it wouldn’t be the first time. He promised after last time that he was done going to that club, done cheating on me. We were trying to get pregnant—in fact, I might be pregnant right now. I don’t know. I’m probably too old by now.”

  I don’t fill the ensuing silence. I watch her, trying to gauge whether she’s going to dish or if she’s another dead end.

  “Okay, here’s the deal.” She sits up straighter. “We’ve been together a long time. Since his senior year of high school. It wasn’t supposed to end up this way. I ended up getting fired from my job because of that stupid lawsuit. And I feel bad for that guy’s family, I really do. But Anders didn’t do it intentionally. He just sucks. That’s it. He sucks.”

  “What club?” I ask.

  “There’ve been a couple. I don’t even know.”

  I nod. A secret club? “Do you remember the names of the clubs?”

  “No. I never knew them.” She twirls her hair. “Wait. I do remember one thing. I found a weird black business card once. It only had a phone number on it.”

  I nod and glance at the mirror. “Tell me more about the emails. Who was he corresponding with?”

  “Some woman named Heather. He’s into bondage and shit, but I’m not, so he has to get his kicks elsewhere. He used to belong to some other gross club, but he told me he was done with that. We were going to try to have a baby and start over. I was so stupid to believe him.” She runs a hand through her lank hair.

  “I used to have a really good job. I was a physician’s assistant at MetroHealth. But then I got fired. HR said it was for being late too many times, but I know it was because of the lawsuit. So now we’re just fucked, because who wants to have their car restored by a guy who doesn’t reconnect the goddamn brake lines? No one, that’s who. We lost our medical benefits, everything. I have no idea what I’m gonna do.”

  She looks completely dejected, and I almost feel bad for her. “Do you remember anything about the meeting times or what the emails said?”

  “I have a few saved on my phone. I’ll show them to you if you get it for me.”

  “Okay, let’s see what we can do about that. Does he ever hurt you?”

  “Physically? No. After the last time, I told him I was done with that shit.”

  “Do you mean bondage, that kind of thing?”

  “Yeah. He’s into that stuff. He gets his kicks from tying women up and making them beg.”

  “But he doesn’t hit you?”

  “No.”

  “Does he ever have sex with you without your consent?”

  “No. He just sticks his dick in other women, and I get angry. It hasn’t been easy, you know. The whole thing is just stupid. I don’t know why I haven’t divorced him yet.”

  I’m starting to get a clearer picture of their relationship and the kind of man Anders Andersen is. “What else can you tell me about the emails? Do you have any sense of who Heather is?”

  “Some rich bitch. I know he was trying to blackmail her, but it was pr
obably just one of his stupid sex games. My guess is that he got photos of her somehow and was trying to get money from her to pay off the lawsuit. As it is, he’s gonna have to sell the business, and then what? Shit. I need to get a new job.”

  “Do you have the emails anywhere other than your phone? Maybe printed out or saved on a computer?”

  “They’re all on his laptop in the shop. Like I said, I took a couple of screen shots and saved them on my phone.”

  I glance at the mirror and assume that Goran will get her phone—and a search warrant for Andersen Restoration.

  She sips her Diet Coke. “Look, I know what this looks like, and I’m sorry I swung at you back there. It’s embarrassing how mad he makes me. Then he tries to make me think I’m crazy. But I’m not crazy. I’m just more pissed off than anyone should ever be for reasons that go way beyond my stupid husband.”

  I nod. “I get that. We just have to see if he wants to press charges because of the black eye. He says you hit him with a cooler.”

  She laughs. “Are you kidding? He wouldn’t dare. I know too much about him. He’s in deep shit.”

  “What kind of deep shit?”

  “You know, this and that.”

  “No, I don’t know. What kind of deep shit, exactly?”

  She sighs dramatically. “Like with the lawsuit, no business, hanging out with lowlifes, and trying to get money any way he can. I’m pretty sure he lost our last five hundred bucks gambling on—get this—the fucking Browns.”

  “Ouch. Can you verify your whereabouts on Saturday night, into Sunday morning?”

  “What, just this past weekend? Yeah, I was at an early Halloween party at my sister’s. Her number is in my phone. I ended up just staying at her house because I couldn’t stand the sight of that fucker—and because he was supposed to pick me up but never showed. It was the day after I found the emails.”

  So he doesn’t have an alibi after all. “You found the emails last Friday, then?”

  “Yup. I was in the shop doing the books when a notification came up from her. It said that he was messing with the wrong person and to leave her alone or she would have Mistress Natalia take care of him.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I marked it as unread so he wouldn’t know I saw it. I wanted to see what he would do if I called him out. I confronted him that night. The answer? He lied. Like usual.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That it was someone with the wrong email address and he was just fucking around by replying.”

  “How did he respond?”

  “He made up some story about Mistress Natalia not wanting to be involved in it, this and that. I don’t remember, exactly.”

  “Is that the kind of thing he would do? Mess with someone who sent a message to the wrong email address?”

  She shakes her head. “Not really. I mean, I’ve never seen him do anything like that.”

  “How did he act when you confronted him about the emails?”

  “He told me to mind my own business and said that what I don’t know won’t hurt me. I got, like, really, really angry... That’s when I hit him with the cooler.”

  “Okay. Can you confirm for me that you were not with your husband on Saturday night or Sunday morning?”

  “No, I just told you. I was at Tiffany’s—she’s my sister—Halloween party. We were with, like, twenty other people. They can tell you. Is that when that woman died? Oh my God—did he kill her? He said he was going to hang out with Derek.” She rolls her eyes. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if he did something really fucking stupid, especially since he never showed to pick me up and didn’t answer his phone the thirty times I called. I assumed he was fucking around on me, but if he was killing someone, that’s a whole different story.”

