Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Epilogue

Afterword

Frank E. Holmes

Silence Until Death

About the book:

In the wake of the enigmatic death of renowned lawyer Julius Wainwright, Chief Detective Jen Brighton unravels a sinister web of murder. As she delves deeper into the case, another life is abruptly cut short – that of Patrick Sandthorn, a successful real estate agent and Wainwright’s former companion. With mounting evidence, Jen Brighton’s instincts point to more than mere coincidence. The pieces of a long-unsolved crime begin to align, urging her to uncover the chilling truth. In this captivating prelude to the Jen Brighton crime series, she painstakingly assembles the puzzle’s fragments, determined to expose a shocking reality hidden in plain sight.

The Author:

Frank Esser, born in 1974, completed an apprenticeship as an industrial clerk after graduating from high school and has been working in the music industry ever since. He lives near Aachen. His love of crime fiction inspired him to write his first regional crime novel, which was set in the imperial city and published in 2017. In the meantime, he has published other thrillers and crime novels in addition to his Aachen crime series. Recently, he can proudly call himself a member of the Empire publishing family.

Frank E. Holmes

Silence Until Death

Thriller

Detective Jen Brighton, Book 1

Juli 2023 © Empire-Verlag

Empire-Verlag OG, Lofer 416, 5090 Lofer

Austria

www.empire-verlag.at

First published 2023

001

The moral rights of the author, illustrator and copyright holders has been asserted

Translated: Literary Queens Novel Translation

Barkhausenweg 11

22339 Hamburg

Germany

Cover: Chris Gilcher

https://buchcoverdesign.de/

All rights reserved. The work may be reproduced only with the permission of the publisher

Prologue

Tuesday, September 3

Julius Wainwright stared in disbelief at his cell phone. The words of the senior physician from Harborview Medical Center were still echoing in his ears. Panic seized him. He stormed past his secretary, shouted at her to cancel all further appointments for the day, and frantically jumped into the elevator, impatiently slamming the parking garage button as the elevator doors closed. As soon as the elevator hit the ground, he pushed through the doors and threw himself into his brand new Porsche 911. Julius quickly tried to get the clinic’s address entered into his navigation while he flew out of the parking garage and sped out of the underground structure.

With screeching tires, the car peeled away from his renowned law firm, Wainwright and Partners. The clock on the dashboard showed 2:27. Julius, a junior partner in his law firm, turned onto Broadway Street, following the navigation instructions.

“Jesus, thirty minutes!” he cursed, hitting the steering wheel. What if he didn’t make it in time? He wasn’t really much of a religious man, yet he sent a small prayer to heaven, hoping God would spare Valerie and Larissa’s lives. He could barely concentrate on the road in front of him. Hopefully they were in good hands and not being treated by some idiot, he thought. He was swiftly jolted out of his thoughts as he slammed on his brakes. In front of him was a huge traffic jam, blocking all lanes of Broadway. This was all he needed!

Why hadn’t the stupid navigation system warned him? Annoyed, he decided to take a detour. Any way has to be faster than this mess, he thought. Waiting briefly until it was clear, Julius wrenched the steering wheel, turned around and sped back along Broadway in the direction of Madison Street.

Once on Madison Street, he stepped on the gas and accelerated to over 60 miles per hour. Lucky for him, there weren’t too many people on the downtown streets of Seattle this time of day. The only car he kept seeing was an Audi which had followed him from the earlier traffic jam.

His thoughts were racing. Why had Valerie and Larissa been admitted to Harborview in the first place? His daughter should have been at school right now. Garfield Elementary School was at the other end of town! What the hell was going on?

Suddenly a loud bang brought him back down to Earth. The steering wheel vibrated and the Porsche no longer responded to Wainwright’s movements. He desperately pressed the brakes as he felt the car drifting out of his lane. Instead of slowing down, the Porsche shot into the oncoming lane, breaking away into Cal Anderson Park. Before he knew what was happening to him, the car overturned and the lawyer was dangling upside down, held in place only by the seat belt. Pain shot through his body and he knew several of his ribs had broken from the impact. At the same time, his airbag deployed. Then came a crack, and a wave of pain, as Wainwright’s nose broke. The car rolled over several times until it crashed into a pine tree with a loud bang.

In excruciating pain, Wainwright tried to figure out what had just happened.

I have to get out of here as quickly as possible, he thought, as panic set in. He knew that his stupid seat belt had to come undone...But, crap! It wasn’t working. Desperately, he pressed the buckle again and again, but it wouldn’t budge. He feverishly searched for a solution to free himself. Another thought plagued his mind, as inappropriate as it was, he couldn’t help but think: Why did the same tragic accident happen to him as Valerie and Larissa? No way this was just a coincidence!

The smell of leaking gasoline hit his nose and he could hear the gas pouring from the car.

“Damn it, why isn’t anyone coming?” cursed Wainwright. He knew there was no way he was going to get out of there without assistance. He was hanging upside down in the driver’s seat. Blood was rushing to his head making it hard to even think straight.

“Holy shit!” he muttered.

Tears of despair streamed down his face. The smell of gasoline became stronger and stronger, permeating the air around him.

Then, suddenly, a noise. Had someone slammed a car door?

As loud as he could, Wainwright screamed for help until he coughed and the pain in his ribs stopped him.

Finally, footsteps. Someone was approaching.

“Hello, is anyone there? Please...help me, I can’t get out... the seat belt...” he gasped. Looking to his left, only a jagged edge of glass remained from the side window, he glimpsed a person wearing sneakers and a pair of jeans. Hope sprouted in him.

“Hello,” he tried again. “Please...help me!” Desperation made his voice sound unnaturally shrill. Who was the stranger, and why wasn’t he answering? And—what panicked him further—why the hell didn’t he help him?

In a moment of quiet, he heard a soft clicking sound that he could not place. No doubt, thought Wainwright, he had heard this sound many times before. Then he saw an object fall to the ground. A lighter. With a lit flame. Now he knew why the sound he had just heard was familiar.

The Audi. The car must have been following him since he left the parking garage.

Valerie.

Larissa.

What would happen to them?

But those thoughts were dispelled by naked fear as the flame ignited the leaking gasoline and turned the driver’s compartment into a blazing inferno.

Chapter 1

Jen Brighton was just about to wrap up for the day when her cell phone rang. She groaned inwardly–-seeing the number on the display, she knew it wasn’t going to be good news. Jen had been in charge of the Seattle Homicide unit for the last two years after transferring up from Portland. Her first case had been particularly gruesome, with a serial killer who had kidnapped four women and murdered them in a heinous way. Her team had solved the case under Jen’s relentless persistence and leadership. Persistence that paid off in work, but had come from a lifetime of navigating her strict father’s excessive expectations, leaving them with a strained relationship. That case had concluded in a daring solo attempt where she had succeeded in overpowering the perpetrator, which had earned her a lot of recognition among her colleagues. A friendly relationship had even developed between her and two male officers, Steven Hemphill and Henry Kruger. Since her divorce a few years ago, she had sworn off men romantically, but she had to admit to herself that she did still enjoy a little flirting now and then. For her, a life in senior police service was incompatible with a family and the resulting obligations.

She was aware that she had a certain appeal to men, and she knew how to use her feminine beauty to her advantage. With cat-green eyes, soft features, an athletic figure, and a pitch-black, curly mane, she was gorgeous. Thanks to some generous genetics, she was also the spitting image of her mom. When her mom died seven months ago from breast cancer at only sixty-five years old, it was devastating for Jen. On the whole, Jen was happy with her appearance, except that her nose was a little too big and she still had to get used to the first crow’s feet around her eyes.

Her phone was still ringing in her hand. The caller threatening to disrupt her plans for the evening was none other than her boss, Captain Jesse Underwood.

“Hello, Jesse,” she greeted him in a friendly manner.

“Hi, Jen—I hope you don’t have plans for the evening yet.”

“I knew it,” she sighed. “When I saw your name, I knew it would be a mistake to answer. What’s up?” she asked coolly.

“A traffic fatality in Capitol Hill, just off Broadway...”

“Probably more of a case for the traffic police, right?”

“Officers on the ground are convinced that something is wrong. There are no skid marks. The occupant lost control of his Porsche in a straight line for no apparent reason before it rolled over and caught fire. It looks like someone had a hand in setting the fire.”

“In what way?”

“A lighter was found next to the sports car. The cops on the scene are confident it caused the fire.”

“Surely that could just as easily have been thrown out of the car in the accident, right? Why do you think there’s more to it?”

“Because the victim is not just anyone.”

“Now I’m getting curious. Who was the driver?”

“Best guess we have is Julius Wainwright. Checking the license plate number showed that it was his brand new Porsche. And since Wainwright left the parking garage of his law firm at about 2:30 in the afternoon in this very car, it stands to reason that he is the dead man.”

Jen whistled once through her teeth. “The star criminal defense lawyer? Wow, that’s a big one.”

“And old Wainwright is already putting on the pressure. I don’t know how he found out about his son’s death so quickly, but Chief Struckmeyer just called me and made it very clear that we should take care of the matter. There is already a lot of activity at the scene of the accident and we need this wrapped up quickly, which is why I am calling you: I need my best woman there.”

“I also happen to be the only woman on your team. But will do. I’ll postpone my date with my glass of wine and go there. Broadway, right?”

“Correct. Get back to me when you figure something out.”

“Of course, boss,” Jen replied, ending the call.

Finding her leather jacket thrown over the back of her chair, where it always was, she hurried over to her subordinates’ office. She hoped they were still there because she didn’t want to show up at the accident scene alone.

Fortunately, both men were sitting at their desks. While Kruger was engrossed in a file, Hemphill was typing up his daily reports.

“Guys, I hate to bother you, but we have work to do. You get to accompany your boss to a potential crime scene in Capitol Hill.”

“Now?” groaned Hemphill, moving his toothpick from the right to the left corner of his mouth. Ever since he stopped smoking, he always had a toothpick in his mouth. “I was about to call it a day.”

“Wouldn’t expect any other response from you, you old grump,” said Jen, with a grin.

Steven Hemphill, a giant with a bald head and a full beard, always had something to grumble about, which is why she had given him this affectionate nickname. Born in Bellingham, he was only a year older than she was and had moved to Seattle twenty years ago for love. In the meantime, he had divorced and was living the single life. Thanks to his height, muscular upper arms with impressive tattoos, and deep voice, he was an imposing figure. Jen was always happy to know that he was close at hand in dicey situations. From her point of view, he had only two faults: he was prone to impulsive reactions, and he tried his luck too often at gambling on his time off, which always left him short of cash.

“You’ll have to postpone your closing time, I’m afraid. I’ll have to do the same. It seems that a prominent member of our community, Julius Wainwright, had a fatal accident. Cops on the scene seem to think someone had a hand in his death and we are to take care of the matter. Orders from above.”

“From Underwood?”

“No, from the very top. The police chief himself got involved. Probably at the urging of Wainwright Senior.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if someone had killed Wainwright. He’s certainly made himself a lot of enemies in recent years,” Henry Kruger interjected..

The thirty-eight-year-old was a hometown boy—a typical Seattle hippie, who loved to drive his partner crazy with his defense of all things Seattle culture. The father of two was considered the calming influence in the department. He took every opportunity to convince those around him that the natives of beautiful Seattle were anything but aloof, humorless, and stuck-up. His full brown hair was now streaked with the first gray strands, which he always jokingly attributed to his children and his work with Hemphill as his partner. There were quite a few officers at the precinct who said he bore a certain resemblance to Paul Newman, but apart from the steel-blue eyes, he could find no other similarities with the famous actor.

“Before we jump to the conclusion that Wainwright has been murdered, I suggest that we first get an impression of the situation for ourselves,” Jen replied, giving the signal that, all complaining aside, it was time to go.

Chapter 2

When the trio reached the scene of the accident, it was bustling with activity. Jen spotted several fire department emergency vehicles, a hearse and three police cars. The forensics team seemed to have arrived a while ago, which surprised her a little. Had Underwood mentioned that in the phone call?

They were walking toward the caution tape that had been used to cordon off a large area around the accident site when Horrace King, the head of CSI, approached them. The slim man, in his late forties, was wearing a white coverall with a hood, a face mask and gloves. He looked as if he worked for the CDC instead of the police force.

“Hello, Jen,” he greeted the homicide team leader. He nodded at Kruger and Hemphill.

“Hello, Horrace. I see you’re already hard at work.”

“Quite a while now,” he replied. Jen noted the vague answer he gave her, rather than telling her the exact time he had arrived.

“Aside from the lighter found near the wrecked car, are there any findings that point to murder? Underwood mentioned something was there.”

“Yes, there is. We have Stegemann, the arson specialist, from ATF to thank for that. This was no accident, Jen. Someone had a lot of help here.”

“Wait a minute, do you mean the Stegemann?” wondered Jen. What the hell was going on here? Martin Stegemann was the top arson expert in the area. When it came to investigating the cause of fires, he was the premier man to contact.

“Right. Ferdinand Wainwright, the father of the alleged victim, used his influence in all directions as soon as he knew about the accident. He and Stegemann are friends. Martin and I have also known each other for many years. And before you get upset now, the police chief and the public prosecutor approved this, according to Underwood.”

“I can already see that he’s pulling every string to try and get this figured out quickly. We’ll consider ourselves lucky that we’re allowed to take over the case, now.” Hemphill sarcastically added his two cents. Kruger also shook his head in disbelief.

“What exactly did Stegemann find out?” Jen wanted to know.

“Whoever was responsible set fire to the leaking gasoline with a lighter, and the driver was apparently barbecued alive. But that wasn’t all. There are more indications that we’re not dealing with a simple tragic traffic accident here.”

“Does that mean...?” Jen was getting very curious.

“Stegemann suspects that the accident itself was premeditated. There are no skid marks. And it doesn’t look like the driver committed suicide either.”

“Let me guess, Horrace. There’s already solid evidence around the idea that the accident was planned, too.” Jen’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

“I can understand that you feel left out, but Martin has done a good job in the short time he’s been here. His instincts are rarely wrong,” King explained with a smile. “He says there are initial indications that, perhaps due to a small explosion, at least one tire was blown out, causing the driver to lose control of the Porsche.”

“Aha, that’s what Stegemann says,” Jen replied, annoyed. “So if he’s right, we can assume that if someone wanted to play it safe, that the driver wouldn’t survive the accident. Do you believe it was an explosion that caused the accident? There shouldn’t have been much left over from the fire to say that without in depth lab tests.”

“Of course. We all know that it will take further testing of the wreck to get any substantiated evidence...Look over there.” King pointed to a spot about a hundred yards away, where a forensics analyst was apparently taking samples of the asphalt. “That’s where we found evidence that explosives had been detonated here recently. Certainly only an extremely small amount. Martin put his contacts to work and immediately requested a sniffer dog, who located the spot a few minutes ago. However, we do not have the means here to be able to say anything more precise about it. Most likely a plastic explosive.”

“Stegemann wouldn’t happen to be able to present us with a perpetrator already, would he?” Slowly, but surely, Jen’s patience wore thin. “I can’t believe we’ve only been called in now, while the ATF guy has been allowed to run the show! Do we know yet when all this happened?”

“Probably around three o’clock. The call was received by the police shortly after that.”

“So more than three hours ago.” Jen looked at her wristwatch, shaking her head. “Now I understand why you were beating around the bush just now when I asked how long you’d been here. When Underwood called me, I actually thought that he, himself, had only just been informed. But, it is what it is. It’s quite the elaborate procedure, don’t you think?”

“I would say it’s definitely out of the ordinary.”

“Anyway. We seem to be dealing with a murder case. And the fact that Wainwright is—was—quite prominent, and his father has already raised the alarm with the police chief, should mean a lot of overtime for us in the next few days. Do you know if the witness who reported the incident is still on the scene?”

“He was gone by the time officers arrived on the scene.”

“Then we should find out who called 911. Possibly the perpetrator himself,” Jen speculated. “Henry, you do that, please. Steven, can you take a look at the wreckage of the accident? In the meantime, I’ll talk to Stegemann. Where can I find him?”

“Over there.” King pointed to a man who was talking animatedly with one of the firefighters and gesturing in the air with his arms raised. Stegemann was about Jen’s height, but didn’t appear to be in the best physical shape, as his beet red face revealed. He was grossly overweight and was guaranteed to be struggling with high blood pressure. On his shirt, large sweat stains stood out in the armpit area.

“Would be nice if you didn’t eat him alive right away. He may have stepped outside his authority, but he was also just acting on orders.”

“Thank you, Horrace,” Jen replied without responding to King’s request. Then she headed straight for the ATF investigator. Her two officers also got to work immediately. Kruger pulled out his cell phone, and Hemphill passed the caution tape barrier and headed toward the burned out car wreck.

Just before Jen reached the ATF officer, she heard him give the fire department’s incident commander the okay to leave.

“Hello, Mr. Stegemann. Jen Brighton, Seattle Homicide.”

“Hello, Ms. Brighton. Nice to meet you in person. Your reputation precedes you. Especially since that serial killer story back in the day.”

“Thank you for the compliment. Officer King told me that you found clear evidence that the fire was not a result of the accident but was deliberately set. So, we are dealing with a definite murder.”

“The undertone suggests to me that wasn’t a question, but a statement.” Stegemann smiled.

Contrary to expectations, the ATF man was sympathetic to Jen right away. Thanks to his winning manner, her anger quickly subsided.

“Basically, you nailed it perfectly,” he continued. “The fire was definitely started intentionally. It spread from outside the vehicle to the inside, toward the Porsche. Because we know that, I can rule out almost one hundred percent that the gasoline ignited itself. If that had been the case, the fire would have had to ignite in the engine compartment of the vehicle due to escaping gasoline. In any case, it’s a misconception that leaking fuel automatically ignites after an accident if the tank is damaged. Statistically, the probability is less than one percent. Not to mention exploding cars are absolutely a myth created by Hollywood. It happens, but it’s even less likely than a vehicle fire.” He wrinkled the corners of his mouth contemptuously. “And then, there’s the possibility that the accident involved the use of plastic explosives. That definitely suggests that someone had a hand in taking the driver’s life.”

“Certainly a good approach to begin our investigation. But that’s all,” Jen cut him off.

“I will send you a detailed report as soon as possible, Ms. Brighton. If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to go home. There is nothing more for me to do here anyway.”

“Then I won’t keep you any longer. Thank you for your time,” Jen said goodbye to the AFT man and looked for Kruger. Had he already found out who had reported the accident to dispatch?

“Anything new?” she asked a moment later as she walked toward her colleague.

“We’re trying to trace the caller,” Kruger said.

“Well, I’ll be interested to see what comes of it.”

“So, what was this fire investigator able to report?”

“Just that he has no doubt that the fire was set intentionally, like Horrace said. Nothing new. I suggest that we get Steven, and I’ll take you back to the police station. You can call it a day. I’m going to see Wainwright’s widow. I am certain she already knows about her husband’s death. The father-in-law has, I’m sure, already taken care of that.”

Chapter 3

When she had dropped Kruger off at the police station, Steven had offered to accompany her to the Wainwrights. The Wainwrights lived in a luxurious country style home with a pastel yellow plaster facade. Green wooden shutters were mounted on either side of the large windows. McGilvra’s Addition was located in one of the most expensive areas of Seattle, in Madison Park on Lake Washington. The cast iron gate to the driveway of the property was open, as if their arrival was already expected.

“Impressive,” Hemphill muttered as Jen steered her BMW up the path to the home.

“Guess about three million would get you in,” Jen joked.

“I’ll let Underwood know that it’s time for my raise,” Hemphill countered dryly.

Jen parked directly behind a Rolls Royce, which, according to the license plate, probably belonged to Ferdinand Wainwright, the head of the family and owner of the law firm Wainwright & Partner. The name had been an integral part of upscale Seattle society for more than one hundred and thirty years. The influence of the family in certain circles was impressive, as Jen had been able to see for herself today.

“Let’s go, then,” she said a moment later, as she pressed the doorbell.

It did not take long before the Wainwrights’ housekeeper greeted the two investigators in a friendly manner and led them into the living room. Entering the room, it was clear the family was waiting for them. There was a petite woman with soft facial features and pitch black shoulder length hair, who was obviously Valerie Wainwright. By the look of her, the victim’s wife had shed many tears in the last few hours. Despite her battered condition, she was unmistakably pretty.

On the surface, Ferdinand Wainwright gave a calm impression. Jen was only familiar with the man from the media; she had never met him in person. He always knew how to sell himself, and his lucrative lawsuits, effectively in the media. He looked much taller on television, she thought, as they faced each other. In truth, he had to be several inches shorter than her. His hair was completely graying, his features appeared hard, and he looked at her with a steely determination. With blue-gray eyes, he appraised her. Jen appraised him as well and decided that the perfectly fitting tailor made suit could not hide the fact that Ferdinand Wainwright was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. His reputation preceded him, and to all appearances, he lived up to it.

“Please sit down,” Wainwright asked the two officers after a brief greeting and pointed to the coffee brown leather sofa. Valerie Wainwright didn’t seem to mind that he immediately took the initiative in the conversation.

“May we offer you something to drink?”

The two officers declined with thanks, and Wainwright sent the housekeeper out of the living room.

Jen briefly let her eyes wander through the room, which was easily the size of her entire rented apartment. The furnishings looked elegant, expensive and yet not ostentatious.

“First of all, we would like to express our sincere condolences to you, Mrs. Wainwright,” she first addressed the wife of the deceased lawyer.

“Thank you, we appreciate that,” Ferdinand Wainwright replied, deliberately indicating how the further questioning would proceed. This was exactly what Jen had feared. “Are there any findings that indicate that my son’s accident was caused intentionally?” he got straight to the point.

“Based on the information we have, that’s what we’re assuming at this point,” she confirmed.

“I figured something like that.”

“What for? Was there a specific reason?”

“No. But I probably don’t need to explain to you that my son didn’t necessarily make friends in his work as a lawyer.”

No sooner had Wainwright Senior finished speaking than a loud sob was heard from his daughter-in-law. “Valerie, pull yourself together in front of the investigators,” he harshly urged her.

No trace of sympathy, Jen noted with regret.

“You’re alluding to the lawsuits your son has been involved in over the past few years, and won, to a large extent,” she replied, not expecting an answer, which didn’t come either.

Julius Wainwright had been an internationally renowned criminal defense lawyer who had conducted and won several spectacular trials in recent years, even if his clients had had little chance of acquittal at the beginning of a trial. The thinking, of course, was that he had made some enemies in the process.

“Was there a specific threat against your son?” Jen asked the question again.

“One?” The patriarch let out a derisive laugh. “I’ll have the threatening letters and emails delivered to you tomorrow. Then you can make up your own mind. Unfortunately, you will most likely not find Julius’ killer among them. The real dangers lurk where you least expect them.”

“Do you have any particular suspicions?” Jen asked.

“Regrettably, no.”

“Had your husband been acting strangely in the last few days? Was he nervous, for example?” She made another attempt to engage the widow in conversation.

Valerie Wainwright gave her father-in-law an uncertain look, as if to ask his permission to answer the question. And indeed, with a brief nod of his head, he indicated that she was allowed to answer.

“No, everything was as usual. He did seem a bit tense, because the trial against Ben Luger was about to begin. But that wasn’t unusual. He behaved quite normally toward Larissa and me.”

“Larissa is your daughter, I assume?”

“Right. She’s our world. Larissa is—was—Julius’ pride and joy. She just turned eleven last week. And...” the widow sniffled. “And now I have to explain to her that her daddy isn’t coming home.”

“Do you know where your husband was headed when the accident occurred?”

“That’s a strange story,” Ferdinand Wainwright cut in again.

Obviously, there was no point in conducting the interview with the widow today. She would have to come back when Wainwright Senior wasn’t there, Jen decided.

“His secretary told me that he suddenly stormed out of the office and instructed her to cancel all appointments for today. Without any explanation. That’s really not like him.” Old Wainwright frowned.

“That is interesting,” Jen agreed.

“You should have my son’s phone calls traced. The secretary believes Julius was on the phone right before he left.”

“We would have done that anyway, as you can imagine, Mr. Wainwright.” Hemphill now took the floor for the first time. “That’s part of routine police work.”

Jen couldn’t help but grin slightly. She suspected that her colleague was seething, since he had even less in common with people like Ferdinand Wainwright than she did. And she was already very annoyed. It didn’t matter that this know-it-all had just lost his son. “So you think your son received a call that made him drop everything to go somewhere?” she picked up on Wainwright’s thoughts.

“Exactly.”

“Thank you for that information. We’ll see if it gets us anywhere. For now, we have no more questions. We’ll find our way out on our own.” Jen said goodbye, and she and Hemphill left the house.

“Such a prick,” Hemphill commented as they got into the car.

“Old Wainwright didn’t impress me either, but the tip about the phone call was very enlightening.”

“You think his killer called him?” Hemphill looked at her.

“That’s exactly what I think. We really need to get the phone records for the line in his office and for his cell phone.”

“I’ll take care of that first thing in the morning.”

“And I’ll ask Horrace if the CSI team was able to read the data from the navigation device. Maybe the fire didn’t completely destroy everything. But, for now, we’ll call it a day.”

Chapter 4

When he entered the soundproof basement room, his prisoner was lying on the floor on a mattress. He had chained him up a few days ago with a medieval handcuff forged from three pieces of flat steel. He had then fastened the shackle to a sturdy wall hook with an iron chain about two yards long. The thing was so tight that it was impossible to get free of it. At the same time, the prisoner was at least able to eat or defecate in a bucket on his own.

He sat down on the chair against the opposite wall and eyed his hostage. The man stared at him in fear.

“It will certainly interest you to know that your old buddy Julius is probably in the middle of his last big trial right now. This time, however, not before an earthly court, but before the Last Judgement. I’m afraid, however, that the oh-so-successful star lawyer is going to take a severe beating today.” He had to smile at his own joke, while the man on the mattress did not show the slightest reaction. “Anyway, I can’t imagine that God will welcome him with open arms after all those transgressions,” he continued. “Good Julius will probably be headed straight for Hell. Maybe he got used to the temperatures down there by the time he passed away.”

“What do you mean?” The prisoner’s eyes widened.

“That his departure did not go as planned. Obviously, the quality of German high priced cars, in terms of the safety aspect, is much better than we thought. That’s why I had to improvise a bit. That was a lot more painful for dear Julius than getting killed in the accident. Death by burning is a painful business. But, so be it. It can’t be helped. And after all, he brought it on himself, don’t you think?”

“Nobody deserves to die like that, not even Julius,” the abductee hissed through his teeth. In his gaze, there was both sheer horror, and fear of what would become of him..

“You played a big role in helping me learn about his secret. I’m really very grateful to you for that, even if you don’t necessarily believe me. Nevertheless, my work is far from done, as you know. You have destroyed several lives, and this must not go unpunished. Your actions, and that of Sandthorn, your former companion, weigh much heavier on me than that of the lawyer. And all that for just money! By the way, your old buddy will return from his trip to Mallorca the day after tomorrow. Then his time will also come. I’ll keep you informed about further developments, of course.”

With these words, he turned back and left the prisoner alone with his own thoughts, which were guaranteed to be solely about when his impending demise would come.

Chapter 5

Wednesday, September 4

Jen had enjoyed a good bottle of red wine the night before. Although she had only had two glasses, she had woken up in the morning with a brutal headache and feeling like she hadn’t slept at all. Coming into work, she was tired, and her head was still buzzing with the after effects of the alcohol. She swallowed an aspirin, and just as she sat down at her desk, her boss entered.

“Good morning, Jen. Am I wrong, or are you in a bad mood?” the Chief smiled, with small wrinkles appearing around his eyes. Besides those, the fifty six year old’s face remained unlined. It was as smooth as a baby’s bottom, as he himself always pointed out. He was less fortunate with his hair. The receding hairline grew larger with each passing year, and recently, he had mentioned in Jen’s presence that it was only a matter of time before his dark blond hair gave way to a bald head. He emphasized that he wanted to decide when this would happen himself and not let nature take its course. Underwood was dressed casually, as usual, wearing jeans and a striped polo shirt. Appropriate for the weather, because in contrast to the previous day, it had been quite mild today, especially in the early morning. Underwood’s style of dress was as casual as his dealings with his employees, which meant he was quite popular at the precinct.

“Headache,” was all Jen replied.

“I see. Why didn’t you call yesterday to update me? You didn’t answer your cell phone either.”

“Damn, I completely forgot. I didn’t realize you called until later, so I didn’t want to bother you. Sorry.”

“Apology accepted. Officer Hemphill updated me on the case already.”

“Whoever got Wainwright out of the way definitely did everything they could to not get caught.”

“I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. There’s going to be a lot of work coming your way in the next few days. The list of enemies he might have had will certainly be extensive.”

“That’s what his father said, too. I would have loved to talk to the widow in more detail, but hardly got the chance yesterday. The old codger completely hijacked the conversation.”

“I’m not surprised. He is a lawyer. A very good one at that, and...” before Underwood could continue, he was interrupted by a knock.

“Come in,” Jen called. Jesus, her skull was still pounding. When would that damn aspirin finally start working?

“Morning, Jen,” Steven greeted her. “Rough night?” He couldn’t resist the opportunity to poke fun at her either, for which he earned a well deserved glare from her. “There’s news. We already have the call logs from Wainwright's cell phone provider.”

“That fast?” wondered Jen.

“Henry set this up yesterday before he went home for the day. Wainwright actually did get a call right before he stormed out of the office in such a hurry.”

“So the old guy was right. Am I correct in assuming that this call was made from a prepaid cell phone that can’t be traced?” speculated Jen.

“Spot on.”

“Then we can confidently assume that the caller is Wainwright’s killer or his client,” Underwood said.

“What about his murderess?” Jen objected.

“Do you seriously think that a woman was responsible for this act?”

“Why not? There are certainly enough ladies out there with criminal ties who would be capable of such an act. Today, any person can read on the internet how to build a bomb. And lighting leaking gasoline with a lighter—well, that’s not too much of a challenge either. We should keep that option on the table as a possibility.”

“I believe that we’re definitely looking for a male perpetrator. Because I have more news,” Hemphill continued. “I was at the dispatch center this morning, trying to find out who reported Wainwright’s accident.”

“Let me guess: The caller was male, used a prepaid cell phone and is untraceable.”

“Bingo. It’s quite the coincidence that we’re dealing with an untraceable, prepaid number in both cases. If you ask me, the calls came from the same person. By the way, both numbers have not been active since the calls. I wouldn’t be surprised if he—or she—has already disposed of the SIM cards. You learn that on every TV crime show.”

“I wonder what the unknown person said to fluster Wainwright like that and trap him...” Underwood interjected.

“I'm afraid that Wainwright has taken that secret to the grave. After that less than helpful news, I suggest we go to the lawyer’s office now and question his employees,” Jen replied, closing her eyes briefly and massaging her temples with her thumb and forefingers.

“There is one more thing,” Underwood said. “I don't need to tell you that there is an immense pressure on us to solve this case. Wainwright has been the only thing people can talk about since the details of the case were released in today’s news. Whether in The Seattle Times, on the internet, morning news shows or radio broadcasts, all I’m hearing is about Wainwright’s death. It would be good if we can show some progress as soon as possible.”

“I’m glad you brought it up again, Jesse.”

Jen reached for a water bottle and turned to leave.

“Let’s go, Steven. You heard the boss. No time to lose. Grab Henry and meet me down at the car.”

Chapter 6

It took them just under twenty minutes to get from the headquarters at the Seattle Justice Center to the office building on Broadway where Wainwright & Partner was located. During their drive over, Jen planned out their tasks. Kruger was to check with the in-house security service, whose offices were on the first floor, about whether the underground parking garage had video surveillance. Since the evening before, Jen had been wondering when the perpetrator could have planted the mini explosive on the lawyer’s Porsche. From her point of view, the underground car park was the most suitable place for this. Hemphill was to question the employees of the law firm, while she was to meet with Wainwright senior again.

The investigators were welcomed by a friendly lady who introduced herself as Una Dorfler. Jen was about to ask the secretary a question, when Ferdinand Wainwright stormed out of one of the double doors to the left of the reception area.

“Here you are at last! I was expecting you much earlier. Mrs. Dorfler, I don’t want to be disturbed now,” he ordered without a word of greeting, only to turn on his heel and hurry back to the office from which he had just come.

Jen glanced at her wristwatch and shook her head in annoyance. It wasn’t even a quarter past nine. What was this man expecting? The guy was becoming more and more unappealing to her.

“I think that was his way of telling me to follow him,” she said quietly, while Una smiled sheepishly and nodded in agreement. She followed the defense attorney while her colleague stayed behind and began questioning the secretary.

When she entered Wainwright’s office, she was amazed. The room was at least two hundred square feet in size and its furnishings were elegant in a simple, beautiful way. Only the oversized, three piece, shiny mahogany desk at the opposite end of the office stood out.

