Forty
I can’t believe you think I hired a hit man,” Ava spat with enough contempt to anchor a ship.
She sat with her son Nathan across from me and Jack in an interrogation room at Miami PD. Neither of them was under arrest, but we were interested in getting some straightforward answers she didn’t seem to be volunteering on “neutral territory.” There was something about four cinder block walls and a two-way mirror that could loosen lips as well as seal them. With the Jetts, I was betting on the former.
Nathan was staring at the table; one would think it was as entertaining as his cell phone that we’d asked him to put away.
“Your bank records will tell us what we need to know,” I said, completely bluffing as we didn’t have enough to subpoena them.
“Good. Then let us go,” Ava said coolly.
“You know we can’t do that yet.” I relaxed, sinking back into the chair. “Why all the past-due bills?”
Ava’s cheeks flared red. “Because life sucks!”
Nathan still sat there, his gaze downcast, his mother’s outburst not having any visible impact on him whatsoever. Looking at him again brought my mind back to the cologne he used. He told us it was called Swept Away, and a quick online search revealed it was definitely priced for the teenage market. Beyond his fragrance choice, we had nothing connecting Nathan to Kelter’s murder.
“Nathan, have you always used Swept Away?” I asked.
Ava crossed her arms in a huff. “I really wish you’d leave my son out of this.”
“This being what specifically?” I countered.
I’d had empathy for Ava when I’d first met her. I understood why she thought of her husband as murdered. I sort of got her. But if she was innocent of anything regarding Kelter’s disappearance, I was having a hard time understanding why she was being difficult. Generally, the guilty become defensive while the innocent keep their cools. Ava Jett definitely was withholding something. We just needed to figure out whether it had to do with Kelter or not. Maybe she was even keeping a secret for her son.
She glared at me. “You really think I killed that woman? Or that my son did?”
“We never said she was dead,” I told her again. We’d been through this, first at her house, and since here in this room, and were still playing that game.
“It was a logical conclusion, the way the two of you came at me. You’ve checked my alibis?”
“For Sunday.” I leaned forward across the table and mustered a menacing look to level on Nathan. “We’ll need his—and yours—for last night, too.”
“I swear to you,” Ava pleaded.
“If you weren’t involved, then it should be easy. Tell us where you were,” I said.
Ava’s chin quivered, and a tear fell down her cheek. “I work at Quincy’s Diner until ten on Mondays, so I did that, then went home to bed.” She turned to her son.
“I was hanging out in my room from the time I got home from school at about three.”
“Can anyone verify that?” I asked.
“Seriously?” Ava said with derision. She was like a Chihuahua yapping at a bullmastiff—all bark, no bite. “My son wouldn’t harm anyone.”
I sat back, studying mother and son. Desperation was clear in her eyes. Nathan shifted in his chair as if anxious to leave. Was it due to discomfort and guilt? I noticed that Ava hadn’t testified to being home with her son later in the evening.
“Nathan?” I pressed.
“I don’t think so,” Nathan mumbled. He was a different guy in this room than he’d been at home with his mother. The attitude and brash edge were gone.
I was starting to think he’d just had the bad luck of wearing the cologne used on the decapitated head. If I was really convinced that Nathan was guilty, I would push him harder and make him crack. That had to be my next step, just to find out for sure. I glanced at Ava, then back at Nathan. She was hiding something. Maybe if I summoned the instincts of the mother bear…
“If you can’t tell us where you really were, we’ll need to hold you,” I threatened Nathan.
“I told you I was at home.” Nathan glanced at his mother, but Ava said nothing and was avoiding eye contact. So much for momma bear stepping in. She must have been finished lying.
I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t think you were.”
“Maybe our neighbors saw me come home?” Nathan sounded desperate.
“Are you friends with your neighbors?” I noticed he didn’t refer to any by name so I figured I knew what his answer would be, but his response would help me break him.
Nathan gulped. “No.”
“But you think they have been paying close enough attention to you to know when you came home?” I served back and winced. “Not sure I buy that, either. Unfortunately, we need more than what you’re—”
“Mom,” Nathan burst out, panic gripping his features as he turned to Ava, “say something.”
“Just leave him alone,” Ava snarled. “He doesn’t know anything.”
I withheld the smile I so badly wanted to show. “Are you ready to talk, then?”
“Yes,” she hissed. “I recognized one of those men you showed me. I lied about it.”
“Seems you have an issue with telling the truth,” Jack interjected. Apparently, he was assuming the strong, mostly silent role for this interview.