  “We’re still investigating,” I reply. “What do you know about your husband’s past?”

  “Uh... He was in the Marines.” She smiles. “He was an explosives expert. I’ve always thought that was cool. His parents died. He has a younger sister who lives in Colorado, but she quit talking to us a while ago.” She squeezes the bridge of her nose and inhales. “We graduated from Rhodes—go Rams—three years apart. He joined the service, and I hung out here. When he got out, we got married. He opened the business, and the rest is history.” She frowns again. “That fucking asshole. This isn’t how things were supposed to go.”

  “Did you know him when he was younger? Say, thirteen or fourteen?”

  She shakes her head. “We moved here right before my freshman year. I met him when he was seventeen and I was fifteen.”

  I push my chair back and stand. “Can I get you anything else? Do you mind sitting tight for a few minutes?”

  “I’m good, but thanks. Can someone bring me my phone?”

  I smile. “Sure. Thanks, Winona. I’ll be back in a few. Oh, one more thing. Who’s Derek?”

  “Derek Struthers.” She knits her eyebrows together. “Is Anders in, like, real trouble? I mean, I hate all of them, but I don’t want to see them get in trouble.”

  “What else can you tell me about Derek?”

  “He’s in construction. He’s a dick.”

  I let the door close then lean against the wall.

  “What the fuck?” I ask Goran. “Wow.”

  “Her phone is locked, but I say you take it in and have her show you the emails and the map of where the club is.” He grins. “We might just have the asshole cornered.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Fishner comes tapping down the hallway, and I know before she opens her mouth that she wants to detain Anders Andersen until we can get more evidence to book him for the murder. She looks me up and down, probably worried that I’m going to come unglued or something, even though I haven’t done that in a while. “Good news for your pal Paul Greenwade. The cemetery has cameras on the offices and living quarters, and we’ve got him entering his place at ten p.m. and staying there until the next morning.”

  Relief hits hard enough to surprise me. “Who talked to him?” I can’t help hoping they didn’t scare him. There’s no way in hell he was involved in this.

  “Roberts.”

  I roll my eyes.

  “We’re going to hold Andersen on assaulting you,” Fishner says, “so I need to take your statement.”

  “But—”

  “Becker is on her way. If we need to indict him, we will. We need to send a message.”

  “At least let me verify Winona’s alibi so that we can cut her loose.” She doesn’t strike me as being anything but sad and dejected, and she can do that at home.

  “I’m on it,” Goran says. “Tiffany, right?”

  I grit my teeth. “Okay, then I need to take her phone in to her so that we can get these emails. If we’re detaining Andersen, you obviously want us to gather evidence on our vic and her associations with him. Am I right?”

  “Boyle.”

  “Hear me out.” I look at my watch. “We can only hold him for a few more hours. That gives us enough time for Goran and me to run down a couple of leads, look into the black business card, track down Derek Struthers, and—”

  “We can’t hold him that long without charging him with something. Not given what’s happening with the police and his allegations that one of ours broke his fingers.”

  “I’ll ask Winona about that when I go back in.”

  She hands me the cell phone. “Fine. But I’m getting your statement when Becker gets here. And we have to let him call his attorney.”

  Fucking Jeff O’Connor. “Let’s hope whatever is on here is enough for a search warrant for the house and garage,” I mutter as I push past her.

  As I enter the interview room, Winona twists the tab off her Diet Coke, drops it in the can, and rattles it around.

  “I got your phone,” I say as I take my seat. “Will you show me the emails?”

  She holds out her hand. “Yeah, sure. Whatever. Can I go soon?”

  “We just need to verify your alibi with
Tiffany, and you’ll be out of here. Will you say her number out loud, please?” I pull out my notebook and pen.

  She recites the number then taps around on her phone. “Here. They’re all in the photos, because I took screen shots, like I said.”

  I take the phone from her. The emails, a back-and-forth between Andersen and Martin, confirm my suspicion that he was attempting to blackmail her. One is especially compelling: Give me what I want, or I release the photos of you and E.M. to your whole law firm. Think Sellers will like that? I doubt it. You’ll be giving up your corner office. Or you can do what I say. It makes me wonder if her husband is involved with the bondage scene, too, which could be damaging to his burgeoning political career.

  Another email contains photos of someone who looks very much like Heather Martin, but she’s naked and in a compromising position, bound to some kind of table. A man built like Andersen and wearing a black latex suit stands over her, holding a cat-o’-nine-tails. It says the same thing, that Andersen is going to share the photo if Martin doesn’t cough up some cash. He reminds her that he’s “only asking for fifty thousand.”

  “Winona, I need your permission to copy these photos.”

  “That’s fine. Whatever. Just get me the hell out of here soon.”

  Fishner opens the door and hands me a consent form. In a whisper, she requests my presence in the hallway once I have Winona’s signed permission to copy the contents of her phone.

  I slide the form across the table and hand her a pen. She scrawls a signature at the bottom without reading the form. “Is that it? Can I go now?” She shoves everything my way.

  “Be right back. I do need to take this with me, though,” I say of the phone.

  She nods. “Can I get another Diet Coke, then?”

  “Sure.” I smile as I pull the door open. “One more question,” I say from the doorway. “Did Anders ever have broken fingers?”

  She laughs. “Yeah, that dumb shit. He dropped a car onto ’em.”

  “He dropped a car onto them?”

  “Yeah, like with a jack. He knows he should use the lift, but he was under a car, using just a fucking tire jack. He’s lucky he didn’t get killed.”