“Have a seat.” Wainwright pointed to a white leather sofa, flanked by three armchairs. “Can I get you something to drink?”

Jen declined, with thanks, and took a seat in the armchair with the best view of Wainwright.

“May I ask what your colleague is doing out there?”

”He’s interviewing the staff. Routine, as you should know.” she replied.

“And what good do you think that will do? You know as well as I do that Julius’ murderer is not going to be found here. My colleagues, the secretaries, and even the student intern all have flawless alibis. So you shouldn’t spend your valuable time on pointless questioning.”

“You should leave it to us to judge which part of our work is useful or not, Mr. Wainwright. I’m certain that you have a very clear idea of how you would like us to do our jobs. I am also certain that is unlikely to be the same as my view of how I should do my job.” Jen was working to be friendly, but had to pull herself together to avoid losing her temper. The arrogance of this man pissed her off so much that she would have liked to scream in his face. Coming into this conversation, Jen’s intent was to take the initiative and control the conversation, but Wainwright was proving hard to deter.

“Well, you are, of course, free to conduct your investigation as you see fit, Ms. Brighton. I just wanted to save you unnecessary work and direct your attention to these documents instead. I am convinced that you will find the answer to the question of who is responsible for Julius’ death here.” He pointed to a stack of papers on the table in front of him.

“And what are these documents?”

“A list of all cases my son has been involved with in the last five years, as well as all the names and addresses of victims and plaintiffs from his lawsuits. We have also compiled all the letters in which Julius was threatened, sometimes even with death. Of course, they were all sent anonymously. But you may still be able to do something with them. I am certain this will connect you with the killer.”

Jen hated to admit it, but Wainwright had made their work easier. Nevertheless, she was annoyed by him and his manner. Once again, he had managed to, more or less, patronize her, and that didn’t sit well with her at all.

“Thank you very much. I appreciate your efforts. We will, of course, look into the documents. In the meantime, can you think of anyone who might want to murder your son?”

Wainwright stared at her. “I hate to repeat myself, Madam Detective, but I don’t have the slightest idea. If I did, we would be having a very different conversation.”

“And yet you are convinced that we will find the name of the perpetrator or perpetrators in these records,” Jen coolly interjected.

“As I mentioned yesterday, my son has made a lot of enemies over the years. I’d be surprised if you don’t find a clue in the files.”

“All right, we will look over the documents back at the precinct. But for now, I’d like to talk to your late son’s secretary. Alone, Mr. Wainwright.

Jen stood up. She noted with satisfaction that Wainwright’s cheeks were red with anger at her dismissal of him.

Half an hour later, she and Hemphill left the offices of Wainwright and Partners without having gained any new insights. None of the people questioned had been able to offer them any new information. Julius Wainwright’s secretary also didn’t seem to know why the lawyer had stormed out of the office in a panic after the call. Jen had hoped for the most information from her.

“Where is Henry, anyway? It can’t possibly take that long to check whether the parking garage is under video surveillance,” Jen wondered as they got into the elevator.

“He’s probably sitting in some café waiting for us,” Hemphill replied.

“Or he’s just coming to meet us,” she replied as they stepped off the elevator a moment later down on the first floor.

“I was just on my way to see you,” Kruger said. “You won’t believe what I found out.”

Jen didn’t reply, but just looked at her colleague expectantly.

“About half an hour before Wainwright received the call, someone tampered with his Porsche. Unfortunately, you can’t make out the person’s face, and you can’t see what exactly he or she is doing, but considering the timing, it could have been the perpetrator. I got a copy of the surveillance from security.”

“At least there’s a ray of hope. The questioning of the employees was not exactly successful,” Jen replied.

“Then you’ll be pleased to know that I’ve found out even more. There’s a boutique diagonally across from the parking garage with video surveillance. One camera aimed at clothing racks that are on the sidewalk happens to also look directly at the garage exit. I asked the store owner to show me the footage.”

“Are you telling me that the perp is on the footage?” Jen interrupted him.

“I’m afraid not. But most likely his car is! At the moment Wainwright shot out of the garage, an Audi swerves into view and appears to give chase. The license plate, however, cannot be made out.”

“Henry, this is great news! Good work. Let’s get back to the precinct right away. King has to look over this footage.”

Chapter 7

When Jen entered the office, Wainwright’s final autopsy report was already on her desk. Was it just her imagination, or had the forensic pathologist completed his work with an unusually quick speed? Somehow in the case of a well known criminal defense attorney, it seemed all the clocks were ticking a little faster than they had in any case before. The fact that the police chief had been involved from the very beginning made it clear that this case was different than usual. All it takes is the death of a celebrity for their rigid policies to fall away. So much for bureaucratic regulations. But maybe her deep dislike for Ferdinand Wainwright was clouding her judgement. The fact that he had felt, since the very beginning, that he could so easily influence the investigation was mind blowing to her.

She opened the folder and began to read. The part that interested her most was in the final third of the report. Wainwright had clearly died from the fire, as evidenced by smoke gases and soot particles that could be detected in the lawyer’s lungs. Jen sighed as she finished reading. She got up, intending to go next door to Henry and Steven’s desks. When she opened the door of her office, she ran straight into the head of the CSI.

“Where are you off to, fair lady?”

“Oh. I was just about to tell Steven and Henry what Wainwright’s autopsy revealed.”

“The report is out already?”

“That’s what I thought, too. But tell me, what brings you to me?”

“I wanted to bring you my preliminary report on what happened with the accident.”

Only now did Jen register that King was holding a loose-leaf binder in his hand.

“I suggest you come over with me. Then I won’t have to repeat what the autopsy report says. And you can take the opportunity to bring us up to speed.” She pushed past King and marched straight into the office across the hall without knocking.

Hemphill looked up as she entered the room with the head of forensics in tow. Apparently, he had already started looking through the documents that Ferdinand Wainwright had given them. There was no sign of Kruger.

Jen sat down on one of the two visitors’ chairs, while King remained standing.

“Where is Henry?” she wanted to know.

“Right here,” came a voice from the background as Henry walked in through the open office door. “If I had known Horrace was hanging around here, I would have saved myself the trip. I gave your colleague the video footage from Broadway for evaluation,” Kruger addressed the head of forensics.

“What kind of video footage?” King wanted to know.

“We’ll explain in a minute. But, first things first. There’s news,” Jen began, bringing the three up to date. “So, we’re dealing with a bona fide murder. Now we just have to hope that Horrace’s team has found something out that will take us a big step further.”

“I'm afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you there, Jen,” King interrupted her. “Our suspicion that Wainwright’s accident was deliberately caused by the controlled use of plastic explosives has been confirmed. The perpetrator used C4 to blow out both tires. Unfortunately, the fire left nothing of the tires, but the traces on the rims were clear. We were able to locate the spot where the explosion was triggered, and determine the approximate speed that Wainwright’s Porsche was traveling at the time of the accident.”

“I’m guessing at least a hundred miles an hour,” said Kruger, who was a big racing fan.

“Close, Henry. We assume he was going at least a hundred and ten. If Wainwright hadn’t been driving a Porsche, or a comparable vehicle, he most likely wouldn’t have survived the accident. This is probably also the reason why the killer used fire, which brings us to part two of my report. We were able to positively identify the object used to start the fire as a lighter. But before you ask, the origin of the lighter cannot be discerned. Unfortunately, this lead does not bring us any closer to the identity of the perpetrator or perpetrators.”

“And what about the C4?” Hemphill wanted to know. “You can hardly get that at the supermarket.”

“No, of course not. C4 is an explosive used primarily by the military. It was developed in the sixties by the Czech chemist Stanislav Brebera. There is basically no commercial use. Nevertheless, the black market for explosives of this type is expansive. Unfortunately, because of its ease of use, C4 is also very popular with terrorists. If you want to get hold of the explosives, it’s not really a problem. The dark web makes almost everything possible these days. If money is no object, you can even have the stuff shipped to your home, including detonators. For an explosion like that, only a few grams are necessary. Unfortunately, the trail won’t get us anywhere there; tracing the seller is impossible. However, I can say that the perpetrator or perpetrators must have had technical know how. After all, the explosive was detonated via remote, and the right amount was also calculated to only burst the car tires. If you haven’t had any training or experience, you’d quickly blow up the whole car.”

“Still makes me wonder why he didn’t just do that. It would have been much easier,” Kruger mused aloud.

“Good point, Henry,” Jen agreed.

“Maybe the perpetrator wanted Wainwright to have the most painful death possible and really suffer before he died,”’ Hemphill suggested.

“That would be one explanation, but I can’t imagine that. The killer could hardly have foreseen that Wainwright would not die in an accident like that,” Jen disagreed. “Still, we should keep in mind that the events of the accident may have been done for a specific reason. To me, the whole staging of the accident feels like it could be symbolic of something. Maybe in the documents from the law firm we can find a reference to a trial in which a car accident played an important role,” Jen suggested.

“Speaking of documents, the list of names of Wainwright‘s family members, friends, and acquaintances includes ninety people we would have to interview. But that doesn’t even include the people who threatened Wainwright or played a role in his trials,” Hemphill explained. He sounded exhausted just talking about it.

Jen audibly expelled her breath, recognizing the scope of work ahead of them. “Then I guess we shouldn’t sit around idly any longer and get to work. All right, men,” she clapped her hands together, “Let’s start the evaluation process and make a list of people who might have a motive for the murder of Julius Wainwright.”

“Wait a minute. Not so fast. What’s the deal with this video footage that Henry mentioned?” King asked.

“There are two different shots,” Kruger explained. “One is from the underground parking garage of the Wainwright law firm. The other from a business diagonally across from the garage exit. The parking garage photo shows what we assume to be the perpetrator attaching the explosive to the Porsche. The footage is very grainy; unfortunately the surveillance equipment wasn’t exactly up to date. Maybe you can get something out of the footage. The face of the alleged perpetrator was not recognizable. He must have known where the cameras were. The second recording shows Wainwright leaving the garage. And it can be seen that immediately afterwards an Audi, parked at the edge of the garage, takes up the pursuit behind him. Our best guess is that is the suspect.”

“Sounds promising. I’ll give it a thorough look over and we’ll see if this lead gets us anywhere,” King replied and left the office.

Chapter 8

Thursday, September 5

Progress from the previous day’s investigation had been limited. King’s people had processed the video recordings from the parking garage, but they did not offer any new information. According to the footage, the perpetrator was between five foot nine or ten, wore athletic clothing, and moved quite smoothly. Not exactly a lot of details to narrow down the perpetrator, Jen had to admit.

Even the boutique’s recording did not initially help them. Since it was a black and white recording, the color of the Audi could not be clearly determined. They were looking for the driver of a dark Audi A3. It was amazing how many models of this type of car were registered in Seattle and the surrounding area; checking the owners would take some time. A lead was a lead though, so she put Kruger on it, while she and Hemphill worked their way through Ferdinand Wainwright’s files. But so far, no new findings had emerged there, either.

The unanswered questions consumed her, and her sleep suffered, too. Whenever she was in the middle of a murder investigation, she fought a battle between sleep and her restless mind, which sleep usually lost. And, thanks to Ferdinand Wainwright, and the special circumstances of this particular investigation, her sleep situation was even worse than normal. Again and again, she had gone over the three central questions that arose in every investigation: Who had a motive? Who had the opportunity? And who had the means?

The question of the motive caused her the most headaches and was, ultimately, what was keeping her awake half the night. Could a victim who had lost in court or someone close to one of Wainwright’s opponents be responsible for the murder because Wainwright had been such a masterful lawyer? Just thinking about the trial of an alleged child molester he defended made her feel sick. Wainwright had secured an acquittal because he had been able to prove that evidence important to the trial had been tampered with by an investigator. In another case, he had defended a well known politician who was involved in a hit and run car accident, resulting in the death of an innocent person. There was clear evidence that the politician had been responsible for the accident, but he had reported the SUV stolen the night of the accident. Since the car was never found again, the deciding piece of evidence was missing, and Wainwright successfully kept him out of jail. Jen had a hard time imagining that Wainwright had tipped off his client about the alleged theft of the vehicle, but he certainly could have made such a move.

There were other cases like that in the files and Jen speculated that any one of them could have been the motive in Wainwright‘s murder. The more Jen thought about it, though, the more doubts she had. Certainly, cases of this kind offered an excellent motive at first glance, but why, then, should the hatred of a defeated plaintiff, or his family members, have been directed only against Wainwright? Wouldn’t it be more understandable to take revenge on the allegedly guilty, and yet acquitted, perpetrator? It was precisely this question that had her restlessly pacing around the office until she remembered the Luger trial that was about to begin, and hurried home.

Ben Luger, together with an accomplice who had gone into hiding, had defrauded various investors out of several million dollars with alleged junk real estate. Wainwright‘s sudden death would probably delay the start of the trial by several weeks, as a new defense attorney needed time to prepare adequately for the case. Was there a possible motive here? She didn’t know much about the process. Wainwright’s secretary had mentioned that he had been dealing with this case exclusively for the past four months.

As soon as she got to her apartment, Jen had booted up her computer and Googled everything she could find about the arrest and the upcoming trial. Only then had she gone to bed, exhausted. After less than three and a half hours of sleep, she had woken up dog-tired, jumped into the shower, chugged a strong cup of coffee and ate some cold toast, then headed back to the precinct.

She had just taken a seat behind the desk in her office, when Underwood rushed in. “If I catch the asshole we have to thank for this, he’ll be in for a world of trouble!” he rumbled and slammed a copy of The Seattle Times on her desk.

“I wish you a good morning, too, sweet Jesse,” she crooned. Her smile faded as soon as the front page headline, which had so upset Underwood, caught her eye.

IT WAS MURDER!

In large letters, in the typical bold newspaper headline style. And in the sub-headline, underneath: Insidious attack on Julius Wainwright.

“Shit. How is that possible?” cursed Jen after she had skimmed the article. In addition to the author’s theories, it also contained some investigative details that were definitely not meant for the public. It even included the fact that the perpetrator had used C4 to make the Porsche’s tires explode. Most annoying to her, however, was the fact that the reporter speculated, in terms of a possible motive, that the murder might be related to the upcoming trial of Ben Luger. In order to come to this conclusion, she had spent half of the night on her feet!

“That’s a fair question, Jen. Either someone from the Precinct has been blabbing, or old Wainwright is behind it to increase the pressure on our investigation.”

“How would Wainwright Senior know the internal details of the investigation? He may be well connected, but so well connected that he has knowledge of King’s final report? I honestly can’t imagine that.”

“You’re probably right. Still, someone was talking to the press. And I can’t let that go.”

“My team certainly didn’t do it. I’ll be giving Wainwright a good interrogation later. I have some questions about the upcoming bad real estate case.”

“Any chance you suspect a connection to the grease ball politician?”

“I think it’s possible,” Jen conceded. “It’s conceivable, to be sure, that the murder was related to a past trial that Wainwright won. But I wonder why a victim who was defeated in court, or any relative, would want the lawyer out of the way? Wouldn’t it be much more logical to take revenge on the alleged perpetrator? I’ve been looking at the question of why from a different angle. Let’s assume, based on what we know about Wainwright so far, that the motive was based on his professional work, not personal life. Who benefits from Wainwright’s death?

“I’m certain you’re going to tell me now, and present me with a suspect,” Underwood stated.

“I wish. But think about it. Killing Wainwright would mean delaying the start of the trial. It would probably take a few weeks for the successor to get up to speed. And …”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” the captain slowed her down. “I’m not denying that Wainwright’s death could have something to do with his upcoming trial, but I don’t see the motive. Just because Luger’s defense attorney is killed, doesn’t necessarily mean that his successor will be less successful. Besides, all I’m hearing is that the burden of proof against Luger is supposed to be overwhelming.”

Jen thought about Underwood’s words. “And if we go one step further?” she then suggested. “Maybe it wasn’t primarily about killing Wainwright because of the danger that he could win the upcoming trial. Possibly there was much more behind it. I even wonder if the murder was meant as a warning to Luger. Maybe there were even more people involved in the fraud than is known so far. What if Luger’s accomplice, Marvin Scholz, was involved in the crime? And as we know, he disappeared just before his arrest. To me, it looks like Luger and Schultz were just the tip of the iceberg. Two puppets who had to take the fall, but the strings were pulled by completely different people, much higher-up with considerably higher criminal ranking.”

“Are you seriously suggesting that the Mafia has a hand in this? Isn’t that a bit of a stretch?” Underwood looked at Jen with wide eyes.

“You should spend some time looking into this topic. It’s frightening what you can find about it on the web. You’d be surprised where the Mafia is involved these days. Maybe Luger was just the fall guy and now has to be held up as an example.”

“That’s too much speculation for me right now. But you and your team, as always, have my full support as far as the investigation is concerned. However, you should have something concrete to show soon. Struckmeyer is not a fan of hypotheticals,” Underwood replied.

“You two have something in common there, you and the police chief,” Jen countered with a wink. “But I understand.”

Chapter 9

A short time later, she and Hemphill set off for Capitol Hill to pay another visit to Ferdinand Wainwright. In the meantime, Henry was supposed to gather information about the investigation of the Luger case from the officers in the fraud department. Jen wanted to find out as much as possible about the case; after all, the investors had been scammed out of almost fifteen million dollars. Around nine thirty, they entered Wainwright & Partner’s office through the double winged glass door. Una Dorfler welcomed them in a very friendly manner, as she had done on their last visit. Ferdinand Wainwright’s reaction, on the other hand, was much cooler when his secretary announced them both over the intercom. Jen had come into this interview already expecting this reaction.

“Good morning, Ms. Brighton. I’m afraid I’ve forgotten the name of your companion,” the lawyer greeted her, frostily.

He remained seated behind his swanky desk and didn’t even offer them a seat, which didn’t bother Jen at all. She simply sat down on one of the two visitors’ chairs that were directly in front of Wainwright’s desk. Hemphill took a seat in the other chair, briefly introducing himself, grinning mockingly. He had kept to himself since they had left the precinct. Jen sensed that something was bothering him, but she also knew that there was no point in trying to address it with him. The grumpy man was as tight lipped as an oyster when it came to the problems that were bothering him.

“So, what brings you here today?”

“The Luger Case.”

“Then I’m afraid it will be a short conversation. For one thing, my son was entrusted with the case, and I have little knowledge of it. For another, all information regarding this is subject to attorney-client privilege. And Julius’ death doesn’t change that.”

“Even if we believe that your son’s murder is related to the Luger case?”

“Not even then, as you should know, Ms. Detective. And apart from that, I can’t imagine there’s any connection. What makes you think that?”

“We can’t talk about that for investigative reasons,” Jen turned the tables this time, enjoying Wainwright’s sour expression. Apart from that, she had nothing to lead with except a guess. “But allow me a counter question: why are you convinced that there is no connection?”

The lawyer frowned. “Because it wouldn’t make sense. Luger is out of the question; he’s been in prison. And Marvin Schultz, his accomplice, certainly wouldn’t do it, either. What would he have to gain by killing my son? Luger has already testified that Schultz was his partner in the fraud.”

“There may have been more people involved in the fraud behind the scenes,” Jen persisted.

“Ms. Brighton. I really don’t want to offend you, but I’m afraid you’re letting your imagination run away in this matter.”

The condescending tone got on Jen’s nerves, but she refused to be provoked by Wainwright and remained calm. “You, yourself, just admitted that you are hardly involved in the case. Couldn’t it be that Ben Luger is just a patsy and there’s someone out there who’s afraid of him coming clean?”

“Luger a scapegoat? The burden of proof is overwhelming. Even if he and Schultz did not act alone, and there was a mysterious Mister X in the background, he would still be behind bars! Not even my son could have negotiated such a good deal in which Luger would go unpunished. I would like to emphasize again that I do not believe that. Yes, it is true that I was not involved in the investigation, but I can still assure you that I would have been aware of something like that!”

“Do you still not have any concrete suspicions about who murdered your son?” Hemphill now intervened in the questioning. The icy look with which Wainwright regarded him showed Hemphill that he disapproved of his flippant tone, but he didn’t care.

“No, I haven’t. And I’m afraid if you continue to spend your time on such pointless questioning, you won’t make any progress on this case. Do you have any other questions? Because I’m due in court in a few minutes.”

“Since you are unlikely to give us any insight into your son’s research documents on the Luger case, we will not take up any more of your precious time, Mr. Wainwright,” Jen replied and rose.

Chapter 10

She was about to open the car door when her cell phone rang. She glanced at her phone. It was an unknown number. “Detective Brighton,” she answered.

“Ms. Brighton?” the caller repeated. It was a female caller. She seemed to be crying and spoke so softly that Jen could hardly hear her.

“Yes, this is Detective Jen Brighton. May I ask who is calling?”

“Valerie...Valerie Wainwright,” the woman stammered in a whisper. “Could you please come over?”

“Are you okay? Is everything all right?”

“No, nothing is okay. But I have to show you in person,” replied the widow of the murdered defense attorney. Then the line went dead.

“That was Valerie Wainwright,” Jen told Hemphill as she got in the car. “We have to get to Madison Park right away. I don’t know what’s going on there, but we should hurry.”

Hemphill wasted no time. He immediately started the car, turned on the blue lights, and sped off.

Within a record twenty five minutes, they reached the McGilvra’s Addition estate. Just like it was on their first visit, the large cast iron gate stood open. As they pulled up to the front of the house, Valerie Wainwright herself opened the front door. Jen was a little startled; the pretty woman was as pale as a sheet and had dark circles under her sunken, puffy eyes. The homicide detective spontaneously thought of a panda bear. Compared to the put together woman they had met on their first visit, Mrs. Wainwright’s messy hair and disheveled state gave a very uneasy impression.

“Finally, you’re here,” exclaimed Valerie Wainwright. At least her voice seemed a bit firmer compared to her call half an hour ago.

“We came as quickly as we could. But before we jump into things, maybe we can come in and then you can explain to us why you’re so upset,” Jen replied calmly.

“Pardon me. I’m just so upset. And I haven’t been able to think straight since...since Julius died. And now these photos,” she explained as they entered the house.

At the word “photos,” Jen’s ears perked up. Her interest was piqued. Mrs. Wainwright led them to the living room, where they each took a seat.

“There. Those are the pictures,” Valerie Wainwright got straight to the point. She gestured to the coffee table, where a dozen photos lay neatly lined up next to each other.

As Jen leaned forward, she realized that it was rather risqué footage. She reached for the photo directly in front of her and took a look. She almost whistled loudly, but just managed to suppress it. Hemphill’s eyes widened as well. Neither of them had expected anything like this.

“I found these photos in my husband’s study when I was looking in the desk for documents for the funeral. I...I don’t understand,” Valerie Wainwright sobbed.

Jen looked at picture after picture. It became immediately clear to her that Julius Wainwright had led a double life. It was obvious that his wife had not had a clue about her husband’s sexual inclinations. In a few of the photos Wainwright was tied to a cross with a ball gag in his mouth; other photographs showed him crawling on all fours like a dog; a studded collar around his neck, while the dominatrix, whose face was not visible in any of the photos, led him around a room on a leash. In another photo, he was being worked with a whip. But it was the last picture that caught Jen’s interest. She picked up the photographs and studied them carefully. Unlike the other photos, this was not a picture showing Julius Wainwright engaged in sadomasochistic practices, but in the act of sex. And if she was not mistaken, the girl in the photograph was presumably underage, perhaps fifteen, sixteen at the most. Without comment, she handed the photo to Steven. The expression on his face told her that he had come to the same conclusion.

“Do you think these shots are real?” the widow snapped Jen out of her thoughts. “Couldn’t...couldn’t they be edited or fake?”

“I can’t rule it out, of course,” the detective replied diplomatically, although she didn’t have the slightest doubt about the authenticity of the photos. “Our lab team will be able to find that out. But let’s assume that they are not doctored photos. Has your husband ever expressed to you a desire to engage in sexual acts like these?”

“No, he didn’t.” Shocked, Valerie Wainwright stared into space.

Jen felt sorry for the woman. First the tragic loss of her beloved husband, and now these photos, which clearly showed that Julius Wainwright had not been the man Valerie thought he was.

“Jen! You really have to see this,” Hemphill said and waved the photo he was holding; it was clear something was written on the back.

After reading the text, she knew that there was no doubt about the authenticity of the photos. In black writing, it said: Lest you forget who your real friends are!

“Did you see this, on the back of this photo?”, Jen asked Valerie as she showed her the message.The young woman just shook her head as she read the words. Tears ran down both her cheeks.

“Did your husband share that he was being blackmailed at any point?” Again, just a shake of the head. Jen knew that further questioning would lead nowhere. “May we look around your husband’s study?”

“I’ll take you upstairs,” the widow replied, and wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand.

The three of them left the living room, crossed the opulent entrance hall and climbed the steps of the curved staircase to the second floor. At the top of the stairs was a long hallway with many doors leading to different rooms. Valerie Wainwright took them straight for the only door that was open.

“This room was my husband’s sacred refuge. My daughter and I were strictly forbidden to enter. Now, I know why,” she explained, her face twisted in a bitter expression.

Jen took a pair of latex gloves out of her pants pocket.

Twenty minutes later, Jen and Steven had finished the search without finding evidence of any possible extortion. Luckily, Mrs. Wainwright had allowed them to take the defense attorney’s laptop. Jen hoped there would be more clues about blackmail or about the Luger case that could help them. Ferdinand Wainwright would certainly have a fit of rage when he learned that they were now in possession of the computer, which brought a small smile to her face.

After they said goodbye to the widow, Jen pulled out her smartphone and asked Underwood to obtain a search warrant for the murdered lawyer’s home. As soon as this was available, King’s team could dive into the McGilvra’s Addition home and really start getting some answers.

Chapter 11

“Already excluding me from the investigation?” Henry greeted his two colleagues with a grin. “What have you been doing out of the office for so long?”

“We weren’t out long at all. We just got back from Madison Park. We’ve got some interesting news.” Jen put the transparent evidence bag with the photos Valerie Wainwright had shown them on Kruger’s desk.

“Oh, shit. Who would have thought?” was all he said after looking at the footage.

“Told you we’d come across something interesting there.”

“I also have news. Less than an hour ago, our control center received a report that a burned out wrecked car was discovered in Queen Anne. The CSI team is already on the scene. We’ve just called and confirmed that it is an Audi A3.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the vehicle from the video. Shit, that’s probably too good to be true,” Jen cursed. “But to get back to the photos: It certainly seems to me that the outwardly respectable Julius was blackmailed. Then, when he didn’t play by the blackmailer’s rules, he had to die.”

“It’s possible,” Kruger said, frowning. “If you’re right, we need to find evidence that points to that, too.”

“We brought Wainwright’s private laptop from home. His wife was kind enough to hand it over to us. It’s already in tech, so maybe we’ll have more information soon. What do the officers in the fraud squad say about the Luger case?”

“Luger and Schultz defrauded eighty-two investors for a total of nearly fifteen million dollars. Luger was responsible for convincing the investors to sell properties, with a low market value, at an overpriced cost,” Kruger explained. “It’s definitely a case of cheap flips. Basically, the properties on offer were spruced up inside and out with a little paint, and then downright forced on prospective buyers with the help of elaborately designed brochures and falsified appraisals. Often, the deceived buyers signed the contracts without ever having entered or seen the dwellings themselves. Schultz, a former employee of a private bank in Seattle, then lobbied for the loans to be approved. He lured the interested parties with the prospect that the properties would pay for themselves through tax advantages and rental income alone and promised lavish profits. This, of course, was not the case because the properties were not up to the advertised standard, which meant that the income was far below what had been promised. As a result, the loans could no longer be managed by the banks. In the process, the majority of investors became so in debt that most had to file for bankruptcy.”

“Hm, then Wainwright’s killer could have come from the group of defrauded investors,” Hemphill interjected.

“We’ve been through this, Steven. What would any of them have to gain from the lawyer's death? That doesn’t make any sense to me,” Jen immediately contradicted.

“Damn it, Jen. Sometimes things are just that simple. You don’t know what goes on in the head of a desperate guy like that,” Hemphill said, aggressively, spitting pieces of his chewed toothpick on his computer monitor.

“Now, calm down, Steven. I’m not saying I’m right. I am just saying that these photos from Wainwright’s desk are pretty good evidence that this was a case of blackmail gone wrong.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to get upset like that,” Hemphill said with a shrug.

Jen eyed him but held back from commenting. It was obvious that something was bothering him that had nothing to do with the case.

“May I continue now? Because I wasn’t finished yet.” Kruger took the floor again, which immediately got everyone’s attention. “There is one person who has been particularly shaken and vocal about the effects of this case on his life. Herbert Glowack, fifty-four, not only lost his entire life savings, but his wife committed suicide after everything.”

“That’s what I’m saying! A completely desperate man who acted irrationally,” Hemphill said, looking challengingly at his boss.

“Okay, all right, all right. We’ll look into it,” Jen relented. “Did you find out anything else from the team?”

“As a matter of fact, I did. And it might pique your interest to know that it could be indirectly tied to your theory that the Luger case holds a larger scope than meets the eye. Evidence suggests that there may have been more than two parties involved in this fraudulent scheme. Alas, nothing has been substantiated yet. But Luger has kept quiet about the accusations, and Schultz has vanished into thin air. What really makes things interesting though; one name that keeps coming up is not completely unknown to us: Patrick Sandthorn

“Wait, isn’t that the real estate guy from Wainwright's list?” Hemphill questioned.

“Correct. And also, a friend of the dead guy. Went to school together.”

“Oh, that’s interesting. What do we know about this man?” Jen asked.

“Not much yet. I’ve only just started to investigate him. He specializes in luxury real estate and has obviously grown quite the natural ability to sniff out good investments in recent years. I just want to make it clear that the initial suspicion against him has not yet been confirmed.”

“Why would he have been involved in this if he’s independently wealthy?” inquired Hemphill.

“To rake in even more dough, Steven. In any case, I find it pretty telling that he is in the real estate business, that his name appears in connection with the fraud case, and on top of all of that he was a close friend of our victim. Regardless of the fact that it’s still only an initial suspicion against him, I have lots of questions. Let’s assume that Sandthorn was involved in the fraud. Maybe his old buddy Wainwright was stirring up more dust than expected in this trial. Then we could really start assuming that Sandthorn could have had an interest in Wainwright’s death. He doesn’t have to throw the lighter into the gasoline himself. The man has plenty of clout; he doesn’t have to get his own hands dirty. At that point, the note on the back of the photo could even come back into the picture. It’s all pure speculation, but at least it’s a lead. We should definitely look into the guy. Do the usual background check, focus primarily on the finances. We had already planned to look into Wainwright’s personal life, I might as well start by questioning his friends.”

“You can save yourself the trip. According to his secretary, Sandthorn is in Majorca and won’t be back until this evening. So, you’ll have to be patient until tomorrow,” Kruger said.

“Maybe your Mafia theory is not so wrong after all. It does seem likely that Wainwright was put under pressure with these photos,” Hemphill admitted.

“I thought of that, too. So, we’re in agreement that we will look into our two biggest suspects: Herbert Glowack and Patrick Sandthorn.”

“Sounds like you have two suspects in mind?” said Captain Underwood as he entered the office.

“I don’t want to go that far yet. But at least there are two investigative leads,” Jen admitted.

“Struckmeyer will certainly be pleased when I report to him that you are making some progress. He’s been all over me the last couple of days. Not that it’s that surprising after he’s been hearing from Ferdinand Wainwright about your recent visit to him. Wainwright is making it pretty clear to everyone that he thinks you’re wasting your time with useless inquiries.”

“That idiot! Doesn’t he have anything better to do?” Jen was furious.

“Don’t get upset. I told Struckmeyer that you, of course, have to investigate every possible lead, and he acknowledged the validity of that.”

“There is another new development, though. And I’m afraid that Wainwright Senior won’t like it at all. Can you please show Jesse the photos, Henry?” Jen asked her colleague, who immediately complied with the request, and handed the pack of photos to him.

Underwood looked closely at each photo and his facial expressions said it all.

“Oh man! You’re right. Wainwright won’t like this at all. Where did you get these?”

“From Wainwright’s widow. She found the photos in her husband’s desk and immediately called us. The poor woman is totally devastated. But the pictures aren’t all. May I have them for a moment?” Jen took the stack of photos from his hand, picked out the one with the message on the back and held it up to Underwood without comment.

“Lest you forget who your real friends are,” he read aloud. “Shit. Was Wainwright blackmailed?”

“We still have to look into it. But it looks like it. I’ll take the pictures to the lab later. They can enlarge them and highlight individual sections of the picture. Maybe we’ll find clues as to where the photos were taken.”

“It’s all pretty damn unclear,” Underwood muttered.

“You know we love a challenge,” Jen said with a wry smile. “Speaking of. Did you find the asshole?”

“Excuse me?” Underwood frowned.

“You know, the asshole who leaked the details of Wainwright’s death to the press. Just repeating your choice of words from this morning.” Jen grinned.

“I see. No, not so far. But be assured that I’ll figure that out sooner or later.”