I slapped the printouts of the men down on the table. When the one of the unsub looked up at Ava, she sucked in air.
I looked at Nathan. “Do you know him?”
“I’ve never seen him,” Nathan mumbled and went back to staring at the table.
Ava blinked, tears wetting her lashes.
“Who is he?” I demanded, and it had her flinching.
“I might have seen him around. I don’t know where.”
“Really? That’s how you’re going to play this.” I moved to get up. “We’ll have no choice but to take Nathan into—”
“No!” she cried out. “Stop.”
“Sure,” Jack said coolly. “We have all night to wait for your memory to come back.”
I snuck in a glance at my watch and realized we’d already been talking with them for a few hours. It was going on five thirty in the evening.
“I don’t want any trouble.” Her chin trembled subtly as if she was about to cry.
“Seems to me you already have that,” Jack replied.
“A worse kind of trouble.” Her gaze darted to the photo.
I put my hand on the corner of the printout. “You’re afraid of him?”
Ava nodded.
“How do you know him?” I asked, projecting a slightly calmer demeanor than a moment ago.
“I’ve seen him at the supermarket before.”
“And you’re afraid of him,” I scoffed. “Why?”
“You’re showing me his picture for one! The damn FBI! He must have done something wrong—horrible even.” She flailed her arms emphatically.
Neither Jack nor I responded.
Ava’s face became serious. “What did he do?”
“We can’t tell you that,” Jack deadpanned.
Ava looked at me. “I don’t know him from seeing him in a supermarket,” she confessed.
“Why doesn’t that surprise me,” I replied drily.
She rolled her eyes. “It’s not like I know his name or anything.”
“Tell us what you do know.” I was running out of patience—and fast. I wasn’t a huge fan of liars, and yes, I realized I was in the wrong industry as being lied to was par for the course.
“He gave us money,” Ava said. “You said you already knew that, though. At the house.”
Nathan looked over at his mom. Jack remained still. I leaned forward. The woman at the church had said the money had been routed through the church’s account to the Jetts and donated anonymously. We thought Ava may have seen him at her husband’s funeral, but she was making it sound like—
“Did he give you money directly?” I asked.
“Uh-huh.” Ava wrung the hem of her T-shirt.
“How much and when?” I asked.
“You know about the thirty thousand through the church?” Ava paused, and I nodded. She continued. “Well, he came into one of the diners where I work. He ordered a coffee and left a hundred-dollar tip.”
“A hundred dollars?” I don’t know what surprised me more: the amount or the fact that it didn’t include the number three.
“Yeah. I thought he’d made a mistake and went after him.”
“Did you catch up with him?” Jack asked.
“Uh-huh. He told me he’d left the money for me and my son. He didn’t say as much, but I knew then he’d been the one to donate to us through the church.”
So the unsub gave anonymously but then decided to follow up to make sure the Jetts received the money…
Nathan lifted his head. “How did this stranger know about me?” he asked his mother, then turned to me and Jack.
“It’s probably best we don’t get into all of that,” I said. “Is there anything else you can remember about this man that might help us find him? How he spoke? What he smelled like? Any tattoos?”
Ava shook her head. “He smelled nice enough that I remember, but I couldn’t say what he was wearing.”
“Sweet smelling or…?” I prompted.
Ava hitched her shoulders. “Smelled expensive.”
A few seconds of silence passed.
“Oh.” Ava’s eyes widened. “He was wearing one of those keychains that attach to a belt.”
My brows pressed downward as I wasn’t quite sure what she meant.
“You know, they…” Ava put her hands together and drew them apart and repeated the process as if she were stretching an invisible band between them. Then again, I was never good at charades.
“The kind that retract?” Jack asked. “The keys stay in a pocket, for example, and when the person needs them just the keys themselves can be pulled out.”
“Yes, like that, but it had a keycard attached.”
Maybe our unsub worked somewhere he needed to bypass security. “Did you see what it looked like? Any writing or logos on it?”
Ava shook her head. “Just that it was white.”
Jack’s phone rang, and he got up and answered. “Uh-huh. Okay. We’ll be there.” He pocketed his phone and looked at me. “We’ve got to go.”
“What about us? Can we leave now?” Ava asked. “I told you everything I know.”
Jack nodded, and Ava sighed in relief. She patted her son on the back and broke the seemingly hypnotizing effect the table had on him.
Both of them left, and Jack turned to me. “Kelter’s phone just went live.”
Well what do you know? An actual break in the case.