Fletcher drove to the county jail, where Renee was being held without bond. In their complaint, they had successfully argued to the judge that if she could walk into someone's house and kill them, seemingly without motive, she was someone he and Scott Stephens, the city prosecutor, did not want out on the streets. But as he drove, he entertained the idea that she believed she was telling the truth, as ludicrous as it sounded.
Doing so, however, made him feel conflicted. As the lead detective on the Williams case, it was his job to objectively assist the prosecuting attorney in proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Renee was guilty. The evidence was stacked against her. Her grand jury hearing was in two days, and he would aid Scott in arguing that her case should move to trial. But he also knew she was innocent until proven guilty. It wasn't his job to prove she was innocent, though; that was her attorney's job. His job was to ensure both Marlon and his wife received justice.
But for some reason his emotions kept trying to finagle their way into her case. It happened to every detective at some point in their career, he knew, but it wasn't something he'd ever really had to deal with yet. He always approached the cases assigned to him with professional objectivity. He had to. If he didn't—if detectives let their emotions affect their jobs—his feelings could skew his interpretation of the evidence. He might inadvertently read things into the evidence, things that weren't there, or ignore what the evidence was obviously trying to tell him.
"Talk to me, Astute One," Eric said.
Fletcher looked over at Eric and shook his head. Enough with the stupid names. "About what?"
"What're you thinking."
"You don't want to know."
"Why? You thinkin' dirty thoughts about you-know-who?"
"No. I just have this feeling…"
"What feeling?"
"That maybe they're telling the truth."
"You know what it means if you think that, don't you?"
Fletcher looked over at Eric. "What?"
"That you're crazy."
"Why?"
"Listen to yourself. You really think they switched bodies with some fat dude?"
"No, I know," Fletcher said. And he did—he knew it sounded crazy. Deep down he also knew it wasn't true. But he wanted it to be true. They drove in relative silence—interrupted only by Eric clicking away incessantly at his phone—then he said, "I just want to talk to Renee."
"What about her lawyer?" Eric said.
Renee's lawyer, Timothy Davis, was an impediment. They'd sat on opposite sides of the courtroom enough for Fletcher to know that Tim prided himself in making the prosecutor's job as difficult as possible. If he went through Tim to get access to Renee's YIM account, Tim would make them get a warrant, and he'd worked enough cases to know that websites could be notoriously slow in responding to warrants. He also knew that if he had to get a warrant, his chances of finding a motive before the grand jury hearing would go down significantly. "She's not obligated to talk to me," Fletcher said.
"But does she know that?"
"She's been read her rights, hasn't she?"
"Playing hardball. Maybe I should start calling you Billy Beane."
"Billy Beane?"
"Yeah, you know, that guy Brad Pitt played in that baseball movie? He used algorithms or something to win."
"That was Moneyball, you idiot."
"Oh. Wasn't there a movie called Hardball?" Eric said, diving back into his phone.
"Yeah, that was the one with Keanu Reeves where he coached the inner-city kids."
"Oh. What was the name of the guy he played in that one?"
"I don't remember. The moment has passed anyway."
"What moment?" Eric said.
Fletcher pulled into the county jail parking lot. "The moment where your're tossing out a stupid name as if you'd just thought it up might have made it seem like you actually had an ounce of wit and didn't simply waste the city funds paying your salary to scour the internet looking for them."
"Damn. That was harsh."
When Fletcher got out of the car, he remembered he had a missed call and voicemail from Kate, so he clicked the voicemail icon and pushed play.
"Hey, Fletch," Kate said, "I stopped by today and saw the papers were still where I'd left them. Was just wondering if you had a chance to look them over and what you thought. Anyway, I'm sure you're working, so I'll try again later. All right." After a few seconds of silence, she said, "Bye."
His and Eric's footsteps echoed in the cement-walled corridor. He shoved his phone back into his pocket, replaying her message in his mind.
Stopped by. She stopped by? Did she already feel that their home was no longer hers? She had put the house under his name, leaving a Post-It on the papers saying she wanted it to be as simple as possible and figured giving it to him outright would prevent unnecessary fighting.
Papers. How could she be so cavalier about this? Papers? They weren't papers. It was a fucking DECREE OF DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE.
What I thought. What did she think he thought?
"Who was that?" Eric said.
"Kate." Fletcher shook his head as he un-holstered his gun and set it in a lock box. He looked over at Eric, who was doing the same, and said, "You mind waiting out here?"
"No. That's fine."
"Just, I don't want her to be defensive."
"Sure, sure." Eric reclaimed his gun and holstered it. "I have emails to get caught up on, anyways."