“Can we talk for a minute?” Jen turned to Hemphill after the captain left.

“If we must.”

“Alone. In my office,” she replied and trudged off without explanation.

Hemphill looked at Kruger, with a shrug, and followed her.

“Can you explain to me what’s going on with you, Steven? And don’t you dare say “nothing.” You were already not yourself on the ride to Wainwright’s mansion. And just now, your short, but violent outburst. What was that all about?”

Hemphill raised his right eyebrow. “I’m just having a bad day. It happens,” he finally grumbled.

“You expect me to buy that nonsense answer? Steven Hemphill, you’re in a bad mood when the Hawks have lost. And you are known to be in a bad mood all the time. But there’s almost always a good reason for it.” Jen looked into her colleague’s eyes with concern. He held her gaze, but then smiled, tentatively.

“You know I’m always okay.”

Jen didn’t return the smile.

“You haven’t been gambling, have you?” she asked.

His smile froze.

“Let it go, Detective. I appreciate your concern, but I’m a big boy and I can handle myself just fine.” He turned to exit the office before Jen could question him any further.

“You can talk to me anytime,” she said, her voice uncharacteristically quiet. “I hope you know that. And if you need money, let me know.”

But Hemphill left the office without looking back.

Chapter 12

Jen drove to the Wainwright & Partner law firm with the copies of the photographs she had requested King make. She was eager to learn what the family patriarch knew about his son’s double life. As she got into the elevator to go to the fourth floor, she noticed that her pulse was racing, and her hands were sweating. This was so unlike her. Annoyingly, it was obvious to her that a confrontation with Wainwright Senior made her anxious.

When she entered the office, Una greeted her with a beaming smile.

“Hello, Ms. Brighton. Nice to see you again. I assume that you are here for Mr. Wainwright.”

Was Jen mistaken, or did the secretary’s undertone imply that she was enjoying Jen’s struggle?

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Dorfler. You are absolutely correct in your assumption. Is he here?”

“Luckily for you, he returned from court just a few minutes ago. Please wait while I check you in.”

“No need. Police privileges afford me the option of entering his office without registering. Might as well use it when I can, right?” Jen replied with a wink, which Mrs. Dorfler acknowledged with a pained smile.

She knocked loudly on his office door, and the lawyer responded with an imperious “Come in.” When she entered the office and closed the door, she saw Wainwright sitting behind his desk, as he had been that morning, leafing through a folder. He didn’t even bother to look up.

“Mr. Wainwright, I’m sorry to bother you again, but I have a few more questions.”

When he recognized Jen’s voice, Wainwright looked up. He pulled a face as if he had just bitten into a lemon. “Ms. Brighton. You are gradually becoming quite annoying. I was under the impression that you were busy finding Julius’ killer. Yet, here you are again in my office. What do you want?”

“For now, I’d like to sit down,” she replied, dryly, taking a seat in a chair in front of the desk.

“By all means, make yourself at home.”

Without comment, she handed him the envelope with the photos. As the lawyer opened the envelope and took out the photos, Jen eyed him, carefully. Wainwright wrinkled his nose and frowned in disgust; the look on his face spoke volumes. He looked at each photograph silently before slipping them back into the envelope with a shaky hand. As he did so, he pinched his lips together so tightly it looked as if his mouth was only two narrow lines. It was obvious that he needed to digest this shock.

“Where did you get this footage?” he finally managed after seemingly endless seconds of silence.

“From your daughter-in-law. She found this envelope in Julius’ desk this morning when she was looking for documents for the funeral. She notified us immediately after.”

“I see. Is there...is there any indication that these photos have been doctored?”

“That is being verified as we speak. But if you ask me, the photographs are authentic. On the back of one photo, we found a message that leaves little doubt about their authenticity.”

“What kind of message?”

“’Lest you forget who your real friends are!” quoted Jen.

“Great friends they must be,” Wainwright muttered. “Sounds like my son was being blackmailed.”

“That’s what we suspect, too, but we haven’t found any other evidence of it yet. Would you allow me to take another look around his office? I’d also like to bring in a forensics team. It’s possible we missed something in our initial examination of the room.”

“Of course,” Wainwright replied, meekly.

He was a changed man, Jen noticed. His gruff, dismissive attitude had instantly disappeared.

“I take it you were unaware of your son’s proclivities?”

“I hope that was a rhetorical question. Of course, I didn’t know anything about it,” he replied contemptuously.

Jen took the photos out of the envelope again and looked for the shot that showed Wainwright having sex with a suspected minor. When she found the picture, she handed it over.

“Please take another close look at this photo. Do you recognize anything in it?”

“That my son is screwing a woman, and that the young lady is not Valerie.”

“Nothing else catches your eye?”

“Ms. Brighton, let’s not play this guessing game. Just say what you want.” Wainwright had switched back to a confrontational tone.

“Would you share my opinion that the woman is a juvenile?”

“She does look very young,” Wainwright admitted. “But she could just as well be twenty and look sixteen.”

“While I know that’s possible, I wonder why your son was sent these pictures in the first place. Because he cheated on his wife?”

“I see. So, in your opinion, my son was not only sexually disturbed, but also a child molester.”

“You tell me! What would you assume, seeing these pictures?”

Wainwright lowered his chin to his chest, shook his head briefly, and laughed derisively. “You can imagine what a scandal it would be for the firm, and my family, if these photos got out to the public. What that would mean for Valerie and Larissa, I don’t even want to imagine. But it’s indisputable that Julius was desperately trying to hide this information.”

“The only question is, who these true friends are, and in what context they used the pictures against your son,” Jen summed it up.

“That’s your job to find out, Ms. Brighton. You know where Julius’ office is,” Ferdinand Wainwright said dismissively. He rose from his desk chair and walked over to the elegant chrome plated stainless steel bar cart that stood in front of the window and poured himself a cognac.

Jen understood. He was no longer interested in talking to her.

The hoped for evidence of blackmail was not found in Julius Wainwright’s office. The second search of the space brought no new evidence at all, really. Frustrated, Jen drove back to the police station and went directly to the vice squad with the footage. She hoped the team would be able to find out where the photographs might have been taken. Nick Williams, the head of the department, promised to give her information as soon as possible.

She spent that afternoon typing up her report for the day and reviewing the evidence in the investigation so far. Around six o’clock, she finally called it a day. She was exhausted. The recent hot and humid nights had taken their toll.

Chapter 13

Patrick Sandthorn was sitting in the study of his mansion on Queen Anne Ave and was in the process of drawing up his purchase contract for a Mallorcan estate. He had finally sealed the deal with a handshake the day before for his buyer from Mercer Island. The entrepreneur jumped at the chance to purchase the property for an estimated seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

He wanted to email the draft of the contract to the client today. Knowing there would be a fat commission on this sale made him more than happy to forego dinner with his wife, Willow, who had gone out with a friend instead. He estimated that it would be at least another two hours before she got home, leaving Patrick enough time to open a good bottle of red wine, sit on the terrace, and enjoy the balmy summer evening. A piece of Grimalt, a Mallorcan cheese they had brought back from the Balearic Island, would round off the evening, he thought at the very moment he heard the front door slam shut. So much for a quiet evening alone on the terrace, he thought grumpily. He rose from his chair and opened the door to the hallway.

“Honey, you’re home! You weren’t missing me already, were you?” he shouted and waited for an answer, but he heard nothing. “Willow?”

Again, nothing. Surprised, he descended the stairs to the first floor. There was no sign of his wife. Her key was not on the hook. Strange. “I could have sworn that–” he muttered to himself, when a terrible pain suddenly struck his neck. The next moment, everything went black.

He awoke in his living room, tied to one of the dining room chairs. The curtains were drawn, and the light was on. Sitting on the couch across from him was a man he had never seen before, holding a plastic bag.

“Finally. I thought you wouldn’t ever wake up,” the burglar said, a grin on his face.

“What...do you...want from me?” gasped Sandthorn, whose pulse was racing. Sweat oozed from his pores. He tugged frantically at the shackles, but it was useless; they were too tight.

“I want to play with you,” the stranger replied, getting up from the couch, slowly approaching him. Before Sandthorn could say anything, the intruder put the bag over his head. “The name of the game is Kill the Pig,” he heard the stranger say with a sneer.

He tried to answer, but his fear rendered him speechless. Saliva ran from the corner of his mouth. Desperately, he tugged again at the shackles, but he knew it was in vain. Two short, panicked breaths, three...For God’s sake, he was suffocating! Was that even possible after such a short time?

A tearing at the bottom of the bag ripped him from his thoughts. He suddenly felt the bag tighten uncomfortably around his neck, like a rope. Then he heard a rattling sound, and the next moment, it was clear to him that the oppressive feeling around his neck was intensifying. The guy must have sealed the bag with tape. This maniac was actually trying to kill him!

He gasped for air, the oxygen becoming more scarce while his breathing rate increased more and more. With each frantic gasp, he sucked the plastic from the bag into his mouth, immediately exhaling again and again. His heart was pounding up to his throat, as the blood rushed in his ears. The chest pain was almost unbearable, and a wave of nausea rose up in his stomach.

Panic stricken, he tugged at the restraints, compulsively. His mind was everywhere, but he knew, without a doubt, that the agonizing feeling of suffocation was the worst thing he had experienced in his forty-seven years. This was his last thought as a sudden drop in blood pressure caused him to fall into a faint. Only a short time later, his body, bound to the chair, reared up one last time in an unconscious convulsion. One more breath and Patrick Sandthorn was dead.

The killer felt nothing but euphoria as he, calmly and stoically, sat back and watched his victim die a slow, panicked death. Once he was certain Sandthorn was dead, he pulled on his baseball cap and the hood of his hoodie over the top of it. He opened the front door a crack to make sure the coast was clear and smiled at his good fortune. There were no passersby on the sidewalk. Hastily, he slipped out the door, pulled it shut, and ran to his car, which was parked on a nearby side street. He never thought that killing would come so easily to him, but he was realizing that he was never more wrong.

Chapter 14

After work, Jen treated herself to a Frutti di Mare pizza at her favorite Italian restaurant. When she arrived home, she made herself comfortable on her small balcony and enjoyed the last warm rays of sun with an after work cigarette. Despite her best efforts, she was unable to switch off her mind; restlessness gripped her. She knew the reason for it: Ferdinand Wainwright. His interference in the investigation, and the pressure he exerted on her and her team, made him wildly unlikable, but there was a bigger reason he irked her so much. Wainwright reminded her of her father. Owen Brighton was a successful doctor and, when he wasn’t reminding Jen how much he wished for a son, he was pushing her to be the best in everything she did. Whether it was at school or in sports, he demanded perfection from her. And yet, she could never live up to it. For his sake, she had even started medical school so she could eventually take over his practice, but after her second semester she had known that it was not what she really wanted. She gave it all up to pursue a criminal justice degree, much to her father’s dismay.

After her degree change, their already difficult relationship had become even worse, and they‘d kept their contact minimal since. One phone call on her birthday, one obligatory visit at Christmas. Her father was the reason why she had matured into a determined and successful policewoman, but on the other hand, he was also the cause of all the self-doubt and fear of failure she suffered through in life. She constantly had to prove something to herself. Her mother had always been her rock. And yet, in an ugly twist of fate, she was the one taken by cancer. Not him. Jen knew she shouldn’t think that way, but she couldn’t help it.

“Oh, Mom,” she sighed, a tear running down her cheek. Frustrated, she ran a hand through her hair. Damnit! These feelings snuck up on her again! She sighed heavily, shuffled over to the stereo, put on her favorite U2 album and let Bono distract her. Music was still the best therapy. Shortly before midnight, she went to bed. She might need less recovery time at night than most people, but she still had sleep to catch up on.

The ringing of her cell phone jolted her out of her dreams. Who was so persistent at this hour? After the seventh or eighth ring, she picked up.

“Who’s disturbing my beauty sleep?” she mumbled into the phone.

“Your partner, telling you that you don’t need beauty sleep and there’s work to be done.”

“I’m off duty, Steven,” she replied, yawning loudly.

“Not anymore. There’s been another murder, and you’ll never guess who the victim is.”

“Who?

“Patrick Sandthorn.”

When Hemphill mentioned the name, Jen jolted awake. She shot upright in bed and leaned against the raised headboard. “What, that...there’s no way! What the hell happened?”

“All evidence suggests he was suffocated. Since I was lucky enough to be on call, I’m already on the scene. You’ll find out everything else when you get here. I’ll send you the address.”

“Pretty much on my way.”

Jen ended the conversation, swung herself out of bed, stumbled over her jeans carelessly peppered in front of the bed, and tipped into her closet to pull out a fresh shirt, dig out her bright red sneakers from under her mess of clothes, and get dressed in no time at all. After splashing water on her face, she was a little more awake and attempted to tie her unruly curls into a ponytail. There was no time for brushing her teeth; for once, chewing gum would have to do.

Not even five minutes after she had finished the phone call with Hemphill, Jen tugged her leather jacket off the coat hook and stormed out of the apartment. She jumped into her police cruiser, flipped on the lights, and sped off. Jen always loved it when she could fly through lights and break all the rules. Yes, she liked to drive fast. Very fast.

She reached the scene in Queen Anne in less than fifteen minutes. Two emergency vehicles were parked in front of the home with their blue and red lights flashing. Parked next to them was an ambulance and the vehicle from the forensic pathologist. Jen stopped directly behind Underwood’s SUV. The boss had already arrived. She got out and headed straight for the front door, which was guarded by an officer from another station. She pulled her badge out of her jacket, showed it and entered the home, where she was immediately intercepted by Underwood in the hallway.

“That was fast,’ he said, surprised, glancing at his wristwatch.

“Would you expect anything else? I’m more surprised that you’re here.”

“Steven called me. I immediately got in the car.”

“And where are my partners?”

“They’re around here somewhere.”

“What do we know so far?”

“The victim was suffocated with a plastic bag. Davis estimates that Sandthorn has been dead for two to three hours. His wife found him tied to a chair in the living room when she came home from dinner with a friend,” the captain summarized.

“Where do I find her?”

“I asked her to wait for you in the kitchen.”

“Good, I will talk to her right away. Enough chatter; I have to get a picture of the crime scene myself now.” Jen headed straight for where she thought the living room was. Just at that moment, the forensic pathologist approached her with his instrument case. They exchanged a few words, and Davis promised Jen to send her the autopsy report as soon as possible. Then he said goodbye and left the home.

Before Jen entered the room, she pulled a pair of shoe covers over her sneakers. A team of forensic experts had already started working. She greeted them, briefly, and immediately began to gather her first impressions of the crime scene. This was always particularly important to her—nothing was more crucial than investigating the crime scene. She did not want to rely solely on the CSI for this.

Sandthorn sat with his back to the door, both arms and legs fixed to the chair with standard zip ties. Their origin would probably be impossible to trace, she thought. There was nothing left of the plastic bag with which the victim had been suffocated; Davis had probably removed it. Or the wife. She would have to ask her later, Jen noted in her head. The grocery bag most likely used had been stowed in an evidence bag that lay on the living room table. The bag’s origin probably wouldn’t help her in her search for the culprit either, she surmised. She then walked once around the chair to examine the dead body.

Signs of the agonizing death this man must have experienced were impossible to miss. The bloated face, with the clearly recognizable blue coloration, and the multitude of petechiae, pinhead-sized bleeding from the capillaries into the skin, spoke volumes.

“Have you examined the couch yet?” She turned to a forensics officer.

“It’s next,” she replied.

“Be extra thorough, there, please,” Jen asked. “I want you to take that two-seater apart to the last crack and bag up any hair, skin cells, or whatever you find there. If I’m not mistaken, that’s where the killer sat and watched Sandthorn die.”

“Will do,” the white coveralled woman replied monosyllabically and set to work.

“I'm guessing that the position of the chair gave you that information,” Underwood speculated.

"So, my boss hasn’t forgotten everything after all,” she replied with a wink. “But that’s right, that was my first guess. Do we know how the perpetrator got in here yet?”

“Since there are no signs of forced entry, it’s safe to assume that Sandthorn let his killer in himself.”

“Then maybe he even knew the perpetrator. That would also explain the two wounds on the neck there on the right.” Jen pointed to the small stigmata left by the stun gun. “Sandthorn opens the front door and bam, he’s been incapacitated.”

“Sounds logical. Very perceptive, again, Detective Brighton. I didn’t even notice the slight burn marks caused by the stun gun. Davis pointed them out to me.”

“Thanks, I’d like to talk to the widow now. Can you take me to her?”

“Your wish is my command,” Underwood replied and led the way.

Chapter 15

Willow Sandthorn was sitting at the kitchen table with a uniformed officer, and a cup of tea in front of her that she had not yet touched. Jen could tell from the mascara running down her face that the victim’s wife must have been crying, but otherwise the poor woman had shockingly pulled herself together quite well. Mrs. Sandthorn was a real eye-catcher, Jen thought to herself as she glanced at the woman...The typical man’s dream: the face of a model, perfectly tanned skin that complimented her long, light brown hair, and deep blue eyes. The widow brought her gaze to Jen as she walked into the room.

“Good evening, Mrs. Sandthorn. Jen Brighton, Seattle Homicide. May I first express my sincere condolences to you.” The detective extended her hand to the woman as she stood up.

Although Jen was not exactly small at five eleven, the widow towered over her by a good deal. Willow Sandthorn not only had the face of a model, but also the figure to match it.

“Thank you,” she choked out, her voice strained from crying.

“I would like to ask you a few questions. Is that all right, or should we postpone it until tomorrow?” asked Jen after the officer who was with her had stood up and said goodbye.

“No, this is a conversation I can’t avoid. Might as well get it over with tonight,” said Mrs. Sandthorn and sat down again.

Jen also took a seat. Underwood apparently preferred to remain standing and follow the questioning from the background.

“Would you mind sharing with me the name of your friend and the restaurant you were at?”

“Claudia Helman. Patrick and I had reserved a table at Ristorante Machiavelli for seven thirty. We didn’t get back from Mallorca until late afternoon, and Patrick decided to stay home and work. I had a lot to tell Claudia, so we decided to go out together.”

“Could you please write down your friend’s address for me?” asked Jen, handing Willow Sandthorn her cell phone. In seconds, the woman had typed in the contact information and handed back the phone. “When did you get home?” Jen continued with the questioning.

“It must have been about eleven twenty.”

“Did you notice anything unusual upon returning?”

“What kind of question is that? I found my husband lifeless in the living room! Isn’t that unusual enough? I will never be able to forget the sight of him, sitting there, tied up in the chair—with that bag over his head,” the woman replied, sobbing, her face buried in her hands.

“I understand that you are very upset, Mrs. Sandthorn, but these questions, as superfluous as they may seem to you, are important in order for us to get a comprehensive picture of what may have happened here. Did you touch your husband’s body? Did you take the bag off his head?”

“I...I felt for his pulse, but Patrick...was dead! I didn’t touch the bag.”

“Good, that helps us narrow down what foreign traces may be on the bag. Did you notice anything else? For example, were any valuable items taken? Or are any of the rooms torn up? Those things might indicate the perpetrator was looking for something.”

“I honestly can’t answer that for you. After I found Patrick, I immediately notified the police and waited outside. There was no way I could...stay in the house.”

“It doesn’t appear to us that the perpetrator was looking for anything here,’ Underwood spoke up from the background. “However, the safe upstairs in the study is open. We can’t yet judge whether anything was stolen from there. We found various business documents and jewelry in the safe. Perhaps you could take a look at it later, Mrs. Sandthorn, and tell us whether you are missing any jewelry.”

The widow nodded silently.

“Do you know if your husband was expecting visitors?” Jen resumed her interview.

“I’m afraid I don’t know. He didn’t mention anything. What he told me is that he wanted to catch up on a few things that he’d gotten behind on. My God, this is all so terrible! First Julius and now Patrick. Do you think there’s a connection?”

“It’s too early to tell,” Jen replied, evasively. It surprised her that the widow approached her about a connection between the two murders. “Do you suspect a connection?”

“No.” Mrs. Sandthorn shook her head. “It was just a thought because they had known each other since childhood.”

“Did your husband have any enemies?’

“None that I know of.”

“Did he have any problems? Maybe with a dissatisfied customer?”

“Who would want to kill him over some real estate?”

“Well, there was an allegation that your husband might be involved in the Luger scandal.”

“If you’ve heard about that, then surely you also know that this accusation was completely baseless.”

Willow Sandthorn’s annoyance was now very apparent. Therefore, Jen refrained from elaborating on this topic for the moment. “Apart from that, have there been any incidents lately?”

The widow frowned. “Yes, there was something,” she finally said. “Although I can’t imagine it had anything to do with Patrick’s death.”

“What happened?”

“About three weeks ago, there was a break in here. We were at a birthday party, and when we came home, the patio door was broken open.”

“The burglar must have really known his stuff. I noticed the control panel of your alarm system in the hallway, so I know you have security. I’m also going to assume it’s directly connected to a security service.”

“It wasn't on.”

Jen noted that Mrs. Sandthorn’s cheeks reddened slightly.

“I had forgotten something in the house and went back in for a second. When I came back out, I didn’t think to turn the alarm on again.” She propped her head in her hands.

“And of all things, the break in took place during the time you two weren’t home,” Jen said. She frowned. Was the break in really connected to Patrick Sandthorn’s murder? Since she didn’t believe in coincidences, she was determined to investigate this further. “Was anything stolen then?”

“Cash, but not much. Most of my costume jewelry. Fortunately, we keep the valuable pieces in the safe. The insurance didn’t pay, of course, because of my scatterbrainedness.”

“Speaking of your safe,” Underwood interjected, “would you mind accompanying us upstairs for a moment to check if any of your jewelry is missing? Unless you have any more questions, Jen?”

Jen just shook her head and got up from the table.

Patrick Sandthorn’s study was on the second floor of the house. In all the rooms Jen had seen so far, the furnishings underlined the Sandthorns' exquisite taste. Everything was obviously not from the furniture market around the corner, but fancy designer pieces, tasteful in their styling. While Underwood asked Mrs. Sandthorn to inspect the contents of the safe, Jen took a moment to look around the study. On the desk was an unsigned contract for a property in Mallorca, purchase price, seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Apparently, Sandthorn had been working on it before he had opened the door to his murderer. She pulled open the two drawers of the designer desk and looked inside. Nothing jumped out at her as particularly interesting.

“The jewelry is all here,” Willow Sandthorn stated—at the same moment Jen noticed a framed photo showing three men in front of the Space Needle.

“Then we can rule out the possibility that it was a robbery gone wrong,” she replied. “The jewelry was literally on display and is still all here. Could you please come over here for a moment, Mrs. Sandthorn?”

The widow complied with her request.

“I’ve seen this photo before at Mr. Wainwright’s house.” Jen pointed to the picture in question. “Who is that man standing next to your husband?”

“Mark Kaiser, an old friend since their school days. They were known as The Inseparable Three. But that was a long time ago. Patrick hardly had any contact with them anymore.”

“Do you mind if I take a picture of the shot?” Jen asked as she pulled out her cell phone. Willow Sandthorn shook her head. “You wouldn’t happen to know what Mr. Kaiser does for a living?”

“He’s bankrupt. He founded a start-up that was initially very successful, but then ran it into the ground just as successfully. He lost everything, including his wife, who ran off with their daughter,” Willow replied with a contemptuous undertone.

“I think we’ve seen everything we need here,” Jen explained. “Do you already know where you’re staying tonight?”

“I’m going to go to the Madison Hotel for now.”

The answer surprised Jen.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. You shouldn’t be alone after what you’ve been through tonight. Can’t you stay with your parents? Or what about your friend, Claudia?”

“I appreciate your concern, Ms. Brighton, but right now I would rather be alone,” the widow replied as she wiped the tears from her cheek with the back of her hand.

“If you need emotional support, you can always call them,” Jen replied, handing Mrs. Sandthorn the business card of an emergency chaplain she had known for years. “The patrol officers will drive you to the Madison as soon as you have packed a few things.”

Mrs. Sandthorn nodded, and they said goodbye.

“What do you think happened here?” Underwood asked as they made their way back to the first floor.

“I have no idea, to be honest. We can formally rule out the possibility that Sandthorn had something to do with Wainwright’s death, but it’s obvious to me that there’s a connection between the two murders.”

“I agree with you about that. Feels like we’re back to square one.”

“I know,” sighed Jen, even though she was more convinced than ever that the murders were connected to the Luger case.

“Oh, here come Steven and Henry,” said Underwood, pointing in the direction of the front door.

Hemphill shook his head as he walked toward her. She didn’t even need to ask him how the questioning of the neighbors had gone. His face said everything.

Chapter 16

Friday, September 6

“Hey, guys,” Jen greeted the two officers as she entered their office. “Where are you with Patrick Sandthorn’s dossier?”

“That’s ready. But before we jump into that, I have some news for you. It’s about Herbert Glowack,” Hemphill said.

“Okay, let’s hear it. What did you find out?”

“We can cross the man off the list of suspects. He has been in the hospital for almost a week. Complicated arm fracture. Fell off a ladder at work. I’ve just spoken to the hospital’s head physician myself.”

“I love it when the morning starts with good news,” Jen groaned. “All right, what do we have on Sandthorn? Give me the short version, please. My brain is limited in its receptivity right now, thanks to chronic lack of sleep and significantly low caffeine levels.” She lowered herself into a chair across from him.

“Patrick Sandthorn, forty-seven, married to Willow Sandthorn, née Smith. No children. Comes from a simple family background and has worked his way up to be one of Seattle’s most well known names. Studied architecture after graduating from high school. His total assets amount to about seven million dollars, including the home in Queen Anne. From our point of view, the background check was unremarkable. If you ignore the investigations against him in the Luger case, he has a clean record. We have already started checking all his phone records, personal and from his office. As soon as we have those, we will evaluate them.”

“Good, thanks. Well, sounds like we don’t know much about the man yet. Let’s brainstorm: The victims had known each other for thirty-five years, and they belonged to Seattle’s upper class. While Wainwright was born with the golden spoon in his mouth, Sandthorn had to do everything himself. Both were killed in different ways. I find that aspect interesting, by the way. Does the murderer just want to mislead us and make us believe that he was not responsible for both crimes? Or are we really dealing with two perpetrators, and it’s just a coincidence, albeit a big one, that the two had known each other for decades? What do you think?”

“Hmm, difficult to answer,” Hemphill replied. “As you said, it would be a pretty big coincidence. Two killers would also indicate two different motives.”

“I’m still not sure I believe that their deaths have to do with the upcoming Luger trial,” Kruger interjected. “I know that’s Jen’s favored theory, but maybe Sandthorn also had a dark secret, which has now become his undoing.”

“You’re thinking of the compromising photos Valerie Wainwright found in her husband’s desk, I assume?” Jen opined. “There might be something to that. If Sandthorn had anything to hide, we might need to dig a little deeper to find it. We certainly need to leave that option on the table. It’s clear that we now have three possible theories. First, a connection to the Luger fraud case. Second, a blackmail scheme turned murder. And the third possibility; there is no connection whatsoever between the murders, and we are dealing with different killers.”

“I don't know, Jen. Why would the killer murder the men if they didn’t pay the extortion money? They are of no use to anyone dead,” Hemphill expressed his doubts.

“I’m not even going to disagree with you there. However, we don’t know what’s going on in the mind of the killer or killers. But let’s stop speculating and find evidence for one of these theories. We need to get started right away. I’m going to the Madison to talk to Willow Sandthorn again. In the meantime, find out everything you can about the man in this photo.” Jen showed them the photograph from Sandthorn’s office of Mark Kaiser and the two victims.

“Wasn’t that hanging in Wainwright's study?” Hemphill asked.

“Right. And on Sandthorn’s desk. They called themselves The Inseparable Three. At least, that’s what Mrs. Sandthorn called them. The three men are, or rather were, friends since their school days. I would like to talk to him as soon as possible. His name is Mark Kaiser, according to Mrs. Sandthorn. He might know something that will help us.”

“Or is in danger, himself,” Hemphill interjected.

“Good point. I hadn’t even thought of that,” Jen admitted. “Find out where he lives, then we’ll go see him later. And while you’re at it, running a background check on him couldn’t hurt either. What are you rummaging around for, Henry?” Jen finally snapped after listening to him dig around his desk for the last few minutes.

“The name Mark Kaiser rings a bell. I think he appears on the list of names of the victims in the Luger case, if I’m not mistaken,” Kruger replied. “Ha, I knew it,” he said with a triumphant smile on his lips when he found the list. “A Mark Kaiser is listed here as having lost just under four hundred thousand dollars.”

Jen raised her eyebrows.

“If this is, indeed, the same man, things are really starting to get interesting. Because Mrs. Sandthorn mentioned yesterday that Kaiser is broke. And now another connection to the Luger case. This is by far our most promising lead. Oh, I almost forgot: The Sandthorns' house was broken into almost three weeks ago. Could you please check this out in our system and report back to me as soon as possible on what the investigation revealed? We’ll meet back here later.”

Chapter 17

The friendly lady at the reception desk at the Madison Hotel sent Jen to room 211 after she had phoned Willow Sandthorn‘s room to get approval for Jen to come up. Jen had decided to take the stairs and not the elevator. Every step keeps you fit, was her motto. It was only two floors; she could handle that, easily. When she opened the stairwell door to the hotel corridor on the second floor, however, she was a little out of breath. Brighton, you should exercise more, she thought as she walked down the hall. It didn’t take long for her to find the right room. She knocked, and shortly thereafter, the door was opened.

Jen blinked in surprise at Willow’s appearance. The broker’s wife looked like a completely different woman in her flowered summer dress. There was no trace of last night’s black circles around the eyes, or even signs of reddened eyes that would indicate that the widow had been crying. If the woman was grieving for her murdered husband, she was obviously able to conceal it well on the outside.

“Ms. Brighton. Please come in. I wasn’t expecting you so soon,” Willow Sandthorn greeted her with a friendly smile.

The room interior more than lived up to its four-star hotel status. It was an estimated three hundred to three hundred fifty square feet. An oversized flat screen hung on the wall opposite the king-sized bed. Hemphill would have enjoyed seeing this room, Jen thought, looking at it. A small seating area—a round wooden table and three chairs upholstered in colorful fabrics—softened the ambience. A couch set with wide seat cushions was tucked into an alcove next to the bed. Jen surmised three guests could sit comfortably there. Willow offered for Jen to sit there while she, herself, settled on the edge of the bed and crossed her legs. Jen had to admit that she became a little envious when her gaze fell on the woman’s shapely legs. The impression of yesterday was confirmed once again: Willow Sandthorn was an enviably beautiful and certainly athletic woman.

“How are you?” Jen started the conversation.

“I would say okay, considering the circumstances. It feels surreal. I don’t think I’ve really realized what happened at the house yesterday. Last night, I dreamt that Patrick woke me up and we went down to breakfast together. I know that sounds absurd, but that’s what happened. I woke still thinking about it. When I saw that the side of the bed next to me was empty and the bed untouched, I realized that I will never experience such moments with Patrick again,” Willow explained. Her eyes shimmered with tears, wistfulness filling her gaze.

“That doesn’t sound absurd at all. Perhaps seeing a psychologist would be beneficial. That can be helpful in coping with grief. I can give you some contact information if you'd like.”

“Thank you. That’s very kind, but I think I’ll be able to manage. If not, I will, of course, take you up on your offer. So, what brings you to me at this early hour, Ms. Brighton?”

“Any chance that your husband was blackmailed? If so, with what?” Jen jumped right in. With this surprise tactic, she hoped for an honest reaction from the widow.

Willow Sandthorn frowned briefly. “Patrick, blackmailed? No. Why would you think that?”

“Without going into detail now, because I am not allowed to do so for investigative reasons, we have found indications in the case of Julius Wainwright that point to possible blackmail. That information has led us to believe it is a possible motive for the crime. Naturally, we wonder whether this could also apply to your husband’s case.”

Willow chewed on her lower lip. After a moment's thought, however, she shook her head. “I'm sorry. I’d like to help you further, but for the life of me, I can’t imagine that Patrick could have been blackmailed.”

“Would you mind if I took another look around your house?”

“If it helps you find Patrick’s killer, go ahead. I’ll give you the front door key to take with you,” the widow replied, as she got up from the bed to search for the key from her purse. “Then if you could bring it back to me as soon as possible, I would appreciate that” she stated.

“Thank you,” Jen replied, now rising as well. “I’ll make sure you get it back as soon as we’re finished. I have one more question, and then you’ll be rid of me. You mentioned, yesterday, that Mark Kaiser has money problems.”

“That’s putting it rather kindly,” the widow interrupted her. “He’s not just having money troubles, he’s flat broke and sitting on a pile of debt! He’s begged Patrick for money more than once.”

“Did your husband help him?”

“Initially, yes. With smaller amounts of money. But Mark became more and more annoying and constantly wanted larger sums. At some point, Patrick made it clear to him that he couldn’t continue to support him. But that was over a year ago, if I have it right in my head.”

“I see. Did you know that Mark Kaiser had invested money with Ben Luger and lost quite a bit? Four hundred thousand dollars, to be exact.”

“No, I didn’t know that. And frankly, I don’t care either. Is there anything else you need?”

“For now, no. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me.”

“Sorry I couldn’t really help you, but I sincerely hope that you’ll catch the lunatic who killed Julius and my husband soon.”

“What makes you so sure that the two men were killed by the same perpetrator?”

“I honestly don’t have a particular reason. Call it female intuition, but the questions you asked me tell me that you believe that, too. Now, however, I also have a question. I would like to take care of my husband’s funeral. When can I expect his body to be released?”

“Unfortunately, I can’t answer that yet. We will let you know as soon as possible,” Jen replied and said goodbye, letting herself out of the room.

On the way to the car, she couldn’t help think that this woman was hard to judge. She didn’t look, or act, like a grieving widow.

Later that day, Jen left the Sandthorns’ house frustrated and tired.

Damn, she cursed, inwardly. Not the slightest hint of possible blackmail or a double life! Since Ristorante Machiavelli was on the way to the police station, she stopped there to check Willow Sandthorn’s alibi. Although it was a routine check, she entered the restaurant feeling a familiar tingle in her stomach. Willow Sandthorn’s behavior was abnormal and had Jen’s senses on edge. Twice, now, she had hinted that there might be a connection between the murders of her husband and Julius Wainwright, without being able to explain why she suspected this. Beyond all of that, her behavior, which didn’t feel like a grieving widow today, really raised doubts in Jen. During the search of the home in Queen Anne, one thought had stayed with Jen: Was it possible for a woman to take out a man of Patrick Sandthorn’s stature with a stun gun, tie him to a chair, and then suffocate him with a plastic bag? For an athletic person like Willow Sandthorn, the answer in Jen’s mind was yes.

But to her disappointment, a waiter confirmed the woman's alibi. At least she could save herself the trip to visit Claudia Helman, the friend with whom the widow had spent the evening. Nevertheless, she was not ready to let Willow Sandthorn off the hook just yet. It was quite possible that the woman had seized the opportunity to get rid of her own husband.

Too many theories, too few leads, Jen thought, and made her way back to the precinct.

Chapter 18

Traffic in downtown Seattle was a mess, as usual. Jen arrived back at the station thirty minutes later than planned, needing to go to the bathroom, and feeling incredibly hungry. It was her own fault for not eating enough breakfast, so she had some vegetable lasagna and enjoyed a much needed smoke break. Only then did she feel ready to head back into the precinct to find Hemphill and Kruger. “We were about ready to file a missing person’s report. What have you been doing with Mrs. Sandthorn for so long?” Hemphill grumbled when he caught sight of her.

“It’s sweet of you to worry about me,” Jen returned with a grin. “But all kidding aside, I wasn’t just with the widow. The questioning wasn’t particularly fruitful. She doesn’t know anything about blackmail at all, let alone a reason for it. But, somehow, the woman is suspicious to me. You should have seen her. No trace of sadness. She looked like a supermodel.”

“Are you suggesting she had something to do with her husband’s death?” Kruger raised his left eyebrow.

“Her alibi is watertight, I've already checked. A waiter at Ristorante Machiavelli confirmed that she had dinner there with a friend at the time in question.”

“Murder for hire?” Hemphill frowned. “First the Mafia, now a hired hitman? You’re full of far-fetched ideas.”

“I know it sounds crazy, and there’s no proof either. It’s just a gut feeling. I am suspicious of how quickly Willow Sandthorn linked the murder of her husband to the killing of Wainwright. This morning, she immediately started talking about it again.”

“You know how much I respect your gut feelings, but as you also know, I’m more a man of facts, which brings us to the requested phone records from Sandthorn’s cell phone,” Hemphill took the floor. “Unfortunately, we couldn’t find anything conspicuous there. The same goes for the content of his messages. Nothing exciting. He seems to have led a basic, clean life. We’re still waiting for the reports from the company phones. Maybe they’ll be more fruitful.”

“You won’t believe this,” Kruger shouted from the background. He was almost invisible behind his two monitors. “I just got the bank information on the Sandthorns. Guess who he transferred fifty thousand bucks to from his private account six weeks ago?”

“My immediate guess would be Mark Kaiser,” Jen tried.

“Spoilsport. How did you know that?”

“Willow Sandthorn has indicated that her husband gave Kaiser money from time to time. However, she only mentioned smaller amounts of money, and allegedly that last happened more than a year ago.”

“Then her husband obviously lied to her. Something else is strange. The money was transferred to a bank in New York.”

“Maybe Kaiser was trying to build a new life in New York, and this was kind of a jump-start,” Hemphill suggested. “In Seattle, he is broke. Which brings us to his history. Kaiser was born in 1972, and, like Patrick Sandthorn, comes from a rather modest family background. After graduating from high school, he began studying computer science and graduated early. He was very well respected in the field of programming. Kaiser founded his own company, which was used in the development of software products, and did it quite successfully for several years, making him a self-made millionaire. However, he did not recognize the trends in the economy, and in 2002, turned down a takeover offer from a well-known and much larger competitor. After that, he attempted to keep his company afloat for almost seven years until he went bankrupt. A large part of his fortune was lost in the process. In 2010, he founded a new company that developed computer games. By 2015, that company was also bankrupt. All his cash assets were also used up, and he eventually had to sell his house. He then invested the remaining money he had, almost entirely, in the junk real estate that Luger and Schultz sold him. He even took out another loan to do it. We know how the story ends. His wife and their daughter had long since left him.

“Tragic,” Jen agreed.

“You can say that again. Now, he lives in a studio apartment in Tacoma.”

“I’d like to talk to him. I need him to explain to me what this money transfer Henry mentioned is all about. And I’m very interested in how close The Inseparable Three have been lately and what he has to tell us about his murdered friends. Maybe he also knows something about Julius Wainwright’s sexual tendencies. Steven, you’ll come with me. Afterwards, we’ll go to Sandthorn’s real estate office and talk to his employees.’

“Before you run out the door,” Kruger now took the floor again. “You asked us to do some research on the Sandthorn burglary.”

“Right. So, what did you figure out?”

“Not much. The burglary took place through the terrace door. The alarm was not triggered because the alarm system was not turned on. Apart from worthless jewelry and a little cash, nothing was stolen, which is surprising, considering there were various, openly accessible, items of high value in the house that the burglar or burglars could have taken.”

“That coincides with what Willow Sandthorn told us. Nevertheless, this burglary story seems strange to me. I have the uneasy feeling that this wasn’t just a case of a simple burglary. I assume that the perpetrator or perpetrators were not caught?”

“Correct. I printed out the officer’s report for you and put it on the table.”

"Thank you, Henry. Come on, Steven. Let’s go see if we can get some answers to our questions.”

Chapter 19

Mark Kaiser’s home address led the investigators to a high-rise apartment building that stood in stark contrast to the Wainwright family’s property in Madison Park or the Sandthorns’ home in Queen Anne. The apartment building, which definitely needed work, was covered in a dirty, gray facade that was clearly in need of renovation. At first glance, everything here seemed bleak. Considering that Kaiser had once belonged to the elite circle of Seattle’s upper crust, where money was no object, the fact that he now lived here testified to the extent of his social decline. Hemphill steered the BMW into the first available parking space.

“Kaiser has sunk pretty low,” Hemphill said, as they walked beside the windows of a discount store.

“Was my first thought, too,” Jen confessed. “Even the stores here seem dreary.”

Kaiser lived on the third floor. No one responded to the bell downstairs at the front door.

“Maybe it’s just broken, like so many other things around here,” Hemphill said with a shrug, pressing various bell buttons simultaneously. With success, the door buzzer sounded. Of course, the elevator was broken, so they had to walk up the three flights. Panting, they reached Kaiser’s floor and stepped through the stairwell exit into the hallway.

Kaiser’s apartment was at the end of the hallway. A guy in a baseball cap was standing there, typing away on his cell phone. Although he was wearing a baseball cap, Jen recognized that it was not Mark Kaiser. The man with the nondescript face stared at the investigators before making his smartphone disappear into the inside pocket of his stained denim jacket.

“Hello. Can I help you?” he asked in a friendly manner as the investigators approached him.

“Good afternoon. Detective Brighton, Seattle PD. My colleague, Detective Steven Hemphill,” Jen took over the introduction and held her badge out for him to see.

“You don’t see police detectives here very often. We usually have to deal with the uniformed guys,” the man said, grinning. “Allow me to introduce myself. Max Newman. Surely that would have been your next question.”

“Do you live here?” Jen wanted to know, while Hemphill rang Kaiser’s doorbell. The shrill sound of the bell rang out, but there was still no sign of Kaiser.

“He’s not here. Not for a few days,” the man said. “And yes, I live here. M. Newman, see?” He pointed to the slightly faded writing on the nameplate below the bell button on the apartment across the hall.

“How do you know Kaiser hasn’t been home in days?”

“Because otherwise I would have gotten to enjoy the annoying music that the weirdo always plays at an unbearable volume. Jazz. Can you imagine that? The guy listens to nothing but jazz all hours of the day!”

“And when did you stop hearing music from the apartment?”

“Hmm,” Newman pondered, running his right hand over the stubble on his unshaven chin. “Maybe about a week?”

“And you haven’t seen him either?”

“Neither seen nor heard.”

“How well do you know your neighbor, then?”

“We say hello to each other, but we’ve never talked about anything more than the weather. Rumor around the complex is that he used to be rich. If that’s at all true, he would have to be pretty stupid to end up here. I mean, look at this place.”

“Thank you for your time,” said Jen, who saw no point in asking any more questions.

“For a high-ranking police detective, I’m always happy to help. And if there’s anything else, you know where to find me now,” Newman replied, tapping his cap briefly and marching off.

“Weird guy,” Jen commented—just at the moment Hemphill pulled his lock pick collection out of his pants pocket. “What are you doing, Steven?”

“Danger ahead,” the officer said with a sly expression while he pointed over his shoulder to Kaiser’s apartment door. “For all we know that poor man is lying helpless in his apartment, and we need to help him,” he continued.

Jen briefly weighed the consequences, but then shook her head. “You’re not going to do that. I don’t know what’s going on with Kaiser, but we’re not going to break in here. We’re going to follow the rules and get a search warrant.”

“Which we will hardly be issued under the given circumstances,” Hemphill replied, frustrated. The expression on his boss’s face immediately gave him an answer. He knew that look too well. And he knew when it was better to remain silent.

Chapter 20

“So, what now?” Hemphill wanted to know once they were back at the precinct.

“We’ll follow the money trail. Well, you will. I need you to find out if there were any other notable deposits in Kaiser’s New York bank account. Specifically, did anyone like Julius Wainwright give him money? I still can’t get over the fact that Sandthorn transferred fifty thousand dollars to him from his private account. That’s not a small amount and is way more than a friendly gesture.”

“On the one hand, you’re right; that’s a lot of dough. On the other hand, fifty thousand isn’t that much for a millionaire. Sure, it’s not exactly within our pay grade, but if you asked me for money, I’d give it to you in a heartbeat to help you out of a jam. Just not on such a scale,” Kruger said.

“That's good to know, Henry. But seriously. I want to find out if there’s more to it. Sandthorn’s wife obviously didn’t know anything about it.”

“Searching through his entire account history will take a while. We’ll have to ask for assistance from the NYPD,” Hemphill explained.

“That shouldn’t be a problem. I have contacts there,” his partner replied.

“Let me know when there’s any news,” Jen said and disappeared into her office.

Jen had just hung up her jacket when her cell phone rang.

“Brighton.”

“Hello, Jen. Fred Kasten from Vice.”

“Well, that was quick. I hope you have some good news for me. Because we could really use it.”

“Unfortunately, I do not have any good news for you. Sorry to disappoint you, but whoever Julius was frolicking with was not a well-known dominatrix. We have reached out to sources within our network, but no one recognizes her or can remember seeing him at any of the well known clubs. It would obviously be easier to recognize the lady’s face, unfortunately though, it was more important to the photographer to catch the lawyer in all his glory. I also think it’s possible his playmate was not a professional at all, and just a private entertainer. In that case, we have no chance of finding anything.”

“I see. And what about the young girl Wainwright can be seen with in the other picture?”

“Difficult thing. No brothel operator, or private club owner, would admit that underage prostitutes are working for them. Or worse, being forced into prostitution work.”

“So, no chance of finding this girl?”

“We'll stay on the case, but I'm afraid that not much will come of it. Generally, these girls are a very desirable commodity. Please excuse my forthrightness, but I think you know what that means. They rarely stay in the same city or country for long.”

”Even if it shocks me to hear, I know that it’s the sad reality,” Jen admitted.

“I can absolutely understand that, but the depths of humanity are no less deep in our profession than in yours. And to be honest, probably even a lot deeper, especially when it comes to child prostitution or child pornography.”

“I can't even argue with that. If you find anything out, please let me know immediately.”

“Will do. Have a good day.”

“Thanks, likewise,” she replied and hung up. Another blow she had to take. Her fear that the investigation was making no progress at all grew stronger.

Jen stretched and flopped back in her desk chair to a more comfortable sitting position. This relaxed slouch was the best for thinking. She needed to spend a few minutes recapping the events of the last four days.

As Jen thought about the murders, she realized that there was a conspicuous feature in how the killings were completed to which they had previously paid little attention, and it may have been an important indicator of motives. Both Wainwright's murder by fire, and Sandthorn's death by suffocation were preceded by an agonizing inner struggle. It was obvious that both men were meant to suffer before they died. This gave the acts a personal touch upon closer examination. If it had only been a matter of killing them, they could just as well have been shot; short and painless, in the truest sense of the word. If the murders were of a personal nature, they could almost put the Luger and the two perpetrator theory to rest. This would also relieve Willow Sandthorn from any guilt. Was it really that simple, in the end, and the murders were based on a classic motive—revenge? But revenge for what?

“Kaiser,” she breathed softly. Did he have something to do with the deaths of his two friends, and was that why he had disappeared? Went into hiding? Had he sent the compromising photos to Julius Wainwright? And possibly had something on Patrick Sandthorn, for which he, in turn, had been willing to transfer the fifty thousand dollars to Kaiser’s bank account in New York? Had the two men not wanted to continue paying and thus sealed their death sentence? She absolutely had to talk to Underwood and find out what the chances were of obtaining a search warrant for Kaiser’s apartment, given the slim circumstantial evidence. She was annoyed with herself, now. If only she had listened to Hemphill and taken the opportunity to look around the place. She had her hand on the door handle to go see the captain when her cell phone rang.

It was Horrace King from the CSI team.

“Ace. If you’re calling me, it must be important,” she greeted the head of the CSI. She knew that he would reprimand her for calling him by his nickname. He hated that name which made it even more fun calling him that every once in a while.

“You know very well that I don’t like being called that at all, Jen.”

Bingo, Jen thought and grinned. Even after all these years, he couldn’t ignore it and let it slide. It still annoyed him to be called Ace.

“But you’re right,” he was already continuing. “It’s important. Could you stop by my lab? I don’t want to explain it on the phone. You have to see it with your own eyes. It’s best if you bring Hemphill and Kruger right away,” King said, and ended the conversation without waiting for an answer.

“Then I guess Underwood and Kaiser will have to wait for now,” she said to herself and went over to get her partners.

Chapter 21

“Hey, Horrace,” Jen said as she entered the forensics lab with the two investigators.

The head of the CSI sat with his back to the laboratory door and stared at a computer monitor. Only when he recognized Jen’s voice did he slowly turn around.

“Welcome to my kingdom,” he said with a smile.

“As you can see, we’ve responded to your call immediately. What’s so important that you need to show us in person?”

“It has to do with this.” King pointed to the monitor. “We recovered several memory cards in Patrick Sandthorn’s safe, and what we found on them should interest you.”

“The real estate agent was into smut movies. Why would that knock us off our feet? Haven’t you ever watched porn before?” Hemphill had glanced over King’s shoulder and discovered what the head of the forensics team had just been watching.

“If it was about that, alone, I would hardly have asked you here.” King seemed slightly offended. “But if you take a good look at the whole thing, you’ll understand what’s so special about it,” he continued, turning back to the screen.

The trio of investigators leaned down to get a better look.

“Wait a minute. That’s Julius Wainwright,” Kruger said after a few seconds.

“Holy crap, you’re right,” Hemphill confirmed.

“We found three memory cards with a total of twelve films in Sandthorn’s safe. And in every single film, our murdered star lawyer plays the leading role. Your photos were clearly copied from this footage. Moreover, the footage proves that Wainwright had sexual intercourse with at least two other girls, who, in my opinion, are likely to be minors.”

“Then the friendship between the two men must not have been too good, if Wainwright received the photos from Sandthorn. The only question is how the real estate agent came into possession of the footage and what he wanted to achieve with it,” Jen said. “Or the other way around: what did Wainwright have on Sandthorn that he felt compelled to send these pictures to his old friend?”

“Maybe Sandthorn was involved in Luger’s real estate fraud after all, and the lawyer found out about it,” Kruger suggested.

“And Sandthorn wanted to prevent this information from getting out to the public at all costs,” Hemphill picked up on the thought. “Let’s imagine the following scenario: Sandthorn tries to blackmail his old friend with the pictures. A warning not to stir up unnecessary dust. But Wainwright doesn’t even think of giving in. So Sandthorn is forced to act. And that’s where the third of the lovebirds comes in, Mark Kaiser. Sandthorn knows about the money problems of his old buddy. He hires him to get Wainwright out of the way. Let’s say he promises him a hundred thousand bucks and Kaiser accepts this offer, desperate as he is by now. People have killed for far less money. He receives half of the money as a down payment, immediately. The remaining amount, Sandthorn promises to deposit after a successful execution. Kaiser opens an account in New York, and the fifty thousand is transferred there by Sandthorn six weeks ago. But now the real estate agent refuses to pay the remaining money. And so, Kaiser kills him in his home. It all sounds very speculative, sure. But does that make it any less likely? If the neighbor is right, Kaiser has been missing for just under a week. That means he could have gone into hiding before the first murder. Seems like a reasonable timeline if he knew what he planned to do. And then, he goes to New York, which, I imagine, is likely only a stopover so he can get out of the country and start over with a new identity.”

Jen looked at her colleague with wide eyes.

“What do you think?” Hemphill asked.

“I like your theory,” she finally mustered up. “I must admit that a few minutes ago, I was also thinking about whether Kaiser might have something to do with the murders. My thinking, however, was in a completely different direction. I speculated that he was pressuring Wainwright with the photos. And that he might also have had something on Sandthorn, and blackmailed him as well, which is why he transferred the fifty thousand. However, since Sandthorn was in possession of this explosive material, this again changes the circumstances. Unless he somehow got hold of the recordings and blackmailed Wainwright with them, but I think that’s unlikely. Now it’s up to us to find evidence for Steven’s theory. I’ll try to convince Underwood to get a search warrant for Kaiser’s apartment. That certainly won’t be easy, given the scant evidence.”

“Am I the only one here who believes that Steven’s theory has a huge catch?” King threw into the round. “The oldest shots are three years old, the digital time stamp on the files tells us that! Whatever the motivation was for Sandthorn to come into possession of these photos, it certainly couldn’t have been the Luger trial.”

The three investigators stared at Horrace in disbelief.

“Um. Valid objection,” Jen finally conceded. “Which inevitably raises further questions, such as how Sandthorn knew about Wainwright’s sexual proclivities, and how the hell did he get in possession of those videos? But regardless, from the clear message on the photos, it’s obvious this information was clearly of use to Sandthorn now.

“Wainwright could have received the photos a long time ago. This isn’t necessarily related to the Luger case,” King remained skeptical.

“I’m sure that we’ll still find a suitable answer to this question in the course of the investigation. Until we get different evidence, we will focus primarily on this possible lead. Unless you have a better idea, Horrace?”

“I'm afraid I can’t help you with that. I only evaluate evidence; you have to interpret it and draw your own conclusions. But before I forget, we found foreign DNA on the couch in Sandthorn’s home. We couldn’t match it to the victim or the wife.”

“You’re saying it could have come from the perpetrator?”

“From the perpetrator, or any other person who has visited there. The DNA was not in our databases. Without a comparison sample...”

“...We can’t assign this to any person,” Jen finished the sentence. “All the more important that we get a warrant to search Kaiser’s apartment. Then we can get a reference sample and know if he’s been a guest at the Sandthorn’s lately. That would at least be another piece of evidence.” Before she had even finished her statement, Jen was slamming through the door, out of the lab.

Chapter 22

When he awoke in the darkness, he was completely disoriented, and had not the slightest idea what had happened. He had eaten a few spoonfuls of the soup that the kidnapper had brought him, and then...blackout. Obviously, a narcotic had been mixed into his food. That also explained the headache and the dizziness. He tried to sit up and hit his head against something hard.

“Shit,” he cursed loudly. Then he heard a crack, and immediately a voice sounded.

“How nice. You’re finally awake.”

The voice of the kidnapper. He had heard it many times during his days in captivity.

“You’re probably wondering where you are. You are lying in a hermetically sealed box, about one meter below the surface of the earth in a remote area where no one will find you. I have calculated that the air will last for about two to three hours before you will lose consciousness and eventually suffocate. If you want to get a few last words out, the walkie-talkie is on your right side, at about the level of your waist.”

The man did not feel the need to say anything. In the days of his imprisonment, everything he had to say had been said. The guilt that had weighed on him for years had fallen away from him piece by piece. He knew that he deserved to die. He had brought misfortune upon many people, so this only served him right, he thought, and laughed the laugh of a relieved man.

Chapter 23

Saturday, September 7

At half past nine on Saturday morning, Jen and her two colleagues arrived at Mark Kaiser’s apartment door. They were supported by a three-man team of forensic experts, led by Horrace King, and an employee of the property management company responsible for the high-rise building. Underwood had succeeded in obtaining a search warrant of Kaiser’s home now that he was a suspect. The shrill ring of the doorbell could be heard throughout the hallway as Jen flipped the switch. Nothing stirred, not even when she dared to try again.

“If you would please unlock the door for us,” she asked the property management employee, whom she estimated to be in his mid to late fifties. He didn’t seem to be the kind of person who got stressed out quickly. With his narrow rimmed round glasses, slightly flushed cheeks and full beard, he was more of the “likeable, jovial grandpa” brand. And it was precisely this impression that was reinforced when he pulled a huge bunch of keys out of his gray smock apron and began to search for the right key in a slow, calm manner.

“It will be just a minute,” he said at last, after registering Hemphill’s reproving look. “There it is,” he continued, opening the door.

“Thank you; we won’t be needing anymore assistance from you,” Jen said quietly. Thankfully, the man left them to work with no argument.

With service weapons at the ready, Hemphill and Kruger stormed the apartment and searched the few rooms.

“All clear. You can come in,” Hemphill said as he stood back in the hallway and returned his weapon to its holster. Jen and the three CSI team investigators, who had already put on their white protective suits and blue foot coveralls, entered the apartment.

This apartment was tiny compared to her own, Jen thought, after roughly inspecting the rooms. When she entered the living room, King had already begun his examination.

Steven had also donned his latex gloves and was inspecting the contents of the living room cupboard drawers.

“Bingo,” he called out at the moment Jen was about to go into the kitchen.

“Find something?”

“Would almost say I just hit the jackpot,” Hemphill replied, waving a piece of paper.

“What’s that?” Jen inquired, stepping closer and putting on a pair of gloves as well.

“Instructions from the internet on how to build a bomb with a remote detonator using C4.”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“Hello, you’re my boss. I wouldn’t dare.” Hemphill replied, putting on a wide, bright smile. Jen rolled her eyes and reached for the paper.

After glancing briefly at the computer printout, she whistled once through her teeth in appreciation.

King’s curiosity aroused, he glanced over Jen’s shoulder at the printout. “Where exactly did you find this?” he wanted to know.

“There was an appointment book in the drawer. I had noticed while leafing through it that the leather on the side had been neatly unraveled. Kaiser had pushed the instructions folded twice into the space between the leather on the cover,” Hemphill explained, while King secured the piece of evidence in a bag.

“If Kaiser just left this behind, I think we can assume he has no intention of showing up again,” Jen said. Something was bothering her about this, but she didn't know what.

“Does the name ‘Frank Harold’ mean anything to you?” Kruger spoke up from the kitchen where he was searching.

“Harold … nope, never heard of him. You, Jen?” said Hemphill.

“Right off the bat, no one comes to mind, Henry. Who is that?”

“One of the largest building renovators in Seattle. I’m sure you’ve driven past a building he's renovated.”

“That’s all well and good, but what made you think of him?” Jen asked.

“Because there’s a note here on the bulletin board with his name circled. Along with his cell phone number.”

“If he’s involved in big construction, that would be another connection to the real estate industry. Has that name come up in the Luger case?”

“Not that I know of,” Kruger countered.

“Not even in the context of the quick flips?”

“No, I would remember that.”

“That wouldn’t fit our current theory,” Hemphill said.

“It was just a thought. Remember, we can’t rule out that our theory could still be wrong. I’d like to have a talk with this Harold guy sometime. Let’s see what his connection is to Kaiser.”

“Shouldn’t we put out an APB on Kaiser?” Hemphill inquired.

“Under the circumstances, absolutely,” Jen agreed with a nod. “We should also arrange for a cell phone trace, even if it likely won’t lead to much. If Kaiser is in hiding, he’s unlikely to use it.”

“I’ll take care of that,” Kruger said, pulling out his own cell phone.

“Good, in the meantime we’ll have a chat with the neighbors. I’d like to know what they can tell us about Kaiser,” Jen turned to Hemphill.

“Good idea, I’m starting to get claustrophobic in this tiny ass place,” the giant grinned.

As Jen stepped into the hallway, she spotted an elderly woman peering through a crack in the door of the apartment across the hall. Apparently, the lady didn’t want to miss what was going on in Kaiser’s abode. When the neighbor felt caught, she slipped back into her apartment and closed the door.

“You go ahead and start with the apartment next to him. I will take the nosy lady across the hall.”.

“But we’ve already talked to the neighbor,” Hemphill countered.

“I’m not so sure about that yet.” She ignored her astonished colleague and pressed the bell.

It took only a few seconds until the frail, elderly woman opened the door. Her hair was completely gray, almost white, her face was furrowed with deep wrinkles, and she barely reached the detective’s chin. It was hard to guess her age, but Jen assumed somewhere between seventy and seventy-five.

“Can I help you?” the woman asked in a surprisingly clear, firm voice.

“Detective Brighton, Seattle Police. And your name is?”

“Did he do something wrong?” The woman didn’t even address the question.

“We don’t know yet,” Jen replied. “If you would please tell me your name.”

“Martha Newman.”

Jen’s eyebrows shot up in surprise when she heard the name. M. Newman...the sound of the young man’s voice echoed in her ears. Just like on the doorbell! However, the “M” apparently stood for “Martha” and not for “Max.”

“Ms. Newman, may I ask you a few questions?”

“Go ahead.”

“We spoke to a young man, here, two days ago, who claimed to live in this apartment,” Jen explained, pointing to the lady’s apartment door.

“Nope. No man has lived here since my Albert died.”

“Do you have a son or grandson named Max?”

“I only have one daughter, Betty. She has no children.”

“So you don’t know anyone by the name of Max Newman?” Jen tried again. An unpleasant feeling spread through her stomach. Who had they talked to the other day?

“Young lady, what is it with you and this Max Newman? I’ve already explained to you that I don’t know anyone by that name. Or maybe you got the floor wrong and were talking to this mysterious Max in front of another apartment. It’s a big place.”

The old lady was quick-witted, you had to give her that. The frail appearance did not match her sassy demeanor at all. “Well, let’s leave it at that, then, Mrs. Newman. May I ask if you remember when you last saw Mr. Kaiser?”

“It was a few days ago. Actually, it may be closer to a week or more,” the neighbor replied after a brief pause for thought.

That timeline was exactly what the young man, who they now knew was lying to them about who he was, had said two days ago in this same place. All this was getting stranger and stranger.

“Thank you. I have no further questions for, now. It’s best if you go back inside. There’s nothing exciting to see here,” Jen replied, hoping that the old lady would take the hint. Thankfully, she did, and closed the door without another word.

Hemphill joined Jen as Henry stepped into the hallway almost at the same time.

“The man who lives next door to Kaiser claims not to have seen him for days. Apart from that, he couldn’t help. They knew each other only in passing. The other neighbors don’t seem to be home; no one answered the door. And what about you? You had quite a long talk with that woman. Who was that anyway?”

“Strange story. She is the occupant of the apartment; her name is Martha Newman. No son, no grandson, no one she knows by the name of Max Newman lives or visits there.”

“Then who did we talk to the day before yesterday?” Hemphill inquired in astonishment.

“Good question. Maybe it’s another resident we caught red-handed in a planned break in,” Jen replied. As she voiced the thought, she abruptly realized why her alarm bells had gone off when she found the instructions for building the C4 explosive device. If Kaiser had planned the murders, and prepared his escape abroad long ago, why hadn’t he taken his medication with him? Only a few tablets were missing from each of the boxes containing the hypertension medication and antidepressant that she had discovered in a drawer in the bathroom. He had also left his passport behind; she had discovered it in the nightstand. The combination of the strange story, along with the supposed Max Newman, Jen’s first doubts about Kaiser’s guilt arose. Was he possibly not in hiding at all, but another victim they just hadn’t found yet? In the end, was the stranger they had met in front of Kaiser’s apartment potentially their suspect? She was confused and didn’t know what to believe. Nevertheless, she decided to keep these thoughts to herself for the time being.

“Have you been listening to me, Jen?” Hemphill brought her back down to earth.

“Sorry, no. What did you say?”

“That I wonder why anyone would break in here. Anyone who lives here must know that these apartments don’t have anything worth shit.”

“We need to get to the bottom of it and find out who that guy was. Is the manhunt for Kaiser underway? And has the cell phone trace been initiated, Henry?”

“Both prompted,” Kruger said.

“Then, I hope that at least something comes out of it. I think our work here is done for now. We’re going to pay Frank Harold a visit now.”

Chapter 24

Hemphill found a parking space directly in front of the well-kept house with its lovingly landscaped front garden. The paved walkway to the front door was lined with a flower bed to the right and a rock garden to the left.

“Not quite in the price range of Wainwright and Sandthorn, but probably still too expensive for my measly civil servant salary,” Hemphill stated laconically as they walked toward the front door. As Jen rang the doorbell, Hemphill’s cell phone rang. When he recognized the number, he screwed up his face as if he’d eaten a lemon.

“It’s private,” he announced before taking the call and hastily moving a few steps away.

Jen, while waiting for someone to answer the door, picked up a few scraps of Hemphill’s conversation. It was about money.

“I’m working on it,” he promised someone, before suddenly ending the phone call with a snarl. The whole thing reinforced her suspicion that something was going on with him. If Kruger noticed any of this, he didn’t let on.

“No one seems to be home,” Hemphill pointed out, as he headed back toward them both.

“Seems like that might be the case,” Kruger noted, pressing the button impatiently one more time.

Jen was really starting to worry about Hemphill, but she knew there was no point in approaching her colleague again about any problems he might be experiencing. She didn’t want to bring it up in front of Kruger anyway. She side-eyed Hemphill, but he didn’t seem to want to address it. Instead, he looked at her challengingly and asked: “Could there be a reason, he isn’t answering? Maybe a dangerous reason?”

“Just because we found Harold’s name on a piece of paper in Kaiser’s apartment? There may be a harmless explanation for that. Henry, please give me Harold’s cell phone number.”

Kruger pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and dictated the number to her.

“Hm,” she grumbled a short time later. “Unfortunately, only voicemail,” She recorded a message for Harold, asking him to contact her as soon as possible. She had just hung up when Kruger’s cell phone rang. He quickly answered, but the conversation lasted less than a minute.

“Kaiser’s cell phone was last used ten days ago, near his apartment. Since then, it hasn’t been used at all. That roughly corresponds to the time frame in which his neighbors claim to have last seen him,” he explained.

“I maintain that Kaiser was in hiding at that point. The guy has most likely run off to New York, or farther, by now. I’m certain that come Monday, when the bank in New York opens, if my sleuthing doesn’t completely fail me, he’ll withdraw the fifty thousand that Sandthorn deposited into his account. After he gets that money, I’m certain he’ll disappear for good,” Hemphill speculated.

“Then the fish should be in our net soon enough. Before we go back to the precinct, I’d like to have a bite to eat. You guys can join,” Jen suggested. Thoughts were swirling around her head about Kaiser and the unknown man they had met two days ago in front of the IT specialist’s apartment.

Chapter 25

The investigation continued to stagnate. Because there had been no response from the builder, Jen had arranged for a cell phone trace on him. The device had not been switched on since noon yesterday, when it pinged off a tower in downtown Seattle. It was around the same location that Harold and his company were carrying out a remodel job in an old apartment building, Kruger had learned. In addition, they checked the call log of Sandthorn’s company cell phone which revealed to them that a connection existed between Harold and their second victim.