"Really?" Fletcher said with a raised eyebrow.
"Fine. This chick from CJ's has been texting me."
Fletcher shook his head. "You should've stuck with 'emails.'"
He knew he was lying to himself when he sat down at the visitor's box. He knew exactly why he wasn't able to keep his emotions under their typical tight reins: Kate. Every time he thought about her his mind went haywire. And while he waited for Renee to take her seat behind the glass facing him, he couldn't help but want her to be innocent. Nicole, too. He'd never felt that way about suspects before. He tried his best to put Kate out of his mind, but the churning in his stomach wouldn't let him forget her completely.
Renee sat on the opposite side of the glass a few minutes later wearing an orange jump suit. She wore no makeup, and her hair was disheveled. Feeling pity for her, Fletcher picked up the phone. Renee lifted hers as well and placed it against her ear.
"Hello, Renee," he said, choosing to forego formalities.
"Hi," she replied.
"Do you remember me? My name is Detective Wise."
She nodded.
The sight of her made the feeling stronger: He wanted her to be innocent. He wanted to believe her.
"I know it's completely within your rights to refuse to talk to me," he began. He clenched his jaw, fighting the temptation to tell her—the last thing he wanted to do was give this obviously distraught girl false hope. "But I wanted to talk to you. Feel free to not answer my question if you don't want to."
"Okay."
"I'm the lead detective on your case. The evidence we have against you is very convincing. One thing we're lacking, though, is motive. I can't for the life of me figure out why you would walk into Mr. Williams' home and… do what you did."
"Because I didn't."
"I—" Fletcher stopped himself. "So far we have found nothing to dispute your claim that you didn't know Marlon Williams."
"I didn't," Renee said. "I'd never seen him before that day."
Fletcher nodded. "Do you know someone by the name of Nicole Henricks?"
Renee's mouth turned downward. "No."
"The name isn't familiar?"
Renee shook her head.
"At all?"
"No."
"You're sure?"
"Yes. Why?"
"Look," he started, feeling the urge to go out onto a limb, "I would get into a lot of trouble if anyone found out I'm telling you this, but I think it is pertinent to finding out exactly what happened." Fletcher took a breath, knowing that if she told Tim he would be in hot water. "Nicole walked into Book World at the mall earlier today and shot someone."
Renee's eyes went wide. "Oh my God."
"She told the exact same story you did."
Renee stared at him, mouth agape.
"The exact same story. She said she went to Connie's for a date, that she somehow ended up in a dark room, that she, uh, wasn't herself, and that the next thing she knew she was standing over a man bleeding from the chest with a gun in her hand."
"But how can—?"
His belief that she was telling the truth evaporated when he'd said it out loud to Eric. The very notion was ludicrous. It had to have somehow stemmed from being distracted by Kate. Instead, he found himself wanting to tell her that the reason they were telling the exact same story was because they were obviously colluding with each other. But he bit his tongue. If he was going to find his motive, he needed her to believe that he was trying to help her. "That is exactly what I want to find out," he said. "But I need your help."
"Sure. How?"
"I was wondering if you would be willing to give me access to your profile on Your Ideal Mate?"
Renee furrowed her brow. "You think that has something to do with it?"
"I'm not sure." He didn't want her to realize that he knew she was working with Nicole, so he held back the Sam Gilkons connection. "But I have this hunch I want to look into, so I thought I'd come ask." He would go through the formal channels if he had to, but he wanted to give her the chance first. That, and he really needed to find the motive before her grand jury hearing.
"Yeah, sure. If you think it'll help."
Fletcher flipped open his notebook and took his pen out of his shirt pocket.
"My username is Den456 and my password is cafebreve19."
Fletcher wrote as she spoke. He held the notebook up to the glass for Renee to see. "Did I get it right?"
Renee looked it over and said, "Yeah."
"Like I said, I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking for"—that was only partially true—"but if I find something, I'll be sure to tell you right away."
Renee nodded. "Sure."
"Thanks again, Renee."
Renee nodded again and hung up the phone.
Well, that was easy. Fletcher watched as she stood up and was led away by the guard. Fortunately, she hadn't put two and two together. If she knew he was aware of the Sam Gilkons connection, she'd probably have made him go through her lawyer.
The whole thing still didn't make sense. For one, they had to have known that any decent detective would figure out the Sam connection. And two, he still didn't understand why they would use such outlandish stories.
Tim was going to be pissed when he found out about Fletcher's visit with Renee, and would most likely try to block his access to the site until he got a warrant. He needed to work fast if he was going to find their motive and prove that the women were working together.