Jen had to admit that the investigation was becoming more and more obscure. The motive for the two murders was still unclear. Two people they wanted to question as part of the investigation remained missing without a trace. And then there was the mysterious stranger who had introduced himself to them as Max Newman. What role did he play in this game?

There was at least one ray of hope. Without much lamentation and without insisting on compliance with bureaucratic regulations, the officers from the NYPD had promised their support in the search for Mark Kaiser. Feeling frustrated with the lack of progress, Jen sent Steven and Henry home early to give them a break. She had just sat down to review their file from the Sandthorn house, when Horrace called her.

“Hello, Horrace.”

“Hello, Jen. You just might be talking to the man who’s going to liven up your investigation.”

“I’m all ears. What’s new?”

“We did a quick DNA test on a hair we found on a hairbrush in Kaiser’s bathroom. The sample matches the DNA recovered from Sandthorn’s couch. Kaiser must be your man.”

‘Finally, some good news,” Jen sighed.

“Well, you don’t sound very enthusiastic. Come on! We found the DNA sample and the bomb-making instructions in Kaiser’s apartment. That’s clear evidence against him.”

“I’m just tired, Horrace. Thank you, that’s great news. It should bring us a big step closer to solving the case.”

“I hope so. I’m headed out for the day; we have friends coming over tonight. You should think about heading home soon, too.”

“I won’t stay much longer, I promise. Have a good evening, Horrace.” She hung up without waiting for a reply, and looked at the file in front of her. After a moment, she finally flipped the cover of the folder from the Sandthorn burglary shut and tossed it into the storage basket on her desk. Several photos of some stolen jewelry fell out and landed right at the feet of Jesse Underwood, who had just entered the office.

“Somebody’s in a particularly good mood,” the captain said, bending down to pick up the photos from the floor.

“Hm,” Jen grumbled. “Actually, I should be in a great mood. Horrace has just informed me that the DNA samples we found in Sandthorn’s home match Kaiser’s DNA. The noose around his neck is tightening, and he’s already been put on the wanted list.”

“But something’s bothering you.”

“Our theory sounds quite plausible, and the circumstantial evidence seems to support it as well.”

“But...?”

“There are still some inconsistencies. For example, what is the story with the unknown man who claimed to be Kaiser’s neighbor? How did he know that the man had disappeared? And, even more strange, we found a piece of paper in Kaiser’s apartment with the name ‘Frank Harold,’ and his phone number written on it. Harold runs a company that does building renovations, and he knew Sandthorn. We wanted to question him, but the man has disappeared from the face of the earth since yesterday at noon. His cell phone has also not been active since then. I left a message on his voicemail, asking him to get in touch with us as soon as possible.”

“And because that didn’t happen, you’re worried now?”

“Wouldn’t anyone be?”

“Do you think he has anything to do with this?”

“I don’t know what to think anymore, to be honest. As I said, our theory is quite strong. But the evidence is still not really there.”

“We should have a clearer picture tomorrow, assuming the NYPD can apprehend Kaiser. You should call it a day and try to clear your head.”

“All right, boss. I’ll take that as an official order from a superior and won’t resist,” Jen replied and reached for her jacket.

Chapter 26

Sunday, September 8

Jen hadn’t wanted to spend her Saturday evening alone at home. So, she had made the choice to spruce herself up a bit and get out of the house. She applied bronzer and lipstick, making sure to emphasize her cat-green eyes with a gold eye shadow. Her hair, which she usually tied back in a braid, she wore down this time, and her skin tight dress perfectly flattered her figure. She had exchanged her comfortable sneakers for a pair of high heeled pumps. Then, she had driven her sports car to Charly's Pub, a popular spot for both young and old—or for people like her, who fell somewhere in between. She could feel eyes on her as she entered the bar, and it hadn’t taken long for her to be approached as she sat down to order a drink. However, the man, who had bought her a Guinness, was not at all her type, which she made bluntly clear to him as quickly as she could.

It was quite different with the second guy. He had sat down next to her, smiled at her, and said that since she had entered the bar, he had been anxiously waiting for an opportunity to tell her how stunning she looked. They had struck up a comfortable conversation, and when he inevitably told her his name, she had involuntarily started laughing. His brief irritation subsided only after Jen also told him her name, and he had burst into amused laughter just as she had moments before.

“Looks like fate has brought Jennings and Jen together tonight,” she had said, losing herself in the depths of his bright blue eyes.

It only took a half an hour of small talk for Jen to invite Jennings to her apartment. She had hardly even closed the door behind her, and he was already pulling her to the couch, where they passionately made love. The continuation took place in the bedroom, until they had finally fallen asleep, exhausted at some point.

From somewhere, the sounds of Metallica music blaring burrowed into Jen’s subconscious and abruptly jolted her out of a deep, restful sleep. It took her a moment to register that it was her cell phone, stuck in her leather jacket, lying somewhere in the living room. And whoever was calling it was quite persistent. A glance at her phone told her two things: that it was just after half past seven and that the persistent caller was Underwood.

“Have you checked your watch?” she grunted into the phone. “At least on Sunday, you could give me a tiny bit more sleep.”

“I’ve been up half the night, and I’ve certainly slept less than you.”

“Has there been another murder?” Jen was instantly wide awake.

“No, fortunately, no more murders. However, I did find something out. I must admit that I don’t know what to think about it yet. But it is strange. I really need to talk to you about it. Can we meet at the precinct? In an hour?”

“Doesn’t exactly sound like I have a choice. All right,” Jen sighed. “But you get the coffee.”

When she hung up, her eyes fell on her new friend, who was still fast asleep. Time to wake up Jennings with the beautiful blue eyes—she had already forgotten his last name—and escort him out of her apartment. There would be no next time with him—that was a credo she always kept with her one night stands. She hoped that he, without any emotional discussions, would chalk the night up to incredibly good sex and leave it at that.

Chapter 27

Underwood was waiting for her in her office. Two venti cups from Starbucks stood on the desk; a pleasant smell of coffee permeated the room.

“Morning, dearest Jen. Had a hard night?” the captain greeted her with a grin.

“You know how it is. Whenever an investigation gets to me, I have trouble sleeping. So, what’s bothering you so much that you’ve turned night into day and are preventing me from sleeping in?” Jen asked, grabbing one of the two cups and taking a hearty sip of coffee.

“You know that feeling that comes over you when you hear or see something, and you’re convinced that something about it is important? You can literally feel it, but you can’t quite connect it to anything.”

“Of course, I know what that’s like. Like a thought that’s buzzing in the back of your mind, but just won’t come to the surface.”

“That’s exactly what I mean. I had a moment like that yesterday when I came to your office. And it happened twice. Once when I picked up these photos that had fallen out of the folder.” Underwood pointed to the file lying open on the table in front of him. “And the second time, when you mentioned the name ‘Frank Harold.’”

“Okay, and what exactly was triggered in you?” replied Jen, who in the meantime had taken a seat in one of the chairs.

“It’s a little more complicated than just one thing. Let me explain.” Underwood sipped his coffee before continuing. “I went back to your office yesterday and got the file so I could look at it at home. I didn’t know then what it was all about. I know now it's about the break in at the Sandthorns.”

“Can we get straight to the interesting part?” Jen interrupted him and yawned.

“I’m telling you; I’m going to have to go further out on a limb to explain the context to you. Namely, this photo here piqued my interest,” Underwood said, pointing to a shot that showed a rose gold chain with two snake heads encircling a locket.

“This is one of the stolen pieces of jewelry, according to Willow Sandthorn. Not particularly valuable, but with a high sentimental value for the woman. It was the first gift given to her by her now murdered husband,” Jen explained to her boss.

“But, as you must admit, it’s quite an unusual piece of jewelry. Or have you seen one like it before?”

“No, I definitely haven’t. However, I don’t understand where this is going. What does all this have to do with Kaiser and the murders of Wainwright and Sandthorn?”

“Somebody’s pretty impatient.” Underwood smiled. “I don’t know if it has anything to do with the crimes at all. But I have a bad feeling it might be connected to another case. A case that happened quite a while ago—and it took me a long time to make the connection. The photograph was the first thing that really triggered something in me that I couldn’t explain. Then last night, the penny finally dropped. Have you ever heard of the Miriam Arnold kidnapping case?”

Jen frowned. “No,” she finally said, shaking her head. “That must have been before my time.”

“Way before you. Quite a tragic story. It happened almost twenty-three years ago. Miriam Arnold was the daughter of a Seattle industrialist. She disappeared without a trace on September eighth, 1996. She was nineteen years old at the time and still hasn’t been found. After an argument with her boyfriend, she wanted to go home by bicycle, but she never arrived. One day later, the parents received a ransom letter in which the kidnapper, or kidnappers, demanded a hundred thousand dollars, and threatened to kill the girl if the parents didn’t comply with the demand, or tried to involve the police.”

“I’m going to assume that the parents complied,” Jen interrupted him.

“They did. The Arnolds had hoped that their daughter would be released if the money was delivered quickly. They didn’t want to unnecessarily endanger Miriam’s life by defying the kidnappers’ demands.”

.“But...Miriam wasn’t released.”

“Exactly. And only then did the parents call in the police. Although everything humanly possible was done at the time to find the girl, we never succeeded. We didn’t even find the bike she was riding that night. And since the serial numbers on the cash had not been registered, we couldn’t identify the kidnappers using the extorted money. There were two theories at the time: Miriam had fallen into the hands of some human traffickers or had been murdered shortly after her abduction. But here’s where it gets interesting. Miriam Arnold owned a necklace that looked exactly like the necklace stolen from the Sandthorns’ house.” Underwood flipped over a new photo that had previously lain on the table in front of him. “I looked at the old investigation files, which fortunately, have been digitized,” he continued. “This is a photo that the parents provided to us at the time. I just printed it out. And when I say that this necklace, including the pendant, looks exactly like the piece of jewelry Willow Sandthorn owned, I mean it.”

Jen took the photo from Miriam Arnold’s investigation file in her hand and looked at it for a few seconds. Then she compared it with the picture from the Sandthorn file. For good measure, she dug a magnifying glass out of the top drawer of her desk.

“You’re right,” she finally said, after examining both pictures. “But even if this is a strange coincidence, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”

“Oh, but it does. And herein lies my point. Miriam’s necklace was custom-made. Her father was a passionate Chinese culture enthusiast and expert. He made trips to the Middle Kingdom every year for several weeks at a time—and not just to do business. He immersed himself in the country’s culture and valued the people he met on his travels. He also had a soft spot for horoscopes. Miriam was born in 1977, in the year of the snake, according to the Chinese horoscope. For this reason, Matthew Arnold had the necklace you see in the photo of his daughter made by a Seattle jeweler. She wore this exact necklace on the night of her abduction.”

“Have you considered that the jeweler liked the design so much that he made replicas?”

“The possibility exists, of course. You’d have to research that. But I honestly don’t believe it. Besides, that wasn’t all just a guess. As always, I’ve saved the best for last. You remember the fight with the boyfriend I mentioned earlier? Well, that boyfriend was none other than Frank Harold. I’ve cross-referenced his information and birthdate. There is no doubt that the boyfriend is the man you are looking for right now!”

Jen thought she had misheard. She stared at Underwood with wide eyes. “That...is a doozy, though.”

“I told you so. Now do you understand why I really needed to talk to you? I can’t make any sense of how all this could be connected. Or whether there’s any connection at all between the kidnapping case back then and the murders now, but the fact that a piece of evidence turns up in the course of your investigation that could be connected to the Arnold kidnapping, I absolutely could not keep that to myself.”

“The photo of a possible piece of evidence,” Jen corrected her boss.

“Either way, I’d like to talk to Willow Sandthorn sometime. I’m interested in what she knows about the origin of the necklace.”

“As far as I’m concerned, we can go straight to the Madison and talk to her. But one thing first: is it safe to assume that Harold was at the top of the list of suspects back then? You only mentioned the argument, but if he was the last to see her, that raises some red flags.”

“You guessed right. He was our prime suspect for a while. Witnesses had testified at the time that he left the birthday party shortly after Miriam. Supposedly, because he wanted to look for her, but we couldn’t prove he had anything to do with the kidnapping, or the blackmail.”

“Or her murder,” Jen added, taking one last sip of coffee before getting up. “Let’s pay a visit to dear Mrs. Sandthorn and see what she can tell us about her beloved necklace. If you don’t mind, I’ll drive.”

The whole drive to the hotel, Jen quietly pondered whether Underwood’s discovery threw new light on their current murder investigations. Right off the bat, she couldn’t see what Wainwright, Sandthorn, or Kaiser had to do with the kidnapping case back then. The fact that the name of the former prime suspect appeared in this case, and that Harold could not be found, presented her with another puzzle. Whenever it seemed that they were taking one step forward with the investigation, they seemed to take two steps back at the same time.

Son of a bitch! She fervently hoped that Willow Sandthorn had a plausible explanation for the origin of the snake necklace. If not...no, she didn’t want to think about that.

Chapter 28

Willow Sandthorn’s expression turned sour as the two officers entered the dining room of the Madison Hotel.

“Good morning, Mrs. Sandthorn. How are you?” Jen inquired and took a seat in one of the empty chairs at the widow’s table. Underwood also sat down without being asked. “Captain Underwood, my boss.”

“Pleased to meet you,” the captain murmured.

Willow Sandthorn merely greeted him with a brief nod of her head. “I hope you’re only interrupting my breakfast because you want to tell me that you arrested Patrick’s murderer, Detective Brighton.”

Jen wondered where Willow’s hostility was coming from. She had noticed it during her last visit, as well, though she could not remember having offended the woman in any way.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but that’s not why we’re here. However, we are making great progress on the case. We are here for another reason,” she replied, sliding the photo of the necklace stolen from the Sandthorn home next to Willow’s plate. “We would like to know more about this piece of jewelry. Like when and how it came into your possession.”

“What is it with everyone, all of a sudden, wanting to know everything about this necklace?” the widow fussed, stirring her tea so vigorously that it spilled over and left an ugly stain on the bright white tablecloth. “First, a complete stranger approaches me about it a few weeks ago, then it gets stolen—and now you’re asking about it, too!”

“Wait … someone approached you about this necklace?” Jen raised her eyebrows. Underwood sat speechless beside her, also staring at the widow with wide eyes. “You’ll have to explain that in more detail, please.”

Three weeks before

It was the necklace that had aroused his interest, but he had to admit to himself that that was only partly the truth. What had first drawn his attention had been the beautiful face of the blonde who had entered the bakery and stood next to him. He had blatantly stared at her, and her lack of reaction made it obvious that she was used to being gawked at in such a way. As his gaze traveled further down, he almost flinched back in fright. Was it possible? Or was he just imagining it?

Around her neck dangled a necklace that looked exactly like the one Miriam had worn on the day of her abduction. But the stranger bore no resemblance to Miriam. In fact, it was almost impossible that it was the same person. How could it be? After all, the necklace had been a commissioned work, a unique piece made of rose gold.

And yet...He was so confused that he didn’t even notice, at first, when the bakery waitress approached him to take his order. He hardly remembered buying four cinnamon rolls, but as he left the store, he had already made a decision.

“That was a day or two before the break-in.” Willow Sandthorn sipped her tea before continuing. “A young man approached me and wanted to know where I had bought the necklace. He said it would make a perfect gift for his girlfriend.”

“So, where did the necklace come from?” Jen interrupted the woman, impatiently.

“It was a gift from Patrick. For our first anniversary on March twelfth, 1997.”

Jen glanced briefly at Underwood, who returned the look. She didn’t know whether what Mrs. Sandthorn was saying meant anything, but she was becoming increasingly intrigued. Underwood probably thought similarly. “And you told the man that, too?”

“I saw no reason not to tell him. He was disappointed, thanked me and apologized for just approaching me on the street.”

“Do you remember where this encounter took place?”

“Hm...in front of a bakery in Pike Place Market. Is that important for your investigation?”

The whole story sounded stranger and stranger.

“I don’t know yet,” Jen replied truthfully. “Can you remember what the guy looked like?”

“Sorry, no. I didn’t look at him that closely. Besides, it’s been over three weeks since that happened.”

“Please try to remember, Mrs. Sandthorn. Was the man tall or short? What kind of build did he have?” Jen pressed.

The widow scrunched her eyebrows and wrinkled her nose.

“On the tall side, I’d say. Maybe six feet or so. And he was slim.”

“Can you remember the hair color: light or dark? What nationality was the man? Did he speak with an accent?” Jen fired one question after another.

“No idea on the hair color, but the guy was definitely from here,” Willow replied after a brief consideration.

“Do you remember anything else? Any unique features, like a scar or a noticeable birthmark?”

Willow shook her head.

“Okay. We’ll leave it at that. I would be interested to know if you have heard the name Miriam Arnold before? She was kidnapped in 1996 and has been missing ever since,” the detective changed the subject.

Willow did not answer immediately. She frowned and took another sip of tea. Then she remembered. “If my memory isn’t failing me, it was a big topic in the media back then. But to be honest, I can only vaguely remember it. Why are you asking about her?”

“Because on the day of her disappearance, the girl was wearing a necklace that perfectly resembled the necklace your husband gave you,” Underwood interjected, placing an enlarged photo of Miriam Arnold wearing the necklace, with the pendant clearly visible,, next to the picture Jen had shown the widow shortly before.

Willow only glanced at the photo.

“Who knows how many chains like that there are,” she replied, lightly.

“The necklace is a unique, custom piece. It was commissioned by Miriam Arnold’s father from a Seattle jeweler. Mr. Arnold was a great admirer of Chinese culture, and since his daughter was born in the year of the snake, according to the Chinese horoscope, he gave her this necklace,” Underwood explained.

“I...I can’t explain it! The necklace that was stolen from me was a gift from Patrick!” No sooner had she spoken it than Willow Sandthorn stumbled. “You’re not suggesting that he had something to do with the kidnapping of that girl?” She widened her eyes and shook her head in disbelief.

“We aren’t implying anything at the moment,” Jen tried to placate her. “Nevertheless, you must admit that this is all a little strange at first glance. And the fact that your late husband gave you the necklace, not even six months after Miriam Arnold disappeared, leaves at least some room for speculation.”

“And at second glance, there’s still the possibility that there’s other jewelry that resembles mine or even looks the same. Have you checked that out at all?” Willow wanted to know.

“No, not yet” Jen had to concede.

“Then you should maybe start there, don’t you think? Your insinuation is simply despicable! Patrick was murdered a few days ago, and now you are constructing a story here in which he is to be turned from victim to perpetrator. I will not allow that! If you have any further questions for me, I will only answer them in the presence of a lawyer. And now, if you’ll excuse me,” the widow replied angrily, throwing the napkin that had been lying on her lap onto the plate. She pushed back her chair and stormed out of the dining room.

“I don’t know what you got from that,” Underwood murmured. “But, I would reconsider your theory regarding the motive for the murder. If you ask me, there’s something very fishy about that whole story.”

Jen was also having doubts. Was there more to the story about the necklace? What role did Julius Wainwright, Patrick Sandthorn, Mark Kaiser, Frank Harold and the stranger who had approached Willow Sandthorn in front of the bakery play? And then, there was the strange encounter with Max Newman...It was time to create a composite sketch of this Max guy and have someone look for him. She couldn’t shake off the suspicion that they had met someone in Kaiser’s hallway who might have killed at least one person.

Chapter 29

Back at the police station, Jen called a sketch artist from the office to meet with her, Hemphill, and Kruger. She wanted to work on a sketch of Max Newman with their support to try and get it as accurate as possible. Twenty minutes later, she had the result in her hands. She then sent her male counterparts to Tacoma to ask around Kaiser's neighborhood and see if anyone recognized the unknown man. She also needed to ask Willow Sandthorn if the stranger was the same man who had approached her about the necklace. In the meantime, she wanted to spend some time looking into Miriam Arnold’s case file to learn more details about the abduction. Thankfully, Underwood had been involved in the investigation at the time, so he could assist her in getting the necessary information. They began by compiling a list of all the people who were included in the abduction case file: family members, suspects, witnesses.

By noon, the list was ready. Apart from Frank Harold, there were no familiar names from Jen’s current murder investigation, she realized soberly.

A little after noon, Hemphill and Kruger returned from their questioning.

“What an arrogant bitch,” the bearded officer stated as he walked into the room. “I don’t know what happened the last time you met, but Henry and I had a hell of time with her. She’s actually even worse than old Wainwright.”

It wasn’t hard to guess who her colleague was talking about, and Jen couldn’t help grinning. “Did she at least recognize the man?”

“After finally deigning to take a look at the sketch, she at least thought it was possible it was him.”

“And what did Kaiser’s neighbors say? Did anyone there recognize him?”

“Negative.” Kruger shook his head. “Whoever that guy was that we ran into in the hallway is not a tenant of that apartment building.”

“I wonder if he was looking for Kaiser?” Hemphill asked the group.

“It certainly looks that way,” Jen replied, her mind racing with thoughts. “I’m beginning to fear that our esteemed captain is not so wrong in his theory that the current murders may be connected with Miriam Arnold’s abduction. However, it is not yet clear to me where the connection is, but the fact that our unknown man approached Willow Sandthorn about this necklace, Patrick Sandthorn is murdered a short time later, and we then run into that same man at a possible murder suspect’s house, simply can’t be a coincidence.”

She had just finished speaking when Underwood walked in the door.

“Don't mind me. I just wanted to know if there was anything new,” he said and sat down.

“You’re probably right, Jen. The few clues we do have point to Kaiser as the murderer. That being said, I believe the modus operandi in all the crimes points to a strong personal motive, like revenge,” Hemphill said, continuing their conversation as if they hadn’t been interrupted.

“Sounds like I’m not the only one who noticed the personal nature of these murders after all,” Jen began. A thought had occurred to her as Hemphill had spoken. “Let’s assume that this stranger’s encounter with Willow Sandthorn was the trigger for the current events. Starting with the break in at the Sandthorns’ home and ending with the murders of Julius Wainwright and Patrick Sandthorn. The unknown person must have recognized the necklace and made the connection to Miriam. If you ask me, the perpetrator is someone who clearly knew Miriam. The father is already ruled out, since he is deceased.”

“Miriam’s brother could be a possible candidate,” Hemphill interrupted her.

“He would have an understandable motive to avenge the death of his sister,” Jen added. “I personally don’t believe Miriam Arnold is still alive.”

“To be honest, neither do I. Even back then, I didn’t believe in the theory that she had been kidnapped into sex trafficking. The kidnapper, or kidnappers, would hardly have made a ransom demand,” Underwood said, agreeing with Jen.

“All right, let’s go through this,” Jen suggested. “Christian Arnold, Miriam’s brother, thinks he recognizes this necklace when he happens to meet Willow Sandthorn in the bakery. But he can’t be one hundred percent sure that it is, indeed, his missing sister’s necklace. That day, he follows the woman to find out where she lives. Later, he breaks into the Sandthorns’ mansion and steals the necklace. In the process, he leaves various other jewelry and some cash behind so that we can’t draw any conclusions later about the real reason for the break in. Up until that point, the story all checks out in my mind, but where is the connection to the kidnapping? Neither Julius Wainwright nor Patrick Sandthorn knew the girl, personally, as far as we know from the files. I see no connection to the two men at all, apart from the fact that Wainwright comes from a rich family. But what would he have done with the measly hundred thousand dollars that they had extorted from the Arnolds? Besides, he would have had to share it. Unfortunately, we can no longer ask Sandthorn where he got the necklace. We need to remember that it's quite possible that he had nothing to do with Miriam’s kidnapping and came into possession of the piece by other means.”

“Still, I can’t shake the feeling that The Inseparable Three had something to do with the kidnapping back then and that Christian Arnold found out just that. That would mean, however, that we’re no longer looking for Mark Kaiser as a possible culprit, but that he may be another victim of Arnold, or another killer we haven’t yet found.”

“Have you considered that Harold might also be a possible perpetrator? After all, he was Miriam's boyfriend at the time and the main suspect in the case for a while. He would have a strong motive to take revenge on the kidnapper, or kidnappers,” Kruger suggested.

“Not a far fetched thought, considering he’s fallen off the face of the earth,” Jen admitted. That’s when her cell phone rang. “Brighton,” she answered.

“My name is Frank Harold. You left a message on my voicemail and urgently asked me to call you back. I hope nothing happened?” the caller replied.

Jen’s jaw dropped. She held the cell phone away from her mouth for a moment and whispered to the others who was calling her. The reaction of her colleagues, who all leaned in staring at her, spoke volumes.

“Mr. Harold,” she continued, now holding the cell phone back to her ear. “We were just talking about you. We need to see you urgently. Where are you right now?”

“On Bainbridge Island, at my girlfriend’s. That’s the reason why I’m only getting in touch now. Whenever I have a free weekend and drive here, I turn off my cell phone so I can at least spend a few days, uninterrupted, with her.”

“Okay, I see. Would it be possible for you to come to the Seattle Police station right away? You can inform the reception desk that you are here to see Jen Brighton, and I will come and pick you up.”

“Can’t you just tell me what this is about over the phone?”

“I’d rather discuss that with you in person.”

“Obviously, I have no choice, then,” Harold sighed.

One click and the line went dead.

Chapter 30

“Thank you for joining us here,” Jen said.

“Now if you would, kindly, explain to me why I absolutely had to come here,” Harold replied. He was wearing stretch jeans, a black t-shirt with a skull and crossbones, and black Adidas sneakers. His demeanor was as casual as his clothes.

He gave off no signs of nervousness or being agitated, Jen noted. Harold was attractive in a certain way. His brown eyes were close together, he had high cheekbones, a small nose and rather narrow lips.

“That’s not so easy to explain, Mr. Harold,” Jen began, sipping her hot vending machine coffee. “Surely you’ve heard about the two murders that occurred in Seattle in the last few days?”

“You mean the lawyer and the real estate guy? They were talking about it on the radio. What does that have to do with me?”

“We are currently following two different leads. And, believe it or not, your name has come up in both. That, of course, raises questions.”

“Wait, are you suggesting that I had something to do with either of the murders?” he interrupted Jen, visibly aghast.

“Let me put it this way: You can definitely clear up some doubts and questions we have in this case. The fact that you have complied with my request to come here is already a good start,” she explained with a smile. “What is your relationship to Mark Kaiser?” One of her favorite questioning techniques was direct confrontation. A lot could be gleaned from an interviewee’s spontaneous reaction. Besides, she saw no reason to beat around the bush in Harold’s case.

“Kaiser? Mark Kaiser, did you say? I’ve heard that name before. I can’t think of in what context, though.”

“Feel free to take some time to think about it.”

Harold frowned and closed his eyes. “Now, I remember,” he said after a few seconds. “It will certainly surprise you, now, but it has to do with Sandthorn, who approached me at a construction site two or three months ago. He had heard that I wanted to expand my company and that I was looking for someone to handle property planning and management. He told me about Mark Kaiser’s tragic life story: from self-made millionaire to bankruptcy. Sandthorn asked if Kaiser could contact me about the job. Since I had not yet filled the position, there was no reason not to. After all, Kaiser had already managed two big companies, though apparently not very successfully.”

“So, has Kaiser contacted you?”

“He called me. He wanted to apply for the job, but he never did.”

That sounded logical, although Jen wondered why Kaiser had first contacted Harold and then never contacted him again.

“How long has it been since you spoke on the phone?” she picked up the questioning again.

“He called shortly after I met Sandthorn and told him about the position.”

Jen chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip. Sandthorn had tried to get Kaiser a job. And shortly thereafter transferred the fifty thousand dollars to his bank in New York. There was something fishy about the story between the two of them, but she couldn’t for the life of her say what.

“When did you last have contact with Christian Arnold?”

Harold stared at them. A few beads of sweat shone on his forehead. “Is that the real reason you called me here? Are there any new clues? Have you...found her body?”

“What makes you think that? Your ex-girlfriend is still considered missing,” Jen stated, once again testing his reaction.

“Do you seriously think Miriam is still alive?”

“Unfortunately, there are no new clues to her whereabouts. However, during the investigation into the Wainwright and Sandthorn cases, an interesting cross connection has emerged that could have something to do with the abduction case. For investigative reasons, I cannot tell you any more than that. So, when did you last see or speak to Christian Arnold?”

“That was almost twenty-three years ago!” Harold wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

“No meeting? Not even a phone call lately?” Jen inquired.

Harold just shook his head.

“We will, of course, look into that. For now, I have no more questions.”

“What do you mean? That’s it?” wondered Harold. “You might as well have asked me that on the phone.”

“I prefer to look people in the eye, in person, when I conduct an interview. Facial expressions and gestures often reveal more than words. In your case, I would say that I believe you.”

“So, can I go now?”

“You may. But please don’t leave town. And keep your cell phone on. If we do have any questions, it would be good if we could reach you right away.”

“I promise, Detective.”

There was visible relief on his face. He quickly composed himself and he looked as calm on the outside as he had at the beginning of the questioning.

“You can find your way out on your own?” she asked.

He just nodded and then said goodbye.

Chapter 31

As soon as Harold had left the office, Kruger and Hemphill stormed in.

“We have news,” they said, almost simultaneously.

“Woah. Take it easy, guys. What’s the news?”

Hemphill looked at his partner and signaled for him to begin.

“The NYPD have been keeping us updated on the bank there. So far, no indication that Kaiser is in New York. There’s also bad news regarding Miriam Arnold’s necklace. I’ve been trying to track down the jeweler who made the necklace back in the 90s. The store no longer exists. Closed down almost ten years ago.”

“Bloody hell!” exclaimed Jen. “Would have been really nice to find out if he made more necklaces like hers and we’re chasing a false lead. What about the jeweler? Were you able to track him down?”

“He died four years ago. I’m afraid we’re not getting anywhere with this lead. I’m sorry.”

“Have you checked to see if the business records still exist? Order books, for example?”

“We talked to his daughter. She doesn’t know but promised to get back to me.”

“Well, wonderful,” Jen sighed. “And what news do you have, Steven?”

“I’ve compiled a small dossier on Christian Arnold. At least, what could be found in the short time available. Arnold was born in 1988 and was eight years old at the time of his sister’s abduction. After graduating from high school, he studied engineering, specializing in electrical engineering. He sits on the board of Arnold-Electric, his late father’s company. Seems to lead a rather inconspicuous life; at least I haven’t found any negative headlines about him in the tabloids. He also donates a large amount of money every year to a Seattle based institution called the Missing Children Initiative. We can guess the reason for that. Okay, so those are the basics, now let me tell you the important details. I was able to find a photo of Christian Arnold. Please take a look at it, Jen. We’d like to hear your opinion.” Hemphill handed her the printout of the photo he had been holding in his hand.

“I don’t like your tone at all,” Jen replied. She studied every detail of the face in the photo.

“So?” said Kruger, finally. “What do you think? Is this the man who introduced himself to you as Max Newman?”

“He definitely bears a strong resemblance to the guy we met outside Kaiser’s apartment.”

“That’s exactly what I said to Henry. There is a recognizable resemblance between the two. But we can’t say with certainty whether it’s him, even as the talented police officers we are. Makes me feel guilty that we always accuse our witnesses of not being able to remember details, even though they were face to face with a perpetrator. Apparently, we are no better," Hemphill explained and grinned.

“Then I’d say let’s stop wasting our time speculating and see for ourselves. Where does he live?”

“Thought you’d never ask. He lives in a housing development in Renton.”

Twenty-five minutes later, Jen and Hemphill reached their destination in the southeast of Seattle. The property occupied by Christian Arnold was in no way inferior to the homes of Julius Wainwright and Patrick Sandthorn. The property around the magnificent building was separated from the sidewalk by a six foot stonewall. Behind the double winged wrought iron gate with filigree decorations, in front of which they had to stop, stretched a wide, paved driveway. The short driveway leading to the three story building was lined with old trees. About fifty yards back, the driveway ended in a turnaround where a small staircase led up to the front door. Jen had no idea about architecture, but from the style of the building, she guessed that this home must be quite old. The modern video camera on the intercom was the only piece that did not fit into the sophisticated home and property. After she had briefly introduced herself, the automated entrance gate opened.

As the front door opened, the officers were left shocked. Christian Arnold received them personally, but that wasn’t what shocked them. The shocking matter was the fact that he was sitting in a wheelchair. No, this could not be the man they had spoken to in the hallway outside Kaiser’s apartment.

Chapter 32

“If you stand outside any longer, I’m afraid you’ll take root.” Christian Arnold greeted the three officers with a friendly smile.

“You’re right about that,” Jen replied when she had regained her speech.

“Please follow me into the living room,” Arnold said, wheeling the wheelchair ahead of them through the entrance hall.

At the stairway to the second floor, Jen spotted a platform lift that apparently enabled Christian Arnold to reach the upper floor. They left the stairs to the left, crossed the hall, and Christian finally steered the non-motorized wheelchair deftly through an open double door into the living room. The room had state-of-the-art furnishings. A techie’s dream, Jen thought, looking at the giant flat screen on the wall. The television would not have fit on a single wall of her small rented apartment. She found the modern artwork hanging on the other walls, which had probably cost a fortune, much more interesting.

“Wow, what a great TV! How many inches is it?” Hemphill inquired just as the same thing had been going through her mind.

Men, she thought.

“Eighty-two inches. It’s a luxury I’ve been indulging in since my horseback riding accident nearly a year ago caused me to spend more time at home than I’d like. Partial paraplegia,” Arnold explained, slapping his thighs with the flat of his hands. “Please take a seat,” he continued, pointing to the sectional couch made of white suede, which could have easily accommodated ten to twelve people.

While the investigators complied with the request, Arnold heaved himself out of the wheelchair with a smooth movement, which—as Jen only now realized—had no backrest. Slowly, he lowered himself onto the leather chair directly behind him, which was grouped with two other armchairs around a large glass table opposite the couch. He pushed the wheelchair next to his armchair.

“I’d love to offer you something to drink, but my housekeeper is still off duty. She won’t be back from Italy until this evening.”

“That’s no problem. We weren’t planning to stay long anyway,” Jen replied, taking a closer look at the man. She had to admit that at first glance, he really did resemble the man who had introduced himself as Max Newman. But, upon closer inspection, Arnold had higher cheekbones than the stranger and appeared rather gaunt overall. There was something about his eyes, though, that strongly reminded her of the man who had approached them in front of Kaiser’s apartment.

“So, what brings you to me? I must admit that you gave me quite a scare when I heard you were from Homicide. Is it because of Miriam? Did you finally find her?”

“I wish I could answer that with a yes. We can’t begin to imagine what it’s like being the brother of someone missing in a cold case like Miriam’s.”

“I’m not thinking for a second that Miriam is coming back. It would be presumptuous to believe she’s still alive,” Arnold admitted bluntly. “That’s a hope my family has held on to for far too long. I have resigned myself to the fact that she is going to stay missing and her body will never be found.”

“Our visit is indirectly related to Miriam’s disappearance. We have come across a lead that may be a link to your sister’s abduction case. Would you please take a look at this photo?” Jen pulled the printout of the enlarged section of the picture showing the two snake heads and the medallion out of her jacket pocket and handed it to Christian Arnold.

He studied the picture at length, and after a few seconds he stared at Jen. “This is Miriam’s necklace that our father gave her for her communion. Why are you showing me this picture?”

“Because the cropped image is not from the photo your family provided to the police at the time. It is a photo of a necklace that was stolen from the home of a murder victim three weeks ago. Are you certain that this is your sister’s necklace?”

“There’s no doubt about that at all. It’s one of a kind. If you look closely at the scales of the two snake heads, you will see Miriam's initials. M and A. My father had them carved in,” Arnold pointed to the spot in question. “But, that’s impossible! How could this necklace have come into the possession of a murder victim? Or...or, my God...did it have anything to do with her abduction?” Arnold’s lower lip trembled.

Jen did not answer immediately; she would not have had a suitable answer ready anyway. She, herself, did not know what it all meant. Instead, she stepped up to Arnold and took another close look at the photograph of the necklace. Since she couldn’t recognize the initials right away, she held the computer printout an arm’s length away from her.

“He’s right. If you know about them, you can recognize the letters,” she finally said, walking over to Hemphill and showing him the photo. He nodded briefly in acknowledgement while she sat down.

“Aren’t you going to answer my question?” Arnold asked, directing their attention back.

“It’s not so much that we are ignoring your question. It’s that we don’t know the answer to your question. We don’t know what it means that a murder victim had your sister’s necklace. Do the names Julius Wainwright, Patrick Sandthorn, or Mark Kaiser mean anything to you?”

He didn’t have to think long. “Wasn’t that the guy who died in that car accident recently? It was all over the news. The other names don’t mean anything to me.”

“Actually, Julius Wainwright was murdered. Patrick Sandthorn, as well. Mark Kaiser has been missing for a few days. We believe there is a connection between them.”

“One of the two murder victims was in possession of my sister’s necklace?”

“Right. Until it disappeared in a burglary a few weeks ago.”

“And you now believe that there is a connection between these murders and her kidnapping back then?”

“It feels, to us, like a clear connection. What we’re trying to do right now is to figure out how the victim came into possession of the necklace.”

“Well, that’s obvious, Detective. He obviously had something to do with Miriam’s abduction.” He spat out the last words.

“There very well could be one or two other possibilities besides that. Your sister could have lost the necklace that night, and our victim found it. Or the kidnapper, or kidnappers, could have resold the necklace.” Jen knew how unconvincing that sounded, but she wasn’t going to let Arnold tell her what to think, even though there was basically little difference in their views.

“Could be." Arnold nodded. “That’s the first promising lead I’ve heard of in so many years! Will you follow it up?”

“That’s why we’re here, Mr. Arnold. I have no more questions for now,” she ended the interview, whereupon Christian Arnold pulled the wheelchair toward him. “Please don’t bother. We’ll find our way out on our own. Goodbye.” She rose from the couch, Hemphill did the same.

“If the man with my sister’s necklace had anything to do with her disappearance, I’ll be eternally grateful to the guy who killed him. I hope he rots in hell,” Arnold grumbled.

Jen could understand him all too well and did not comment on his parting words. With a brief nod, the detectives left the living room.

“Now that we have confirmation that Sandthorn was in possession of Miriam Arnold’s necklace, what does that mean for our investigation?” Hemphill asked, breaking the silence.

“It means we’ll have to put in some overtime. If this murder investigation is indeed connected to the Miriam Arnold kidnapping case, then we might not only succeed in convicting Wainwright and Sandthorn’s killer, but we might also solve a twenty-three-year-old cold case.”

Chapter 33

Four hours later

“The only obvious connection between Miriam Arnold and our trio is that all four of them attended that same high school in Madison Park. However, I can hardly imagine that they really knew each other. When the three men graduated from high school, Miriam was in the eighth grade,” explained Kruger, who had spent the past few hours reviewing the background of the kidnapping victim and her potential abductors, while Jen and Steven had gone through old investigation reports from the Miriam Arnold case. Kruger had just written this new information on the whiteboard in the Homicide Department’s briefing room where the team, including Captain Underwood, had gathered to discuss the facts of the case.

“Wainwright, Sandthorn and Kaiser were also definitely not guests at the birthday party Miriam attended with her then boyfriend, Frank Harold, on the night she went missing,” Hemphill continued. “In her file, there is a list of all the party guests who were present that night and were questioned at the time. There were three possible routes home to her parents’ house, between just under three to about six miles. Unfortunately, it could not be determined, at the time, which route Miriam took by bicycle.”

“Why did she even leave on her bike?” wondered Jen.

“Because of the argument with her boyfriend,” Hemphill reminded her. “It seems likely she had planned to stay overnight with Harold’s parents, who lived nearby.”

“Consequently, officers have assumed two different possibilities. In the first scenario, it was a planned act, prior to which Miriam had been observed by her abductor, or abductors, for an extended period of time. When the opportunity arose that evening, the plan was put into action. The alternative would have been a spontaneous act. The perpetrator, or perpetrators, could not have known that Miriam would make her way home alone on her bicycle that evening. It was all in the investigation files,” Jen replied.

“That’s what I read, too. But how likely is that? Who would come up with the idea of kidnapping someone and then be lucky enough to find a victim just like that?”

“Hmm, that was my first thought, too. But Jesse has a pretty plausible explanation for that.”

“Namely?”

“The small ransom,” Underwood stated. “The Arnolds were rich. Why was only one hundred thousand dollars demanded at that time?”

“A fair question. Let’s assume that the kidnapping was not planned. Why would the three boys spontaneously decide to kidnap a girl? Especially since one of them came from a rich family. Strange pastime, don’t you think?”

“Maybe we should get away from the idea that there was a kidnapping at all. Isn’t it conceivable that something completely different happened that evening and the kidnapping was faked?” Kruger asked.

“We also had a similar idea at the time. However, we dismissed it just as quickly because we found no evidence for it,” Underwood replied. “What are you thinking, Henry?”

“Nothing concrete. But we all experienced Wainwright senior. A hard ass. His son would not be the first boy who was materially over provided for but emotionally under provided for. Wealth neglect, that’s the new word for it. Something happened that evening, and then it probably got out of hand. Sandthorn and Kaiser knew about it because they were there. When Sandthorn saw the need, he used these photos as leverage against his old companion—for whatever reason. Hence the saying on the photo: Lest you forget who your real friends are. His buddies had been covering for Wainwright ever since, and Sandthorn wanted to remind him again that he owed them.”

“Interesting thought, Henry.”

“Too bad cell phones weren’t as common back then,” Hemphill sighed. “If they had been, all we would have had to do now was check to see if any of the three boys’ cell phones pinged a tower in the vicinity of the possible abduction site on the night in question.”

“That would, indeed, simplify this investigation quite a bit. But, since technology will not help us in the case of Miriam Arnold, we’ll have to fall back on the basics of investigative work from the Stone Age. But we can do that tomorrow, when we’re rested. I don’t know about you, but my head is starting to spin,” Jen explained.

“I wouldn’t mind calling it a day. At least then I could spend a little more time with my kids,” Kruger said after glancing at his wristwatch. “See you in the morning, then.”

Chapter 34

Monday, September 9

The morning began with unexpected news. Jen hadn’t been able to get into the office until around nine. She’d, once again, had a sleepless night as she couldn’t stop thinking about the Miriam Arnold case and the new evidence they had uncovered. The more time she spent thinking about the cases, the more inconsistencies she found. Tired as she was, she was eager to discuss her thoughts with the team. Unrested and with dark circles under her eyes, she had entered her office with her trusty vending machine coffee. She hadn’t even sat down when Hemphill barged in.

“Look who finally made it into work” he greeted Jen as he entered, with Kruger in tow.

“Good morning to you, too,” she grumbled, dropping into her chair.

“Henry, be brief. I'm afraid our boss is not in a good mood due to her constant sleep deficit,” Hemphill joked, pointing out the dark circles under her eyes.

He earned a withering look from Jen and then gestured that his lips would be sealed from now on, which made Jen smile. He always had a snappy response for her, but he also knew when it was time to keep quiet.

“The NYPD has been in touch. Kaiser’s account has been emptied,” Kruger began.

“Excuse me? How is that possible? That’s about the last thing I would have expected this morning! Was Kaiser arrested?” Jen asked, tensely.

“Well, that’s the problem. He didn’t show up at the bank at all. It was naïve of us to think that he would show up there in person. I’m just talking about online banking. All the money was transferred to an offshore account in the Cayman Islands. Untraceable,” Kruger explained further.

“Holy shit!” Jen slapped the table with the flat of her hand. “This could mean Kaiser is still alive.”

“Either that, or someone gained access to his account,” Kruger added.

“True, that is a possibility, as well. Lord, these investigations don’t get any easier, do they?”

“We can’t disagree with you there,” Hemphill confirmed.

“Broken your vows of silence again?” Jen smiled, sipped her coffee, and instantly grimaced.

“That hot?”

“More like undrinkable. The company responsible for this shit should be sued. But it’s all I’ve got. As Steven has already noted in his very kind way, I didn’t get much sleep last night because I couldn’t stop thinking about the Miriam Arnold case. As soon as Jesse graces us with his presence, I’d like to hear your opinions on a few things.”

“Did I just hear my name?” Underwood’s voice sounded through the open office door.

“Speak of the devil,” Jen replied dryly as the captain entered the room.

Lacking another place to sit, Underwood leaned against the corner of the desk.

“Daring T-shirt color, Henry,” Underwood commented.

Kruger was wearing a neon green shirt. His two partners didn’t even notice anymore, because he was notorious for his colorful choice of clothes.

“Alright, can we dive into things now?" asked Jen, helping to draw Underwood’s attention, and any embarrassment, away from Kruger.

The men nodded.

“If our trio of friends had something to do with Miriam Arnold’s disappearance, then, in my opinion, it had to have happened in the heat of the moment. There are several pieces of evidence I have factored into this theory. In the case of a planned abduction, the kidnapper would have to familiarize themselves with the habits and daily routine of their victim. Wainwright, however, studied law in Spokane, Sandthorn architecture in Oregon, and Kaiser completed his studies in Canada. They would not have had the opportunity to observe Miriam Arnold over a long period of time. And there is another point that, in my view, speaks against a long observation of Miriam: in 1996, Miriam was offered a chance to study abroad and spent almost two months in Europe around the time of her abduction. According to the case records, she had only just returned from Europe when she was abducted. Did this come up at all in your case back then, Jesse?” Jen wondered.

“We discussed it at the time. But ‘planned long in advance’ doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re talking about a period of weeks. Miriam had returned from Europe ten days earlier. That’s enough time for someone to prepare a kidnapping,” defended the captain, noticing the challenge in Jen’s question.

“I apologize, my criticism may have been a bit over the top. You’re right, of course. Ten days would, indeed, be sufficient.”

“And what if Miriam’s necklace is just a red herring, and the murders have nothing to do with the kidnapping case at all? If it was Kaiser who emptied the account in New York, that would, again, fit perfectly with our original theory that the two murders are connected to the Luger real estate fraud case. Isn’t it perfectly plausible that Sandthorn obtained the chain in another way than kidnapping?” Kruger suggested.

“That’s occurred to me too. But my gut tells me that Kaiser didn’t drain the account. I am confident it was the killer who is trying to make us think that Kaiser is still alive and fled the country. Henry gave me the idea yesterday when he talked about ‘wealth neglect.’ I couldn’t get it out of my head, and it kept me up most of the night. As we all saw, Miriam Arnold was extremely pretty. Moreover, thanks to the lewd photos, we know that Julius Wainwright had a penchant for young, attractive girls. I could imagine that the following took place on the night of her disappearance: Miriam meets the trio on her way home. I think it’s quite conceivable that the three of them grabbed her and Wainwright raped her. Afterwards, he killed Miriam. Whether it was in the heat of the moment, or premeditated, that plays only a minor role in my theory. If Wainwright ended her life, Sandthorn and Kaiser may have helped him cover up his crime, and he may even have bought their silence. We should check to see if we can find any unusual money payments to them from that period. They could then have faked the kidnapping to throw the police off the scent, which they obviously succeeded in doing. They then disposed of Miriam's body and the bicycle. Why, or how, Sandthorn got all the compromising footage of Wainwright, we still do not know. I also still have no idea why he wanted to use it against him. But the warning on the photo makes sense within this theory. True to the motto, ‘If you turn me in, I’ll spill the beans.’

“Whew.” Underwood took a deep breath. “I hate to admit it, Jen, but there’s amazing logic to your theory.”

“And how do you think Wainwright’s and Sandthorn’s killer found out what really happened back then?” Kruger wanted to know.

“That’s the crucial question, the core of the whole investigation. And honestly? I don’t have an answer to that yet. But I have been working on a theory. Did you check Lake Washington at the time of the investigation, Jesse? Because I haven’t found anything about it in the files.”

“Yes. The entire area where the suspected abduction took place has been surveyed extensively. You know the standard procedure. A helicopter with a thermal imaging camera was also used. Why do you ask?”

“I’m not talking about the area around the lake, I mean the lake itself. Has it been searched?”

Underwood thought, but then shook his head. “No, if I remember correctly, only the shore area. The dogs didn’t find anything, so I think they moved on at that point. Why?”

“Because I thought hard about where Miriam’s body and bike might have gone. I looked at the area on Google Maps. If I had been forced to get rid of a girl and her bike as quickly as possible, I would have chosen the lake. And that’s why I’d like to ask you to use your contacts to get us permission to search Lake Washington.” She looked at the captain expectantly.

“That shouldn’t be a problem under the circumstances,” Underwood replied. “If we find evidence in the course of this current murder investigation that helps clear up the Miriam Arnold kidnapping case, the prosecutor will kiss our feet for it.”

“Then you should hurry up and take care of it,” Jen replied with a smile. She found it strange that the investigators hadn’t thought of looking in the lake back then, but she preferred to keep that thought to herself. She didn’t want to expose Underwood, even if he hadn’t been the lead detective in the case. It was completely incomprehensible why the investigations twenty-three years ago had been so sloppy!

Chapter 35

Not even four hours after the three investigators and Captain Underwood had sat together, the search began in Lake Washington. Four divers from the department, Horrace King and his two colleagues from forensics, as well as Jen, Hemphill and Kruger, arrived at the small beach. Lake Washington and Magnuson Park had been a popular destination for many years, and Jen was sure that it held dark secrets.

While the police divers completed their first dives near the shore, Jen and her partners walked along the Lake Washington Boulevard Trail, which led around the side of the lake. After about forty-five minutes, team two radioed in that they had found something on the east side of the lake.

Jen, Hemphill, and Kruger had just reached the spot when one of the two divers brought the object ashore. Shortly after, the other officer also got out of the water. Horrace King had provided a catch basin with a drainage grate mounted on it for any evidence they found. As the police diver came out of the water, he placed what clearly had to have been a bicycle in the basin.

“Found it about ten yards from shore at about fifty feet down. Probably thrown into the water from that jetty over there,” the man explained, pointing to the spot.

“It wasn’t easy to spot the thing. The visibility down there is really low due to the silt,” said the other diver after he had taken off his diving helmet.

“I can imagine. The bike looks pretty beat up,” Jen noted.

King immediately got to work and carefully rinsed off the silt residue on the bike’s frame with water from a spray bottle, then examined the find extensively. He pulled out a magnifying glass and several photographs from the forensics case to try and match the images of the frame from Miriam Arnold’s case file with the found bicycle. Then he pulled out some copies from the investigation report to check something. As he did so, he muttered quietly to himself. Jen and the other officers watched him silently from a distance so as not to accidentally tamper with any evidence.

“I think we hit the nail on the head,” King finally said. “This bike has suffered tremendously over the last two decades, and has a lot of rust on it, but you can decipher part of the maker’s lettering." He pointed to the spot he meant.

“TI A.R.,” Jen read aloud. “What does that mean? Is that a brand name?”

“That’s right. Well, part of it anyway,” King replied. “According to the investigation file, Miriam Arnold owned a Yeti mountain bike. Yeti was a well-known bicycle manufacturer from Colorado in the nineties. The exact name of the bike must have been YETI A.R.C. Miriam’s bike was blue and yellow. If I'm not mistaken, this still has some blue paint on the front of the frame.”

Jen had to look very closely to see what King meant, but he was right, she could see the remnants of a blue paint job. “Do you have any idea what could have caused the massive damage to the rear wheel? The rim is hardly recognizable, and the frame seems to have taken quite a beating, too.”

“You know I don’t like to make too many unsubstantiated guesses, but since I know you won’t let me get away with saying nothing, I’ll make an exception this time,” King replied with a wink. “I suspect that these deformations are the result of an accident.”

“I thought it was something like that,” Jen said. “Is it possible she was hit by a car?”

“I think that theory is very likely.”

Groaning, the CSI investigator rose from his crouching position.

“So, it seems possible the three men saw Miriam on her bike, and when she refused to stop and engage with them, they rudely helped her along.”

“That’s possible. It must have been a violent collision, the way the wheel was damaged, but let’s not speculate further. You’ll have to wait for the results of the investigation. It’s not particularly beneficial that the mountain bike was in the water for so long, but we’ll get a secret or two out of it.” As always, King exuded a comforting confidence.

“Since we’re assuming that it is indeed Miriam Arnold’s missing mountain bike, I’ll tell the officers of the diving guild to initiate the search for human remains,” Hemphill said. Jen acknowledged that with a nod of her head.

“Horrace, there’s one more thing I’d like to ask you.”

“Yes, yes, I know what’s coming next. Of course, the examination of the bike will take top priority in the lab. Don’t worry, you’ll have the results on your desk as soon as possible.” King rolled his eyes.

“Too kind, my dear. However, I already assumed that would be the case. It’s about something else.”

“Well, now my curiosity is piqued.”

“I know you have some close contacts within the ATF department. I read some time ago that they have a rather expensive ground-penetrating radar that does an excellent job of finding buried bodies. What do you think? Could you give Stegemann a call and ask if we can borrow it?” Jen suggested.

“You don’t think Miriam Arnold’s remains are in the lake?”

“How would they have disposed of a body without a boat? I don’t think they would have had any way to get it out into the water. To guarantee her body wouldn’t be found, they would have had to sail to the middle of the lake and weigh her body down. But the suspects probably had neither a boat nor the necessary weights. Since I still assume that the crime was committed in the heat of the moment, I believe that Miriam’s body is buried here somewhere.”

“You do realize that’s a hell of a lot of territory to cover, right?”

“I'm aware of that. But don’t you think it’s worth it?”

King thought for a moment and looked over at Henry Kruger. When he looked back at Jen and saw the determination in her gaze, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed. “Screw the regulations and the official channels. I’ll see if Martin can do something for us. It’s not exactly his area of responsibility, and I don’t know if his influence is big enough to get us this thing, but it won’t hurt to ask.”

The conversation lasted less than a minute.

“It didn’t take me long to persuade him. He agreed to help and is reaching out to his contacts. He seems to think he can make it happen today. He hopes to be in touch soon. Otherwise, we’ll meet over at the beach tomorrow morning at eight-thirty. He’ll let me know later.”

“That's good news, thank you. It finally feels like this investigation is progressing,” Jen replied, beaming with joy.

Out of nowhere, Hemphill interjected, “Do you have Ferdinand Wainwright’s cell phone number?”

“Yes, why?”

“If there’s any truth in the accident theory, it would have left traces on Julius’ car. I think we need to ask Wainwright Senior if he remembers any damage happening to his son’s car at the time in question. It was a long time ago, but maybe his reaction will help us.”

“Not a bad idea at all. And it’s a real pleasure for me to call the old codger. I can already see him choking on bile when he hears my name.” Jen let out a short snort and then dialed the lawyer’s number.

The telephone conversation went as expected. Jen’s question about Wainwright‘s car at that time was answered by Wainwright Senior with a counter question: whether she remembered exactly what she had done on the night from the seventh to the eighth of September 1996. She could not seriously expect him to remember whether Julius had had an accident with his car twenty-three years ago in September.

However, Jen didn’t shy away from the lawyer. She boldly confronted Wainwright with the fact that clues had emerged in connection to the kidnapping case of Miriam Arnold. She made sure to mention that his son’s car at the time may have played an important role in it.

Wainwright did not take long to understand what she was insinuating and berated her intensely. After all, his son was the victim and there was no way he would allow his innocent child to be made the perpetrator now.

Jen let the rants wash over her with stoic calm and instead appealed to the lawyer’s reason. She asked him to calm down, think about her question again, and contact her in a bit. She could not resist one last dig and had to add in that they would contact all the auto shops around his house too, then ended the call.

A short time later, the three investigators made their way back to their squad car, ready for the next steps.

Chapter 36

Jen had just slid into the passenger seat when her cell phone rang. It was her colleague, Fred Kasten from Vice.

“Fred. I hope you have some good news for me,” she said.

“Believe it or not, I do. After all, I promised you we’d stay on this, and we actually got some information for you.”

Jen turned her phone to speaker so Hemphill and Kruger could listen in. “Go ahead, then. We’re all ears.”

“We went back to the video footage that shows Wainwright having sex with the girl we’re assuming is a minor. We noticed an ashtray on the nightstand in one scene had a logo we recognized. We were able to freeze the image and enlarge it to see it more clearly. We are sure that this footage was taken at Club Amour. That’s a high class brothel.”

“Woah. What do you know about the place?”

“The operator is a guy named Hank Lawson. Until now, we assumed that the club was clean and have left it alone. Unfortunately, the film footage suggests that we were mistaken. The search warrant has already been issued. I thought you might be interested in joining us.”

“You bet we want to be there!” Jen said. Hemphill and Kruger both nodded. “What's the address?”

“I'll text it to you right now. We’ll meet there and prepare the raid. However, there is one more thing that I know you’ll want to know. We investigated the ownership of the building. According to the land register, the house belongs to a woman named Ingrid Smith. Apparently, she is Patrick Sandthorn’s mother-in-law,” Kasten let the bombshell burst.

“Say that again,” Jen replied, perplexed.

“You heard me right. Can you be there in half an hour?”

“We’re heading out now. I’ll see you there.”

“Well, what the hell does that mean for our investigation now?” Jen asked after the conversation was over.

“Another piece of the puzzle falling into place,” Hemphill noted, laconically. “At least now we know how Sandthorn got the footage. Or do you think it’s just a coincidence that his mother-in-law is the owner of a property that houses prostitutes?”

“You know how I feel about coincidences,” Jen replied. The thoughts in her head overflowed once again.

Chapter 37

At the agreed meeting point, Fred Kasten and another Vice colleague were already there and ready to go. In addition, several other patrol officers were there to assist in the raid.

“Glad you could make it,” Kasten greeted Jen and her colleagues. “I would like to introduce you all to Alexander Speer, the newest member of the force.”

“No way we would miss this. Your call has given us some hope that we’ll be able to answer some of our unanswered questions. I can’t wait to get my hands on this Lawson guy. I hope he’s in there. You don’t mind, do you? After all, it’s officially your mission,” Jen hurriedly added.

“I would have been disappointed if you hadn’t asked,” Kasten said, smiling. Laughter lines appeared around his chestnut eyes.

“Then you two can take care of Lawson, while Henry and I support my man, Alexander and the officers in the house search. It’s more fun than a dull interrogation anyway,” suggested Hemphill, who took a toothpick out of his jeans jacket, removed the protective paper, and shoved it between his teeth.

“I can just imagine why you volunteered for the raid of the rooms,” Jen playfully jabbed an elbow into his side. “All right, let the games begin,” she said, donning a bulletproof vest like her colleagues.

Kasten gave the signal to leave, and only a few seconds later they drove off with screeching tires. Two blocks away, the squad car suddenly stopped in front of a nondescript building. Kasten’s BMW stopped immediately behind it, and Kruger also brought their car to a halt.

The house looked more like low income housing than a high class brothel. If the small brass sign with the words Club Amour, under which a golden crown was emblazoned, had not been hanging next to the entrance door, Jen would never have known that there was a brothel there.

The police officers jumped out of their cars and got into position before taking the bouncer by surprise and swarming inside the building.

Two minutes after they had rushed in, Jen and Fred Kasten were sitting in Lawson’s office. The bartender had taken the investigators into the room at their insistence and asked them to wait. The room in the back of the building had surprisingly elegant furnishings. If they hadn’t passed the scantily clad, extremely attractive girls lounging at the bar waiting for customers, they could just as easily have been convinced they were in old Wainwright’s office.

After waiting nearly ten minutes, Jen’s patience was wearing thin, but when Hank Lawson finally came through the doorway, the detective had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing out loud. The brothel owner was a walking cliché of a pimp. He was a slightly stocky man with a bald head and a well groomed round the mouth beard. He wore a red and black striped shiny shirt with ruffles, the top two buttons of which were hanging open exposing his full chest hair. Hanging from his neck was a coarse gold chain.

“To what do I owe this unexpected visit?” said Lawson angrily, taking a seat behind his desk.

Jen and Kasten were sitting on the guest couch, which was directly opposite Lawson’s desk against the wall. In the time they were waiting, Jen couldn’t help but to think about how many of the poor girls working at Club Amour had to provide Lawson with various sexual services on this couch. Her stomach had tightened at the thought. “Detective Brighton, Seattle Homicide. My colleague Detective Kasten from the Vice squad,” she took over the introduction.

“I already know your friend. It’s not the first time he’s mucked things up here. But it seems to me that this is an unscheduled inspection today. Why is a homicide detective bothering to come here? An extremely attractive one at that, if I may say so.”

“You may not,” Jen replied directly. “What does the name Patrick Sandthorn mean to you?” She didn’t intend to dawdle her way through this conversation.

“Isn’t that the real estate guy who was murdered?” Lawson asked, looking boredly at the fingers on his right hand. A chunky gold ring sat on each one.

“Did you know him?”

“It’s possible we may have met before, provided he was a guest of my establishment. I don’t know all the guests personally, of course, as you can imagine. There is a lot of traffic through here,” the brothel operator explained and had to laugh at his own bad joke.

Jen did not believe a word the man said. Since they knew the owner of the establishment was Sandthorn’s mother-in-law, it was highly implausible that the name held no significance to him.

“And how well did you know Julius Wainwright?”

“Wait a minute, what’s the point of this? You’re not trying to pin these murders on me, are you?” Lawson said, giving first Jen and then Kasten a hateful look.

“Interesting thought. Did you have anything to do with them?” This time it was Kasten who asked the question.

“Fuck, no! Of course not!”

“But you knew Wainwright?” Jen inquired.

“He was an occasional guest of our club,” Lawson admitted.

“What do you mean by occasional? Once a month? Once a quarter?”

“I don’t keep a record of it.”

“Come on, Lawson, don’t play coy with us. Tell my colleague what she wants to know,” the Vice detective jumped to her defense. “I’m sure the women out there will have a better memory. So, we can go ahead and cut this conversation short.”

Lawson stared at the two investigators and furrowed his bulging brow. “All right, what the hell. Once a week, I’d say.”

“So, he was a regular customer.”

“Until a few months ago, yes. I haven’t seen him in a while, though.”

Jen stored the information in the back of her mind but decided not to dive deeper yet. “Let’s get back to Patrick Sandthorn. Was he also a regular customer at your establishment, or are you sticking to the fact that you didn’t know him personally?”

Lawson said nothing at first. It appeared that he was carefully weighing what he was willing to tell them.

“Sooner or later, you’re going to find out anyway. He wasn’t a guest. He was the actual owner of this club,” Lawson finally said.

“Sandthorn was what?” Jen raised her eyebrows almost to her hairline, and Kasten apparently couldn’t believe it either.

“Not officially, of course,” Lawson hastened to say. “It was his idea to open this brothel. However, he didn’t want to tarnish his name for it. Sandthorn had bought the house—a real dump at the time—cheaply and spruced it up. He then transferred it to his mother-in-law as a gift, so the rental income could not be associated with him. Outwardly, I act as the owner and operator of the club. Unofficially, I’m only the manager. Most of the income went to Sandthorn.”

“This job obviously wasn’t obtained through a job posting. How did you meet?”

Lawson shook his head. “Through a mutual friend. That’s all you need to know.”

“Oh, come on. So far, you’ve been very talkative. Now that things are getting exciting, you’re starting to stonewall?” Kasten didn’t let up.

“As I said, no comment,” Lawson replied, leaning back in his desk chair as he swung his legs onto the table and folded his arms behind his head.

Was he actually wearing white loafers with red socks, Jen thought incongruously, as her gaze fell on the shoes. Involuntarily, she shook her head and had to grin, but immediately remembered the reason for her visit.

“We’re assuming that you have nothing to do with the murders of the two men. However, in the course of our investigation, we came across some footage that was sexual in nature. Following the evidence trail led us straight here. If you would please take a look at these photos.” She presented Lawson with the pictures showing Julius Wainwright having sex.

The man glanced at it without changing his sitting position. “Yes, and? Wainwright fucking. It’s not like he’s the only man who comes to a brothel because his old lady won’t fuck him anymore.”

Lawson pretended to be relaxed, but Jen couldn’t help but notice the tiny beads of sweat forming on his clean shaven skull.

“The photos do not show Julius Wainwright simply having sex, Mr. Lawson. The girl looks no more than fifteen or sixteen years old.”

“Fine, so the lawyer was a child fucker. What does that have to do with me?”

The man’s voice definitely sounded an octave too high, Jen thought.

“Quite a bit, actually. If you look closely, you can see an ashtray on the nightstand next to the bed, and on it, you can clearly see your club’s logo,” she continued, placing the photograph with the enlarged image of the lettering on the desk.

Lawson yanked his legs off the table and bent over to take a closer look at the photo. After a few seconds, the surprise was gone from his face. “Wainwright probably took the ashtray from here. These shots could have been taken anywhere.”

He suddenly seemed much more relaxed again, Jen thought to herself in surprise.

“Why do you think we’re conducting this search? All we need is to find the room from these pictures to make a connection between you and the evidence we have. There is certainly enough detail of the room on the footage we’ve collected.”

Lawson swung his legs back onto the desk, leaned back in his chair, and crossed his arms behind his head again. He was once again the picture of calm.

“You could search here for the next month, Ms. Brighton, and you still wouldn’t find that room or any underage girls here. May I ask where you got the recordings?”

Jen briefly thought about what she should tell the man. The fact that Julius Wainwright had been blackmailed by Sandthorn with the photos was something she definitely didn’t want him to know. She could mention where the pictures had come from without revealing any details of the investigation. Especially since they now knew that there was a direct connection between Sandthorn and the club.

“Patrick Sandthorn had them.”

“And you, unfortunately, can’t ask him where the recordings were made. I have already explained to you what the ownership of our club looks like and admitted that Sandthorn has been in and out of here. It would be no problem at all for him to take an ashtray from the club. After all, it was basically his property.” Lawson grinned. “I know Wainwright and Sandthorn had known each other for years. I don’t know what kind of perverted games they were up to, filming each other and whatnot, but maybe that’s why they were murdered. All I can tell you, is that I certainly have nothing to do with it.” He pretended to be clueless and shrugged his shoulders.

Jen was convinced that he was not telling the truth. Nevertheless, his mood had changed completely within a matter of minutes. For some reason, his previously noticeable insecurity had flipped. She was about to retort when the door opened and Hemphill entered the room.

“Can you step outside with me for a minute, please,” the investigator asked his boss.

“We’re not done here,” she said, turning to Lawson and giving him a venomous look before rising from the couch and following her colleague outside.

“Did you find the room?”

“Unfortunately, no. No room, and no sign of underage women prostituting here. The girls’ IDs are all clean.”

“Shit! This can’t be happening!” cursed Jen. “I was sure we’d find something! We did find out something interesting, though: Patrick Sandthorn was actually the owner of this club. Lawson is only the manager.”

“Excuse me, what?” Hemphill looked at her as if she’d lost her mind.

“That’s the way I looked just now when we found out.” Jen sighed.

“And what does he have to say about the photos?”

“He denies knowing anything about them, although I’m convinced he’s lying. I could sense his nervousness at one point, very briefly, when we showed him the footage. Otherwise, he’s very stoic and hard to read. If we don’t get him to talk, we won’t get much else from here.” With that, she turned on her heel and went back into Lawson’s office.

Kasten was no longer sitting on the couch but was now standing right next to the brothel operator’s desk chair. With his right hand, he had grabbed Lawson’s left arm and pulled it backwards onto his back in the best police grip manner, while at the same time pressing the man’s head onto the desktop with his free hand.

“...And if I have to beat it out of you, you piece of shit!” Jen heard her colleague hiss.

“Fred, let it go. You can let him go; the club is clean.” She would not have thought Kasten, who was usually calm, capable of such an outburst. Despite her surprise, she was far from reprimanding him or even intervening.

“That can’t be! The recordings must have been made here somewhere,” Kasten shouted in a rage. He made no move to let go of Lawson.

“And we’ll figure that out in due time. But for now, let him go. We’re leaving,” she calmly, yet emphatically, urged her colleague. Reluctantly, he let go of Lawson.

“This is police brutality,” the pimp shouted, while gasping for breath. “And you’re my witness!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Lawson. I merely watched my colleague help you back to your feet after a fainting spell.” Jen put on an icy smile. “You shouldn’t be too overly confident. Trust me, we will find out if there’s something fishy going on here. When that day comes, you’d better hope you’re not near me. Because I’ll grab you by the balls myself, and I am not saying that figuratively.”

“You could tell he was rattled when you showed him the photos,” Kasten grumbled on his way out.

“Yes, that was clear. But he cleverly wriggled out of it. Even if I hate to admit it, he’s not entirely wrong in saying that the ashtray alone isn’t proof that the footage was actually taken at the club.” Jen added.

“But we both know that’s bullshit, don’t we?” Kasten remained upset.

“Lawson is anything but innocent; there is not the slightest doubt about that. You just need to stay on the case, and sooner or later, you will find the evidence we need. For us, the visit was still worthwhile. We didn’t find any evidence that the photos were taken here, but finding out that Sandthorn was the owner proves how he could have gotten the photos. I really need to find some evidence to support our theory of why he planned to use the footage against Wainwright.” Jen sighed.

“We’ll keep at it,” Kasten replied, a little more conciliatory.

“Let’s hope for the best. It would be nice if you could keep me informed of anything incriminating you find,” she asked him.

“I promise,” Kasten wished her a nice evening as they reached Jen’s company car, in front of which Hemphill and Kruger were already waiting.

Then they parted ways. As they got into the car, Jen’s cell phone rang.

It was Horrace calling to inform her that the ground penetrating radar was in use and would not be available until the next morning. He also informed her that they would continue their search for the remains of Miriam Arnold in Lake Washington for the next hour and half, until dark.

“All right, thank you, Ace,” Jen replied and wished the head of the CSI a good evening.

Chapter 38

Tuesday, September 10

At eight thirty on the dot, Martin Stegemann, accompanied by a colleague from the ATF, arrived at the Lake Washington beach. Jen, Horrace and a team of forensic experts were already onsite. The police divers had resumed their search. In addition, a dozen officers from the protective police searched the area around the eastern side of the lake, which was cordoned off extensively so that the work was not disturbed by uninvited onlookers.

As the ATF officers approached, Jen couldn’t help smiling. Next to the heavyweight Stegemann, his colleague looked like a skinny beanpole. The young guy had shoulder length hair and wore a washed out Black Sabbath shirt, which she noticed immediately because she had been a fan of Ozzy since she was a kid.

“Morning, Horrace. Hello, Detective Brighton,” Stegemann greeted her in a friendly manner before also saying hello to the other officers.

“Hi, Martin. I didn’t expect to see you here. It’s not exactly your area of responsibility,” King replied.

“Well, listen. If I’m going to bend the rules to help you, then of course I don’t want to miss out on the fun. Apart from that, you’ve probably forgotten that I used to be a pretty useful employee of the CSI team at my old precinct. But, today is not about me. I would like to introduce you to Ralph Matthews. He will be your contact person for questions concerning the search with the ground penetrating radar.”

“Please just call me Ralph. I’m anxious to get this fifty-thousand-dollar baby started. Can you point me in the right direction?” the scrawny official requested, offering them a bright, flawless smile.

“Hello Ralph, I’m Jen. I’m the lead detective in this investigation.” The head of Homicide nodded briefly and then pulled a folded map out of her jacket pocket. She had just knelt down and spread the map out on the floor when it started to pour.

“Bad weather,” was Ralph’s only comment.

“Does that affect how the device works?”

“Nope, not in the least. I’ve got my rain gear in the car. So, where do we start?”

Jen showed Ralph Matthews, who immediately took a liking to her, the spot where they had found the bicycle the day before. The final laboratory result from the CSI was still pending, but she had not the slightest doubt that it had belonged to Miriam Arnold. They had marked off a search radius of about one hundred yards near the lakeshore, between two groups of trees.

Twenty minutes later, the ground penetrating radar was ready for use and Ralph Matthews began to investigate underground. It was pouring rain and miserably cold. While they waited, Jen fetched an umbrella from the trunk of her car, but that didn’t change the fact that her feet were soaking wet in her sneakers. Between her wet shoes, and the long lecture she received from Matthews on how to work the radar, Jen was annoyed. When the ATF officer started to talk about amplitude modulation, frequency ranges, and bell curves, Jen had offered him a friendly smile now and then, but otherwise just pretended to listen. She was less interested in a technical lecture than she was in the results.

After almost two hours, Matthews had completely scanned the floor of the defined search area, without success.

“Could we have just missed it?” Jen checked.

“The radar profile shows all kinds of things here, but definitely no skeletal remains. And we’ve searched to a depth of eight feet.”

“Son of a bitch!”

“We can continue here and here,” Matthews explained, circling two areas with his finger on Jen’s map. “But first, I’m going to take a coffee break, okay?”

“In the meantime, I’ll go home and put on some clothes that are suitable for the rain. It seems this is going to take much longer than I anticipated,” Jen said, annoyed by their lack of progress.

Matthews reacted only with a shrug of his shoulders. “I’ll turn my attention to the second search area if you happen to not be back in half an hour.”

After turning off the ground-penetrating radar, he strolled over to the rain tent that King had set up. Two members of the forensics team were busy examining bone fragments that the police divers had recovered from the lake. Stegemann and King were talking animatedly when Matthews entered the tent and poured himself a cup of coffee from the thermos flask.

“And?” was Stegemann’s only comment.

“Nothing so far. We’ll keep going in a minute. In the meantime, Jen will put on something weatherproof. How’s it going in here?” replied Matthews.

“The bone fragments are probably not of human origin,” King explained.

“I’m hoping Jen wasn’t wrong about all of this,” Matthews said, opening his lunchbox.

It took more than an hour for the head of the Homicide squad to arrive back at Lake Washington. At least this time she was in weatherproof clothing and rubber boots. She had brought back Dick’s burgers and fries for all the police officers deployed at the lake, which she now distributed to the grateful officers.

The detective’s hope that Matthews would greet her with positive news was immediately dashed, however, when the ATF investigator greeted her with a shake of his head. After handing out burgers and checking in, Jen joined Matthews on the search. The rain wouldn’t let up, making it increasingly difficult to examine the ground as the device kept getting stuck in the boggy soil. Around three o’clock, Matthews had completed his search of the second area without any results, and Jen’s confidence was dampened further. The ATF officer commented with an encouraging, “Don’t lose heart.”

By this time, the divers had already stopped the search for human remains, coming up with nothing. King had also gone back to the police station with his team of officers. “We can’t do anything here at the moment anyway,” the head of the CSI had told Jen. Only Stegemann was left, holding out hope under the protective tent.

Two hours later

The third area they wanted to examine with the georadar was the biggest, measuring almost twice as large as the two previously explored areas combined. While Matthews was busy investigating the area, Jen sent the officers from the protective police home. At about the same time, Hemphill arrived, accompanied by King. The two wanted to see, in person, whether there had been any progress in the search.

The detective hadn’t even properly greeted the two men when Matthews suddenly began waving frantically. Despite wearing rubber boots that sank into the muddy ground with every step, Jen ran as fast as she could over to the ATF investigator, Hemphill reaching him at almost the same time. King followed at some distance, completely out of breath.

“What's wrong?” gasped Jen when she was a few yards away from Matthews.

“I found something. Whatever is buried down there, it doesn’t seem to have been there long. Take a look at the ground.”

“Looks like there was some recent digging,” Jen commented.

“I see it that way, too. Looks to me like there is a box buried here. A pretty big one.”

“I'll get the shovels out of the truck,” Hemphill said, turning back to their vehicle.

“Take it easy, young buck,” King, who had finally caught his breath, slowed him down. “I can understand that you want to know what’s in the box, I feel the same. Before we can do that, we’ll first need to secure the site where it was found, take photographs, and check for any possible traces of evidence. We should call in a forensic team,” he continued and took his cell phone out of his jacket pocket to call his men.

“He’s right,” said Stegemann, who had joined the four of them in the rain.

Of course, King was right, Jen thought, and as she often found herself in these situations, she once again wished she wasn’t bound by bureaucratic rules.

Another three hours passed before the excavation of the box began. In that time, they had set up a second protective tent and illuminated it with several high powered spotlights for working into the night. Luckily for them, despite the persistent rain, King’s people had protected and collected all the evidence. They had taken photos, taken soil samples, and marked the location on their map. Jen had silently paced up and down, restlessly, like a racehorse in a starting box during the whole procedure. When King finally gave the signal to dig, she could hardly contain her curiosity.

Although the head of the CSI team protested, Hemphill grabbed a shovel to assist the two men responsible for the excavation. The giant from the pacific northwest jumped in eagerly and began aggressively digging. This earned him a quick and forceful scolding from King, who admonished him to be careful not to destroy any traces.

Due to the continuous rain, the ground had become so soaked and heavy that the three men were completely covered in sweat within minutes of starting. Exactly twenty-five minutes after the first cut of the spade, a CSI team employee came across a hard surface.

“I’ve got something!”

“He’s right, Jen. There’s something down here!” shouted Hemphill, who was now also encountering resistance with his shovel.

The three men dug a little further, and a short time later they had uncovered the lid of a box.

“It looks homemade,” Hemphill noted.

“And as suspected, the box hasn’t been here very long,” the forensics investigator judged, as he took a closer look at the wood, and carefully removed a scrap of soil.

“Hand me that chisel, Jen,” Hemphill called out to his boss from the pit.

“For God’s sake, call off your bulldozer, Brighton,” Martin Stegemann huffed. “Do we really have to explain the basics of forensics to you?”

“No, of course not. We know the protocol,” Jen replied contritely. She could understand Hemphill’s vigor all too well. She, too, was desperate to find out what secret the box held. She understood that securing possible evidence took precedence over her getting answers. “What are you waiting for, Horrace? Let’s get to work.”

After another hour, during which the team had searched in vain for fingerprints, blood or DNA traces on the box, the time finally came. Hemphill applied the crowbar to the side of the lid. When he released it with a jerk, he lost his balance and staggered against the pit wall. At the same time, the unpleasant smell of decay rose to their nostrils. Before he had picked himself up again to take a look inside the box, he heard Jen say:

“Holy shit. Well, now we know, without a doubt, that whoever drained the New York account to transfer the cash to the Caymans wasn’t Kaiser.”

Chapter 39

Wednesday, September 11

Jen couldn’t stop thinking about the words of the man who had examined Mark Kaiser’s body on the shores of Lake Washington. According to the medical examiner, Kaiser had been buried alive four or five days earlier and suffocated in agony in his grave. There were scratch marks on the inside of the lid, and some of the dead man’s fingernails were bloody and broken off. Based on the forensic expert’s thoughts on Kaiser’s possible time of death, a new problem arose for the investigators: Where had Kaiser stayed from the time of his disappearance until the time when he was buried alive?

According to his neighbors, he had disappeared about ten days before his death. One possible explanation was that he had been kidnapped and held captive before being murdered. This theory stemmed from the coroner’s discovery of a ring shaped bruise on Kaiser’s right wrist, which was probably due to handcuffs that were too tight. Jen assumed that the kidnapper must have had a hiding place where he placed Kaiser without anyone suspecting anything.

The completely new situation had kept Jen awake half the night, even though she had fallen into bed dead tired after the exhausting hours at the lake. And even now, on the morning drive to the police station, her thoughts circled around it. After parking her car, she had gone to the office kitchen to get a coffee and breakfast sandwich. In the meeting room, her two partners, and Underwood, were already waiting for her. A grumpy “Morning,” was all she could manage before she hung up her jacket, dropped into one of the chairs, and took a bite of her sandwich.

“Short night and no breakfast at home, I take it?”

“Stellar investigative skills, Steven. Way to go,” Jen mumbled with her mouth full and washed it all down with a sip of coffee. “I don’t know how you all are feeling, but it feels to me like we’re going in circles. In my opinion, our theory is strong, but despite all that, we have little more than a handful of clues—certainly too little to be able to prove it.”

“At least we now know that our original hypothesis was wrong. Sandthorn didn’t hire his old friend Kaiser to get Wainwright out of the way because he was blackmailing him. And Kaiser wasn’t responsible for Sandthorn’s death either, since he was kidnapped himself,” Kruger said, taking a sip of the tea that he had brewed fresh, as he did every morning.

“Right, it’s good we know that now. But I, honestly, would have preferred that we had found Miriam Arnold’s body yesterday over Kaiser. We still lack proof that the girl was murdered back then and we haven’t been able to prove a direct link to our trio either.”

“That’s true, but we do have news that may soon let us close that very gap,” Steven replied with a knowing smile.

“Oh, yeah? Well, now I’m curious. Go ahead,” Jen said and took another bite of her breakfast.

“Your appeal to old Wainwright to think a little more about whether his son had an accident in September 1996 was not in vain after all,” Hemphill said, almost good-humoredly.

“You better tell me right now if his son actually did hit her all those years ago,” Jen interrupted him, impatiently.

“We haven’t gotten that far yet,” Henry jumped in. “But Wainwright Senior called half an hour ago and gave us the address and phone number of the authorized body shop where his son always took his Porsche for inspection or repair back then. I’ve already talked to the workshop manager on the phone, and he’s promised to get back to us as soon as he finds the documents. By the way, is it possible that you haven’t turned on your cell phone yet? Wainwright tried to call you, but it apparently only went to your voicemail. That’s why he called through the main line and had to be forwarded to me.”

Jen took her cell phone out of her jacket pocket and pressed the power button. She never turned it off, normally, but when she pressed the button, nothing happened.

“Shit, I forgot to charge it. Doesn’t matter now, I guess. I really didn’t think Wainwright would volunteer to help us.”

“How surprised do you think I was when he called?”

“We can only hope that this lead will help us. His information saves us a lot of work, otherwise we would have had to canvas all the body shops in the area.”

“Incidentally, neither Sandthorn nor Kaiser owned a car at the time. We were able to determine that through the DMV,” Kruger explained.

“I can see you guys are doing just fine without me,” Jen joked. “It gives me no peace that Kaiser was just murdered on Friday or Saturday. According to the neighbors, he had been missing for at least a week before he died. If you then consider the bruises on his wrists, which indicate that he was tied up, it can really only mean that he was kidnapped and held somewhere. I can’t stop thinking about why the murderer didn’t kill him immediately, as he did with Wainwright and Sandthorn.”

“You think that means something?” Kruger echoed, stroking his three day beard several times.

“Do you disagree? After all, the perpetrator—presumably the unknown man we encountered outside Kaiser’s apartment—took a certain risk by holding Kaiser captive. If we had made the connection with the man earlier and intensified the search for him, we might have been able to stop him. With each passing day, the risk of being discovered increased. It has to mean something that he took that risk.”

“Sounds logical,” Hemphill agreed with his boss.

“You’ll figure it out soon enough, I'm sure,” interjected Underwood, who had held back until now. “I’ve been thinking about one thing in connection with your operation at Lake Washington.”

Three pairs of eyes were now directed at the captain.

“I share Jen’s opinion that Miriam Arnold’s body was buried near Lake Washington. However, I believe we have been looking in the wrong place.”

“What makes you think that?” Jen wondered. “We’ve searched all three areas that seem most likely.”

“And that’s where the problem lies. I was wondering if the vegetation of the area twenty-three years ago was the same as it is today. The answer to that is no. Why don’t you take a look at these so you can see for yourself.” Underwood handed Jen a stack of photos that had been lying on the table in front of him.

“Where did you get these?” she asked after taking a long look. Frowning, she handed the pictures to Hemphill and Kruger.

“From a good acquaintance. I went to see him last night. He is a seaplane pilot and has flown around and onto the lake frequently throughout his career. I asked him if there were any shots of the site from ‘96 or subsequent years, and he was actually able to help me. As you can see, two clumps of trees east of the lake didn’t even exist then. The trees were planted later. I think that’s where we’re going to find Miriam Arnold’s body.”

“Okay, boss man! Jesse, we never would have thought of that ourselves! Let’s contact the ATF again to request further investigations by ground radar. Hopefully that machine can still work in that heavily wooded terrain.”

“I have already spoken to the ATF. Quite officially, by the way,” Underwood said with a wink. The small jab hit home with Jen. “The device is, unfortunately, needed elsewhere today, but Ralph Matthews will go to the lake again tomorrow morning and check the area.”

Underwood had just finished the sentence when the door to the meeting room flew open and Horrace King swept into the room like a whirlwind, several documents tucked under his right arm.

Chapter 40

“I should have guessed that you all would be sitting here, having a tea party, while I’m over here solving your case!” King threw himself onto a free chair, tossing the papers on the table in front of him.

“Those are bold words, buddy. Do you have something to back that claim up?” Hemphill replied, grinning.

“I'm going to go out on a limb and say yes, dear Steven. But let’s take it one step at a time. Let’s start with the bike that the divers found in the lake. It is, as already guessed, a mountain bike of the brand Yeti A.R.C. The paint was blue and yellow, just like Miriam Arnold’s bike. The decisive proof was the frame number stamped on the body of the bike. You can see it clearly here in this photo.” King passed around a corresponding picture. “This number matches the one on Miriam Arnold’s bike. Luckily for us, Miriam’s father had the mountain bike insured at the time. Because we have an insurance policy, it means we have the frame number on file from back then.”

“Bingo! I knew it!” cried Jen, triumphantly. “Were you able to find out where the damage came from?”

“We have a theory about it. However, we cannot prove it one hundred percent. We have gone through several scenarios. The accident theory, as you’ve already guessed, is the most likely, but we believe that it was not a small bump that caused the girl to crash. Rather, we believe she was hit by a vehicle with a low-slung front hood traveling at seventy to eight miles per hour. Most likely a sports car.”

“A Porsche, for example?” interrupted Hemphill excitedly.

“It’s possible. We have simulated the accident on the computer and can conclude that the impact speed was probably seventy to eighty miles per hour. There is no other explanation for the severe damage to the rear wheel and the frame. Of course, you can read all about it in my detailed report.” The head of the CSI pointed to the chaos of documents on the table in front of him.

“You’re right. The speed is much too high for our initial theory about it being a small bump to try and stop her,” Jen said thoughtfully.

“An accident with a bicycle, at that speed, would result in devastating consequences for a cyclist,” the CSI captain added.

“Most likely, even fatal. If our research ends up correct, it means that Miriam Arnold was not kidnapped and murdered at all, but the victim of an accident, which probably resulted in her death,” Jen summed it up. “And, to cover it up, Wainwright, Sandthorn and Kaiser buried the body, somewhere near the shore of Lake Washington and sank the mountain bike in the lake.”

“And that could sum it all up on its own, but we found out more. I haven’t even told you the most interesting part yet.”

“Let me guess. Now you’re going to tell us who did it?" joked Hemphill.

“Probably, yes. But I only evaluate the traces and interpret them. You’ll have to prove it in the end. It’s related to the walkie-talkie we found in Kaiser’s grave. In addition to the dead man’s fingerprints, we also recovered the prints of another person. It looks as though the person tried to wipe them off, but fortunately for us, he was pretty sloppy about it. It was only a partial print, but it was perfectly adequate for matching against the database. The best part is that he was registered in the system, so we have a name.” At this point, King paused for a moment and looked around at the faces of his colleagues, who were staring at him, as quiet as mice, as if spellbound. He was clearly enjoying this moment.

“Come on, Horrace! Who?” Jen broke the silence.

“The man who was kind enough to leave us his partial print on the walkie-talkie is named Alexander Schrader. He is thirty-two and lives here in Seattle. He was in the database because he applied for a loan two years ago. As I’m sure you know, fingerprints are now taken and registered from some banks in the area.”

“That’s awesome news! Now we just need a face to go with the name.”

“I can help with that, of course,” King replied, grinning broadly and sliding a photo from the file in front of him over to Jen, who immediately jumped up. “Is this the man you met in the hallway outside Mark Kaiser’s apartment?”

“That’s him! No question,” she exclaimed, excitedly, and passed the picture to Hemphill.

“Yeah, no doubt about it. That’s the guy,” he confirmed.

“You’re right, by the way, that he bears a strong resemblance to Christian Arnold. Now I will venture into a rare shot in the dark and tell you what I suspect. Schrader’s mother happens to be Christian Arnold’s housekeeper. Her name is Maria Schrader and she’s been working for the Arnolds for thirty-four years.”

“I remember the woman; I talked to her several times during our investigation back then,” Underwood interrupted.

“Are you suggesting that Matthew Arnold impregnated his housekeeper, and that Alexander Schrader is his illegitimate son, and thus Christian Arnold’s half brother?” Jen took a loud breath.

“Assuming the master of the house had dominant genes, that’s exactly my guess. It’s a pity you guessed before I could tell you.” King looked offended.

“If this is indeed true, the story makes way more sense. If it’s not a long kept family secret, and Alexander Schrader knows who his father is, he could be the avenger of his murdered half sister. It was he who recognized the necklace on Willow Sandthorn and stole it to show Christian Arnold.”

“And that’s where I have to interrupt you, Jen. Who says he was working alone?” Hemphill gave a thought. “May I remind you that Christian Arnold studied electrical engineering and could have easily built the bomb for Wainwright’s car? We took him off the list of suspects because he’s in a wheelchair. Even if it’s still pure speculation, we must add Arnold to the list of suspects, along with Schrader. They may have been in cahoots.”

“I'll spin the thought even further,” Kruger picked up the thread. “It might be possible that the two of them kept Mark Kaiser in Arnold’s home until his murder. After all, Christian Arnold mentioned during our questioning that the housekeeper had been on vacation in Italy. Theoretically, they could have held Kaiser captive in the house without anyone noticing.”

Jen thought about it. Hemphill and Kruger’s explanation sounded logical. The fragments were gradually coming together to form a complete picture.

“All right, guys. Let’s summarize what we’ve found out so far: the motive for the murders of Julius Wainwright, Patrick Sandthorn and Mark Kaiser is likely tied to the events that took place on the night of the seventh to the eighth of September, 1996. The missing girl’s bicycle tells us that Miriam Arnold had an accident on the night in question, which was likely fatal. Wainwright was probably responsible for it with his Porsche, so the photo with the warning that Sandthorn sent him also makes sense. If the garage confirms that accident damage to the car was repaired there at the time, we can put a check mark beside this theory. Let’s imagine it like this: They hit her, realized she died, then buried the girl near the lake that very night and disposed of the mountain bike in that body of water as well. Sandthorn must have taken the necklace with the snake heads from the girl before burying here. Then, a year later, he gifted it to his, then girlfriend and later wife, Willow Sandthorn.”

“Which, fortunately for us, became his ultimate undoing. Serves him right,” Hemphill interjected.

“Even if it was a heinous crime, that’s still no justification for revenge. Arnold and Schrader should have gone to the police and let us do our job as soon as they discovered who was responsible for Miriam’s death. We must never condone vigilante justice, Steven. I forbid myself to make such statements,” Underwood chided the investigator.

“Sorry, you’re right,” Hemphill muttered in response.

“Sandthorn and Kaiser help Wainwright make the girl’s body disappear, and then the three of them fake the kidnapping to cover up her accidental death. That’s the only way to explain why Wainwright wasn’t the only one to die,” Jen continued, unperturbed. “The ransom is paid, but Miriam’s case remains unsolved to this day. Then, Alexander Schrader meets Willow Sandthorn in the bakery and thinks he recognizes the necklace of his missing half sister. He breaks into the Sandthorns’ house and steals the necklace so that he and his half brother can decide for themselves if it is hers. Now, we assume, at this point, that the stepbrothers kidnap Kaiser and hold him in the mansion for several days. That’s the one part of our theory I don’t understand. Why would they do that?”

“Maybe after all these years of uncertainty, they didn’t want to wait for the real estate agent to show up again, so they did some research on him and pretty quickly found his connection to Kaiser and Wainwright. I suspect it would be simple for an IT expert like Schrader to connect the three. All it would take is him finding information like the bank transfer from Sandthorn to Kaiser. They confront Kaiser, and find out the truth about what happened the night of Miriam’s disappearance. Most importantly, they now know who was involved. Schrader and Arnold are faced with a completely overwhelming problem. What do they do? Just let Kaiser go? Unthinkable. They decide to let him disappear from the scene for the time being and keep him prisoner in the basement of the Arnold mansion,” Kruger elaborated on their theory.

“Sure, that could absolutely have been what happened. Maybe you should ask Alexander Schrader why he kidnapped and held Kaiser and not us,” grumbled Hemphill, who had had enough of all the speculation.

“Will you, please, get us a search warrant for the apartment and an arrest warrant for Schrader, Jesse? Urgent suspicion. Based on the evidence, hopefully a mere formality,” Jen finally asked.

Underwood just nodded.

“I wrote down Schrader’s address for you. An apartment along the Seattle harbor,” King said and dictated the address to the investigator.

Five minutes later, Jen and Hemphill sped off while Henry Kruger remained at the precinct.

Chapter 41

Schrader was not home. Where was the search warrant? Jen’s hands were, once again, tied, thanks to bureaucratic regulations. Not wanting to make a formal mistake by illegally gaining access to the apartment, she and Steven had retreated in frustration. She instructed the two officers there to keep an eye on Schrader's apartment in case the suspect showed back up. Then, she and Hemphill set off for the Renton housing development they had visited once before.

The detective used the drive to talk on the phone with Kruger, who had begun compiling more information about Alexander Schrader. Around half past ten, they reached the Arnolds’ family home.

“I have to get something off my chest before we go in there,” Hemphill suddenly said.

“Now?” Jen gave him a questioning look.

“You know my extraordinary sense of good timing. But this has been weighing heavy on my chest for some time. It’s about our conversation the other day.”

Jen tilted her head.

“You know...when you asked me if I’ve been gambling again. You...you were right. Now before you freak out, I really appreciate your offer to help. But I got myself into this mess, I’m going to get myself out of it. I’ve got it under control.”

“The call outside Frank Harold’s house, did that have something to do with it?”

“Like I said, I’ve got it covered. I just wanted you to know about it and to ease your worries.”

Jen understood, even if she didn’t believe a word her friend said. Because even though they were coworkers, he was also one of her best friends, without question. Steven had wanted to reassure her, but had achieved exactly the opposite. Nevertheless, she left it at that, at least for the time being. She just nodded, and Hemphill lowered the window and pressed the bell button just below the video camera in front of the entrance gate.

A short time later, a warm sounding woman’s voice rang out from the intercom. Maria Schrader, he learned on inquiry. Hemphill asked for Arnold and was informed that Christian Arnold was not present. Upon hearing that, Jen spontaneously changed her plans and asked from the passenger seat to be able to talk to Maria Schrader instead. Shortly thereafter, the heavy iron gate opened, and Hemphill steered the BMW up the driveway.

Mrs. Schrader was already waiting for them at the open front door. The woman with the chocolate brown eyes looked stunning. Raven black shoulder length hair framed her suntanned, almost wrinkle free face. She had enviably long dark eyelashes, Jen thought, a narrow nose and full lips. Maria Schrader looked considerably younger than fifty-four. There was warmth in her gaze.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Schrader. Thank you for taking the time to talk to us,” said the detective.

“It didn’t feel like I had much of a choice,” the housekeeper replied, kindly, smiling. “I must admit, it makes me a little nervous that Homicide wants to talk to me. After all, that doesn’t happen every day. But please, come on in.”

Maria Schrader led the investigators into the stylish kitchen and asked them to sit down at the kitchen table, which stood directly in front of a large patio door. Benches covered with white leather flanked both long sides of the table, with two matching chairs at the ends, offering seating for at least eight people.

“May I offer you something to drink?”

“Would it be impolite to request an espresso?” Steven inquired, casting a furtive glance at the fully automatic coffee machine on the counter.

“No, not at all. I’d take one, too,” the housekeeper replied. “And what may I offer you, Detective Brighton?”

“A regular coffee sounds great, thank you,” Jen said.

“What’s the reason you wanted to talk to me? Is it about Miriam?” Maria Schrader got down to business, bluntly, after she had prepared and served all the hot drinks with routine hand movements.

“Indirectly, yes,” Jen replied, not wanting to jump right in this time.

“Indirectly?”

“You've been working for the family for a long time, right?”

“For over thirty-four years,” Maria Schrader replied proudly. “It must have been a lucky coincidence that I ended up here. The Arnold family hired me even though I didn’t have a high school diploma or any formal training.”

“Even when you got pregnant, they didn’t fire you. The family must be very accommodating.” Jen put on a conspiratorial smile, she wanted to build trust.

“I can’t disagree with that. At the end of my pregnancy—when I was no longer able to do most of the work—and for the first period after giving birth, they hired another housekeeper, temporarily, to relieve me. My dismissal was never an option.”

“I suppose it’s pretty unusual in these circles to keep someone no matter what. But, of course, it speaks to the integrity of the family. Who is your son’s father?” Jen now put aside her reticence and went on the offensive.

Maria Schrader looked at her, puzzled, but she didn’t answer right away and reached for her espresso cup instead.

“It was just a casual affair,” she finally replied evasively. “I indicated at birth that the father was unknown. He wouldn’t have acknowledged paternity anyway.” She looked down at her cup and ran her free hand through her hair. Still, she kept her eyes lowered. Apparently, she was unable to look Jen in the eye, which she had previously done during the conversation. “Why do you ask?”

“We have noticed that your son bears a striking resemblance to Christian Arnold.”

“That...I’ve heard that more than once. A strange coincidence,” Maria Schrader replied, putting the cup down again and kneading her fingers.

“I see. Well, we police detectives don’t believe in coincidences. Could Matthew Arnold be the father of your son?”

“No! Where would you come up with such an absurd claim?”

The answer came a bit too quickly and energetically for Jen’s taste. “Can we end this game, Mrs. Schrader? We both know that we can disprove your claim with a simple DNA test, don’t we?”

The housekeeper pressed her lips together before she nodded, hesitantly.

“Do both of them know about being brothers?” Hemphill inquired.

A tear rolled out of the woman’s right eye and ran down her cheek. “Of course they do. After Verena died, Matthew came clean and told Christian, and my son, everything. He even named Alexander as an equal heir.”

“And how did they take it?”

“They were far less surprised than we thought they would be. After all, they themselves mentioned the resemblance between them. When Alexander and Christian were old enough, they put two and two together.”

“And did Mrs. Arnold know about this?”

“Yes.”

“And she accepted it?” Jen asked in wonder. “He had cheated on his wife with the maid and fathered a son with her. There aren’t many women who would accept that.”

“Let’s put it this way: Mrs. Arnold came to terms with it. She came from a simple background, and she didn’t want to give up her comfortable life. For Matthew, it was clear from the beginning that our son would grow up in his house and could be close to him. So, we all tried hard to keep up the facade. Before you ask, the affair was short lived. Matthew wasn’t exactly the kind of man who stayed with a mistress for long. But I am interested to know why you want to know all this?”

“Because, in the course of a murder investigation, we came across a lead that led us straight here, and it’s probably related to the Miriam Arnold case. Your son and Christian Arnold apparently play an important role in it.” Jen nodded inconspicuously at Hemphill.

“May I use the restroom?” he interrupted the conversation. They had agreed on the way up to the front door that he should pretend to go to the bathroom, while Jen questioned the housekeeper, so that he could take a discreet look around the basement of the home.

“Yes, of course. Out the kitchen, to the end of the hall, then the last door on the right. That’s where you’ll find the guest bathroom.”

Hemphill thanked her and left the kitchen. He had just entered the entrance hall when, suddenly, the front door opened, and Christian Arnold rolled into the hall with Alexander Schrader in tow.

“Why the hell are you lurking around my house, Detective?” the surprised man aggressively questioned the investigator.

“Um, I’m looking for a restroom,” Hemphill replied as if dumbstruck. “But your timing couldn’t be better,” he quickly dismissed his surprise. “We’d like to ask you a few more questions, Mr. Arnold. And as for you, Mr. Schrader, you’re under arrest,” he continued, stepping closer and pulling out a pair of handcuffs he always kept fastened to his belt.

“Arrest? Me? What for?” Schrader replied, aghast.

“On urgent suspicion for the murders of Julius Wainwright, Patrick Sandthorn and Mark Kaiser,” the investigator explained, whereupon Alexander Schrader burst out laughing.

“What's the commotion here?” Jen’s voice rang out from behind Hemphill as she came running into the hall. Maria Schrader followed right behind. By the time the chief detective caught sight of the two men, Hemphill was already about to handcuff one of her suspects.

Chapter 42

“It’s good to see you again so soon, Mr. Schrader. Or should I say 'Mr. Newman? You gave us quite the runaround when we met in front of Kaiser’s apartment.”

“You know the detective, Alexander? And why did she call you that?” cried Maria Schrader, stunned. She was sitting tensely next to her son on the couch in the living room while the investigators questioned him.

“That’s a long story, but I’m sure we’ll clarify that in the course of our questioning,” Jen interjected, stopping any response from Maria’s son. “Or do you see it differently, Mr. Schrader?”

“If this is going to be a long conversation, it would be a nice gesture if you could take these handcuffs off of me. I don’t plan to escape, and these tight things are quite uncomfortable,” the IT specialist replied calmly.

Jen weighed the matter briefly, but then gave Hemphill a signal to uncuff Schrader. Steven reluctantly complied with the request.

“Perhaps you could first clarify, for us, what you are actually charging Alexander with, Detective Brighton. Because depending on how this conversation is going to go, I may want to involve the family’s lawyer," Christian Arnold explained coolly.

“We’ll get to that in a minute. But you are always free to consult your legal counsel,” Jen replied.

Alexander signaled to his half brother with a wave of his hand that he saw no reason for this.

“If you don’t mind, I'd like to record the interview so there won’t be any misunderstandings later,” Jen began.

Arnold and Schrader had no objections to Jen’s request, so Hemphill put his cell phone on the table and started recording. After Jen had recorded the personal details of everyone present and informed the suspects of their rights, the questioning began. “Let’s start with our encounter in front of Mark Kaiser’s apartment in Tacoma on Friday, September sixth. What were you doing there?”

“I went to check on Mark’s apartment. Mark wanted to relax for a few days, on vacation, and he asked me to look after the mail.”

”So Kaiser is an old friend of yours? I seriously hope you are fucking with us right now; you really think we’re that stupid?” There was sheer rage in Hemphill’s eyes.

“Why would I lie, Detective? I’ve known Mark since college. I did an internship at his company and we’ve stayed in touch since then.”

Jen looked at Schrader with a mixture of surprise and skepticism. She didn’t doubt that he had done this internship at Kaiser’s software development company; a story like that could easily be verified. A strange coincidence, she thought.

“Why didn’t you offer your old friend a job now that he was in a bad way? After all, Mr. Kaiser was on unemployment,” she continued.

“I did! He’s a visionary in our field. But he turned down my offer.”

“Why did you lie to us about who you were, and introduce yourself to us as Max Newman?” Jen changed the subject.

The interviewee hunched his shoulders and threw his arms up, theatrically.

“Honestly, Detective, I don’t know what got into me. Could you please explain why you think I’m responsible for the death of Mark and those two other men? I’m horrified that Mark is dead! I didn’t have the slightest idea!”

Jen did not answer immediately. Admittedly, Schrader played the role of the ignorant man convincingly. But this facade would soon crumble. She showed him the photo of the walkie-talkie that had been in Kaiser’s grave and had been recovered with Schrader’s partial fingerprint on it.

“A walkie-talkie. Very interesting. I haven’t played with something like that since I was a kid,” he replied calmly. His voice sounded confident and arrogant. No trace of insecurity or worry.

“That’s strange, Mr. Schrader. Because we found this walkie-talkie next to a dead body. And you know what the best part is?”

“I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”

Schrader’s hands rested on his thighs; no sweat came to his forehead, and his eyes showed no telltale movement. Jen further delayed the explanation as she appraised his body language.

“You were kind enough to leave your fingerprints on it,” she played her trump card.

Christian Arnold gave his brother a questioning look. Schrader’s expression changed abruptly. The corners of his mouth twitched; small beads of sweat formed on his forehead. She had scored a hit. Hemphill seemed to think so, to—Jen noticed his small grin out of the corner of her eye.

“Where did you say you found the walkie-talkie?” Schrader wanted to know. His voice no longer sounded as confident.

“In the grave of Mark Kaiser, who is definitely not spending a vacation on some beach in Florida. Instead, his body lies in a refrigerated chamber of the forensics lab. The grave was located near Lake Washington. Strange coincidence, isn’t it? Especially since you claim not to have played with one since childhood.”

“What does that mean, Alexander? Did you have something to do with that terrible murder I heard about on the news today?” the completely horrified Maria Schrader wanted to know from her son.

“That’s all nonsense, Mother. Why would I have anything to do with Mark’s death? I don’t know how my fingerprint got on that thing, or why it was in that grave. Somebody’s probably trying to pin something on me.”

“And this ‘someone’ also manipulated traffic camera footage? How do you explain that you can be seen on the recordings on the evening of Patrick Sandthorn’s murder near the crime scene? Just before the crime and again a few minutes later,” Jen continued.

Kruger had sent her a message, including a video attachment, the moment Hemphill had left the kitchen earlier. There was not the slightest doubt that the driver, who had been caught on a traffic surveillance camera near Queen Anne Avenue, was Alexander Schrader. Now that they knew what to look for, it was relatively easy to gather the crucial evidence. This was exactly the reason that Kruger had been asked to stay at the police station and work through an appropriate checklist, including reviewing the traffic surveillance tapes. He was told to report the results of his research to her immediately, so she could put pressure on Schrader.

The detective enjoyed the way the noose was slowly but surely tightening. “Or are you going to deny that this is you?” She showed him the video on her smartphone. Christian Arnold gave his half-brother a questioning, if not reproachful, look.

“Since when is it illegal to drive around in a car?” grumbled Schrader.

“It’s not, of course,” Jen replied. At the same moment, a roaring engine noise signaled that she had received a new text message. She briefly skimmed the message and smiled with satisfaction. “If you have nothing to hide, it certainly won’t bother you that my team is in the process of searching your apartment as we speak,” she continued. Kruger had just informed her that while they were there, the search warrant and the arrest warrant had been released.

“I hope your team is enjoying the beautiful view there,” Schrader replied petulantly, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“Fortunately, our search warrant not only includes permission to search your home and your company’s offices, but also includes your car. I wonder what the analysis of your GPS data will tell us.”

Schrader’s face was almost as white as the living room wallpaper. His look was expressionless. Another hit. Schrader might be a proven computer expert who knew how to cover his tracks on his computer and internet, but he would not be the first, or last, suspect to whom the technology of modern cars could prove fatal. Movement profiles, derived from cell phone user data or from navigation devices, were now an important part of police investigative work. Now was the time to play another trump card.

“So far, this conversation has been very one-sided, Mr. Arnold. Don’t you think so?”

The man sat on the sofa with a grim face and stared at her.

“Admittedly, we did make the assumption that you were involved in the murders. But so far, we have lacked any tangible proof of that,” Jen confessed, picking up her cell phone again and searching for a photo. Once she found it, she held it right in Christian Arnold’s face.

“We found these tire tracks near Mark Kaiser’s grave. I think we both know what those tread marks are from.”

“Since you like to hear yourself talk, Detective, why don’t you tell me?” Arnold replied with a sharp tone.

“These are definitely traces of a wheelchair. And if I take a close look at the tire tread,” she searched for the greatly enlarged image of the tread and held the cell phone right next to one of Arnold's wheelchair tires, “We’ll see that it fits wonderfully with your wheeled vehicle. And that’s why the judge, after being shown all the connections, saw no problem issuing us a search warrant for your home as well. I am sure that we will find evidence in your basement that Mark Kaiser was held there before his death.”

While Maria Schrader, who was staring stunned, had tears streaming down her face, Christian Arnold’s eyes sparkled with barely suppressed anger. A split second later, he could no longer hold it in.

“You stupid fucking idiot! I told you that it was a stupid idea to put that walkie-talkie in Kaiser’s grave! And the joke of the whole thing is that he didn’t even say shit to you,” Arnold snapped at his half brother.

Schrader did not answer but stared into space in shock.

“What have you done?” moaned Maria Schrader. “Why did you do that?”

“Because those pigs were responsible for Miriam’s death. That’s why!” Arnold replied in disgust.

“But how...how can that be?” sobbed Maria Schrader.

“I’m going to tell you what we think happened twenty-three years ago and how they got involved in the murders of Wainwright, Sandthorn and Kaiser,” Jen began. “That will probably answer all your questions, Ms. Schrader. And to you, gentlemen, I would be grateful if you would help clarify the last unresolved facts.” She then recounted what her team of investigators had uncovered, from the accident the three friends had caused at the time, to the faking of Miriam Arnold's abduction, and the fateful meeting of Alexander Schrader and Willow Sandthorn at the bakery. Everything ended with the kidnapping of Mark Kaiser and the murders of the once inseparable trio.

“Much of what you have found out is accurate. And the conclusions are close to the truth,” Christian Arnold finally took the floor when Jen had finished. “But I'm not lying when I tell you that the whole story is even more unbelievable than you can imagine,” he continued, and then enlightened the investigators about the true circumstances of the death.

Chapter 43

Sunday, September 8, 1996, 12:13am

The three guys were singing the chorus to Killing Me Softly by the Fugees at the top of their lungs as Julius Wainwright drove his Porsche along the road toward Magnuson Park. He had just passed the first state exam for his law degree and wanted to celebrate this evening with his two best friends. Since Patrick’s parents were on vacation in the Caribbean, they had met at the Sandthorns’ apartment to do a little pregaming. Now they were on their way to get Willow Schmidt, Sandthorn’s girlfriend, before heading to downtown Seattle to party in one of the hippest clubs in the city.

“Hey, Mark, you’re not supposed to drink all the bubbly,” Wainwright called to his buddy from the driver’s seat, turning and angling for the champagne bottle.

“Don’t worry, there’s plenty left.” Kaiser handed the bottle to Julius, while the sports car sped on almost blindly.

Lauryn Hill was just finishing the next verse when Wainwright turned his gaze back to the street in front of him, champagne bottle in hand. Then he took a hearty sip from the gift he had purchased in celebration of his joyous occasion.

“Do you want to go again?” he asked his passenger, Patrick Sandthorn.

“If it helps you to concentrate on driving, then hand it on over,” he replied.

Both driver and passenger burst into hearty laughter and gave each other a high five while Kaiser, at exactly the same moment, hysterically shouted, “Watch out!” from the back seat.

It was too late. There was a terrible bang. Neither Wainwright nor Sandthorn nor Kaiser knew what had just happened. The law student dropped the bottle, the contents of which spilled over his pants. He slammed on the brakes at the same moment, bringing the Porsche to a halt. The last sounds of Killing Me Softly were coming from the speakers.

“What the hell was that?” Patrick was the first to regain his speech.

“I don’t know! It...it all happened so fast! I just saw something appear in the headlights...and then there was a bang,” Kaiser replied, leaning forward from the back seat toward the other two, who were sitting stiffly in their seats.

“Come on, guys, let’s take a look. Probably a deer or something. Hand me the flashlight from the glove compartment,” Wainwright urged his passenger.

The three men got out of the Porsche and set about assessing the damage to the car.

“That was a big dog,” Sandthorn said laconically as the cone of light from the small light Wainwright was holding fell on the damaged front end. The turn signals, headlights, hood, and fender on the passenger side had taken a good beating.

“Shit, my old man is going to kill me when he sees this,” Wainwright cursed.

“Shouldn’t we go see what you hit?" Kaiser suggested.

The law student said nothing in reply, but silently marched off in the direction from which they had come. His buddies followed the glow of the flashlight.

“There’s something up ahead!” he suddenly yelled, running off and shining the light into the ditch beside the roadway. “Holy shit, a mountain bike! Or what’s left of it!”

“You stupid idiot, you knocked over a cyclist. I told you not to drink so much,” Sandthorn reproached his best friend when he reached him.

“Shut the hell up! We need to find the person who was riding this bike,” replied Wainwright, who by now had recognized the emergency of the situation. He illuminated the area around the bike with the flashlight but couldn’t see anything. Foot by foot they searched the grass and the road.

It was Kaiser who finally discovered her.

“Oh, god,” he screamed, and his two buddies rushed toward him. “You killed her...you killed her,” he stammered, kneeling before the body of a young girl, holding a lighter in his hand, its flame giving little light.

In the light of the flashlight, Wainwright’s gaze now fell on the lifeless young girl. Her right leg was splayed at an unnatural angle, the tibia bone, obviously broken, had pierced through her jeans. Her right arm did not look any better; she had sustained various broken bones. As he shone the light on the girl’s face, he dropped the lamp, ran toward the ditch across the street, and threw up. Sandthorn just shook his head uncomprehendingly.

“What a fucking mess! Julius, this is your fault. Her death is on you!” wailed Mark Kaiser.

“Can you stop acting like a pussy for once? We need to think about what we’re going to do now,” Sandthorn yelled.

While the two argued, Wainwright sat huddled on the edge of the road. He had his legs bent, his arms wrapped around his knees, and was incessantly rocking back and forth, whimpering unrestrainedly.

“We’ll call the cops. What else do you want us to do?”

“Are you crazy? Julius was driving, but we...we’re partly to blame because we let him take the wheel. No, we’re not calling the cops. I wish we could ask our budding star lawyer what to do, but he’s obviously in shock,” Sandthorn stated, pointing in Wainwright’s direction. “I’ll take him to the car.”

“And you want me to stay here? Forget it. How about I take Julius to the car, and you figure out what we’re going to do? After all, you said no cops. Which I think is a really stupid fucking idea.” Kaiser looked at him challengingly.

“Fine, if you want to take care of Julius, then do it,” Sandthorn replied, annoyed.

Mark went over to Julius, who was still cowering on the ground. After the architecture student had talked to him briefly, Wainwright had let his friend take him to the Porsche and put him into the passenger seat. The whole time, he didn’t say a word. Kaiser left him and walked back toward Patrick.

“So, what’s the plan?”

“I think that we just leave her and get the hell out of here. No one witnessed the accident, and no one can connect us to it. As long as we keep our mouths shut, no one would ever know it’s us.”

“I don’t have a good feeling about that idea. Plus, there’s the Porsche and...did you just hear that?”

“What?”

“I don’t know, listen...”

“Damn, you’re right.”

Slowly, Sandthorn directed the light of the flashlight onto the face of the dead woman. Who, as they both now realized, was not dead at all. The girl had opened her eyes slightly and seemed to be saying something. They hurried to her and bent down.

“Help me...please...Patrick.” It was little more than a breath that passed her lips.

“She’s alive! My God, she’s alive! We have to take her to the hospital,” Kaiser shouted.

But Sandthorn did not respond.

“Didn’t you hear? We have to help her and drive her to the hospital,” Kaiser repeated.

“Shit, man, she knows my name.” Sandthorn shone the light in the injured girl’s face one more time. As he brushed the bloodied hair from her forehead, something suddenly clicked. “Do you know who this is?” he asked Kaiser.

“No, and I honestly don’t care at this point. She needs help! We need to get her to the car and to a hospital right away.”

“That...that’s Miriam Arnold. I know her, from school.”

“And what does it matter? She’s alive! Man, we have to help her!”

“Help...please...Patrick,” Miriam whispered again, and Kaiser made a move to slide his arms under her back to lift her up.

He hadn’t quite bent down when he got a violent jolt from the side that knocked him off his feet onto his ass.

“Have you lost your mind, Mark? You know she recognizes me. Do you have any idea what that means?”

“Yes, that you know each other, you already said that. So what?”

“You idiot! She’ll testify against us! Do you have any idea what the consequences could be for us? Julius’ career is fucked, which I don’t care about. But what does it mean for us? Do you think I want to go to jail?”

“Please...” again the gentle whisper came, breaking Mark Kaiser’s heart.

Patrick Sandthorn looked at the injured Miriam Arnold, who was desperately begging for help. He had made up his mind the second he heard her say his name. He pressed his right hand over the girl’s mouth and squeezed with all his might. With his left hand, he held her nose. He hardly felt any resistance; she was too weak to fight.

His friend stood paralyzed with his mouth open, staring at him. When Kaiser finally awoke from his frozen panic, he tried to drag Sandthorn away from the girl. Patrick fought back with all his might, and with all his training, he was more than Mark could handle. Before the fight had even begun, Patrick punched Kaiser in the pit of his stomach, and that was the end of it. Patrick turned back to the girl.

“She wouldn’t have made it anyway. I even did her a favor,” he said a little later as he stood up and looked at Mark’s horrified expression.

“You’re out of your mind! You can’t possibly be serious!" roared Kaiser, shoving him so violently that he almost fell. “And all because she happened to recognize you. You’re completely fucking insane, man!”

“I don’t care what you think. The fact is that you didn’t stop me. So basically, you’re not just a witness, you’re my accomplice. That makes you complicit in the death of the girl. Now you listen to me. I’ve got a plan to get us out of this unscathed—and possibly even profit from it.”

“I don’t want any part of that.” The evening had started out so promising, and now it was ending a nightmare, Kaiser thought as he glanced at Miriam Arnold’s body.

“I'm going to go home with Julius, get my parents’ car and two shovels, and park the Porsche in the garage to get it out of sight. I’ll put Julius in my bed; he’s useless to us right now. It will take him a while to recover from the shock. Afterwards, I’ll call Willow and explain to her that we’ve changed our minds and that we’d rather just have a guys night. Then, I’ll come back here, and we’ll go to Lake Washington to take care of this.”

“What the hell are we going to do there?” Kaiser interrupted his friend, whom he now hated. He didn’t even know why he was still listening to him; he was a murderer now.

“Man, are you really that dumb? That’s where we bury her! What did you think I was going to do with the shovels? We can also sink the bike into the lake. After that, we’ll go back to my house.”

“Then peacefully tuck ourselves in for a good night’s sleep?”

“No, you idiot. We’ll make up a blackmail letter from all the magazines my dear mother has in the basement and deliver it to the Arnolds. Then everyone will think Miriam’s been kidnapped— I hardly think they’ll connect a kidnapping to us. In case you haven’t figured it out yet. She is the daughter of the guy who owns Arnold Electric.”

Was Patrick completely insane? Mark had known him for so many years, but in the blink of an eye, the guy had become a full blown criminal, capable of more than Mark Kaiser thought humanly possible. Was he about to get involved in a pact with the devil?

“And Julius?” he objected.

“Will be eternally grateful to us for taking care of this when he was no longer capable of doing so. After all, he still thinks he’s the one who killed her. Man, he’ll be forever in our debt! And if everything goes smoothly, in a few days we’ll be rid of all our money worries. Then we won’t have to worry about how to finance college anymore. Not everyone is born with a golden spoon in his mouth like our dear Julius, who is the one who got us into this mess. Without the accident, this would never have happened!”

Kaiser thought and tried to assess the risk. The prospect of making a lot of money sounded tempting. Somehow, it dawned on him that he would regret it one day if he allowed himself to be drawn into a blackmail scheme.

Chapter 44

Jen had to let the words sink in. Hemphill’s facial expression spoke volumes; he was equally shocked. Maria Schrader sat rooted to the spot next to her son as she began to cry uncontrollably.

“I told you you would hardly believe what happened that night. Mark Kaiser confessed everything to us after we kidnapped him,” Arnold said just as the doorbell rang.

“That is our team from the forensics department,” Jen replied.

Hemphill got up without being asked and left the room to open the door for the officers. A short time later, he returned to the living room with three members of the CSI.

“Hello, Jen,” said Franklin Berger, King’s deputy of the CSI team. He held up the search warrant. “Where should we start?”

“In the basement. That’s where the third victim was held for several days.”

“I can show you the room. The basement is not exactly small,” offered Alexander Schrader.

“That makes things a little easier. Steven, would you please accompany Mr. Schrader? We don’t want him getting any ideas.”

Schrader rose from the couch and went to the door. Hemphill and the officers from the forensics department followed him, equipped with their complete crime scene investigation kit.

“Poor Miriam! How can people be so cruel?” sighed Maria Schrader when she had regained her composure to some extent.

“The depths of the human soul are often unfathomable,” Jen replied.

“I don’t understand why you didn’t go to the police, Christian? I saw firsthand how Miriam’s death affected you. The whole family suffered, but you, surely you the most. We all missed her and went through a hard time!” sobbed Mrs. Schrader. “But all your grief, all your anger, none of it gives you the right to end the lives of those men in such a cruel way.”

“Believe me, Maria, if you knew what kind of monsters they were, you would feel differently. Patrick Sandthorn was by far the worst. But Wainwright was not one bit better. Kaiser was the most harmless of the three, but his remorse came far too late.”

“If you don't mind, I’d like to ask you a few more questions,” Jen said.

Hemphill and Schrader entered the living room again and the detective asked the arrested man to sit down.

“Go ahead,” Arnold told Jen.

“We already know that this all started when your brother saw the necklace on Willow Sandthorn. But how did you make the connection to Mark Kaiser?”

“To explain that, I have to give you a little more information,” Christian Arnold replied. “As you have already correctly guessed, my half brother broke into the Sandthorns’ house to get me the necklace. I had to see it with my own eyes and make sure that it was Miriam’s necklace and not some copy. There was a distinctive feature that made the jewelry so unique.”

“Miriam’s initials in the scale pattern of the snake heads.” This time it was Steven who interrupted him.

“No, not that detail. The medallion also had an engraving along the edge. Chinese characters that spelled Miriam’s name. My father had them engraved.”

“And because the stolen medallion actually had the engraving on it, you assumed that Patrick Sandthorn had something to do with the kidnapping back then,” Jen concluded.

“What would you have thought if you were us? Of course, we had to assume that he had something to do with it! And after what I had found on Sandthorn’s computer, I knew anything was possible from that guy,” Alexander Schrader reacted irritably.

“Wait, what are you talking about?”

“I’ll explain that to you later. Christian and I thought long and hard about whether or not to involve the police. But first we wanted to find out exactly what happened back then. We planned to confront Sandthorn. A simple conversation was, of course, not an option; he would have denied everything. So, our original plan was to kidnap him. We wanted him to experience just a taste of what Miriam had presumably gone through. We were sure that sooner or later he would come clean.”

“What stopped you?” asked Jen.

“He suddenly dropped off the face of the earth.”

“Because he went on vacation to Mallorca with his wife. She didn’t want to stay at home, at first, because of the break in,” Jen recalled Willow Sandthorn saying. “And so, then you grabbed Kaiser. Why him of all people?”

“Coincidence.,” said Alexander Schrader. “As I said, I did an internship at Kaiser’s company at the beginning of my studies. When I broke into Sandthorn’s house, I happened to recognize him from a photo hanging in the study.”

“The inseparable three,” Jen murmured.

“That’s what they called themselves back then. It wasn’t hard to figure out that they had known each other since their school days. Then I found an email from Kaiser to Sandthorn threatening to spill the beans about the Magnuson Park incident if he didn’t help him get out of Seattle and help him, financially, with his new start.”

“So, Kaiser actually wanted to run away?” Hemphill inquired.

“He definitely did. That’s why Sandthorn transferred fifty thousand to his bank in New York.”

“This transfer has, admittedly, given us quite a headache. We even considered that Kaiser was hired by Sandthorn to get Julius Wainwright out of the way. We speculated that Kaiser wanted more money and Sandthorn wasn’t willing to pay. And that’s why, ultimately, the real estate agent had to die.”

“Then our plan almost worked out.” Christian Arnold seemed visibly surprised.

“What are you talking about?” wondered Jen.

“The scapegoat theory. That’s what we called it, anyway. After we kidnapped Kaiser and learned from him what happened to Miriam, we had to come up with something. That’s where this online transfer from Sandthorn came in handy to us. Your conclusions were not as wrong as you think. Because it was supposed to look like Kaiser killed his old school friends and then went into hiding. We wanted you to think he transferred the money to an account in the Caymans that couldn’t be traced and disappeared, never to be seen again.”

“In principle, a good plan,” Jen admitted. “However, it had a huge catch. There’s no evidence that Sandthorn had any motive to kill Wainwright.”

“I'm afraid I have to disagree with you, Detective. As my brother mentioned, he got his hands on some very explosive material during his first visit to Sandthorn’s home. We had planned to pass this on to you anonymously in the next few days. It would have closed the chain of evidence,” Christian Arnold replied, putting on a smug smile.

“And what material did you find?”

“It’s on a hard drive in my safe. I’ll hand it over to you later.”

“Well, let’s get back to the kidnapping of Mark Kaiser,” Jen was satisfied for now with Arnold’s explanation. She wanted to come back to it later on in their conversation. “It’s still not clear to me how you could conclude from an email alluding to an incident at Lake Washington that it had to do with the kidnapping of your sister. It could have meant anything.”

“I don’t disagree with you there,” Alexander Schrader took the floor again. “But do you know how it feels to be in the dark for so many years about what actually happened that night? You clutch at every last straw. And Magnuson Park is not far from where Miriam was last seen.”

At that moment, Jen remembered Kruger’s words: “There were three possible ways home,” he had said. If she wasn’t mistaken, one of these routes led through Magnuson Park. Her cell phone showed the arrival of a new message. It was Kruger, telling her that the Porsche workshop had contacted him. Julius Wainwright had, indeed, taken his Porsche to the workshop on Monday, September ninth, 1996, the day after the accident. According to the shop manager, the car had been there for three days for repairs. Julius had paid the damage in cash and had not reported it to his insurance company. Another piece of the puzzle had found its place, regardless of the fact that the half-siblings had already confessed.

“When and where did you kidnap Kaiser?”

“We didn’t have to kidnap him at all. I knew exactly what his weakness was. His ego,” Schrader continued. “I made him believe that I had a tricky programming problem on a project, and I couldn’t think of anyone but him who could help me with it.”

“And he believed that?”

“As I said, his ego was his greatest weakness, along with his money worries. Kaiser was a miserable businessman, but a brilliant mind. He wasn’t going to let an opportunity like this pass him by. I summoned him here, to my supposed client.”

“The name Christian Arnold didn’t make him wonder?” Hemphill was astonished.

“It probably would have, but I had told him that my client’s name was Christian Smith. All we had to do was change out the sign under the doorbell. We mixed a narcotic into his coffee, and then I took him to the basement where your people are searching right now,” Schrader explained.

“How did you get the confession? His corpse didn’t show any injuries that would indicate mistreatment to force the truth.”

“That wasn’t necessary at all. Kaiser was cooperative and told us everything we wanted to know in great detail. It may sound strange, but we got the impression that he was relieved to finally get it off his chest,” Arnold said.

“He told us, for example, that Wainwright didn’t know what happened that night for over twenty years. He probably always assumed that he, himself, had killed Miriam in the accident and that his friends had covered up the crime and faked the kidnapping,” Schrader continued. “About a year ago, Kaiser must have blabbed after a night of drinking, and Wainwright learned what really happened following the accident.”

Jen and Hemphill glanced at each other. This story was taking on unbelievable proportions!

“Did Kaiser tell you how Wainwright reacted to that?”’ Hemphill wanted to know.

“He went after Sandthorn. Threatened that he would ruin him.”

“He couldn’t have done that without incriminating himself. Letting information like that out would have ruined him. Could you imagine the consequences a scandal like this would have on his career? Apart from that, he had no proof. Unless Kaiser had been willing to testify against Sandthorn. Was he?”

“That’s all good thinking, Detective Brighton. Your assessment of Julius Wainwright is correct. He was, of course, not willing to put his good reputation on the line. Nevertheless, he wanted to put Sandthorn in prison at any cost. We learned from Kaiser that it had more to do with his own pride than with a strong sense of justice. Wainwright knew that Sandthorn had been laundering money on behalf of the Mafia through various real estate deals. So, Julius started collecting evidence of it.”

“He what?” Jen widened her eyes and looked at him in horror.

“I figured this would be news to you. But believe me, even this is just the tip of the iceberg. It gets a lot better—or in other words, a lot worse. I’ll come back to that in a moment. Sandthorn somehow got wind of what Wainwright was planning. How, however, we don’t know, but that is ultimately irrelevant. Sandthorn had something on Wainwright, which he used to put the brakes on the lawyer very quickly.”

“Footage of him having sex with a minor.” Jen sighed. Now this piece of the puzzle was also in place.

“Exactly. I took the liberty of leaving you the memory cards in the safe.”

“You leaked the material to us?”

“Yes. We wanted you to have an explanation in place for who blackmailed Wainwright with the photos. That was to close the circle. Our plan was to present you with evidence showing that Wainwright had collected explosive material against Sandthorn, who in turn had sent his own clear warning with the photos. Since Wainwright didn’t let up, the real estate agent had to come up with something else. You know the rest of the story.”

Jen did not want to comment on it, but she had to admit that the brothers’ plan had been quite brilliant with the purposefully laid out burden of proof. It could almost have worked for them but the only thing that had prevented this was the fact that Underwood had happened to get hold of the photo of Miriam Arnold’s necklace, which had changed the course of the investigation.

“There is one thing I don’t understand. You mentioned that you discovered this material that incriminated Wainwright on Sandthorn’s computer. Why didn’t we find anything on his computer?” wondered Hemphill.

“Because Sandthorn had a second computer. A laptop for his illegal business. Well secured, but not well enough to protect against someone like me.”

“If you took this computer, Sandthorn must have become suspicious,” Jen countered.

“I didn’t take it with me until the night I killed Sandthorn. Under no circumstances was it to fall into your hands. When I broke in, I copied the hard drive and then, with Christian’s help, analyzed it at my leisure. What we found out was so unbelievable that it almost left us speechless.”

“You mentioned that Sandthorn’s money laundering operations were still only the tip of the iceberg. What is hiding under the surface?” Jen wanted to know.

“Did you seriously believe it was a coincidence that the honest, clean real estate agent also possessed compromising video footage of Wainwright?”

“No, of course we didn‘t. But we couldn’t find any evidence that the recordings were made at Club Amour.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. However, there is important information in this connection that you haven’t found. The club was more than just a brothel. It was known among insiders that exclusive additional services were offered there for an elite circle. Lawson, the managing director, organized it all so Sandthorn himself didn’t get his hands dirty. You can guess what the additional offers were.”

“I have a rough idea,” Jen replied in disgust, nauseated at the thought that underage boys and girls were being offered there as sex slaves.

Maria Schrader stared at her son with her mouth open. It seemed obvious that the woman was completely overwhelmed with the situation. Jen took pity on her. “You’re welcome to leave if you like, Ms. Schrader. You don’t need to listen to any more of this,” she suggested.

But to her surprise, the housekeeper silently shook her head.

“Forgive me, Mr. Schrader, but this sounds like a bad movie right now. Are seriously claiming that Sandthorn was this big-time mafia guy and that we were completely unaware of it until now? That’s absolute nonsense,” Hemphill said.

“As I said, there is evidence,” Christian Arnold said. “You would be surprised who Sandthorn’s customers are. It reaches into the highest circles of politics. It wouldn’t surprise me if someone there kept a protective hand over him. After all, these gentlemen would have a lot to lose if their secret became public. I think Sandthorn was unscrupulous enough to use the explosive footage, from various clients to his advantage any time he needed to protect himself. Do you seriously think Wainwright was the only one who received such photos? By the way, you will definitely recognize one of the other people.”

Jen was stunned. Part by part, the picture was coming together, but they could not even begin to imagine the extent of all the connections.

“Were you going to send us all of that material as well? You can’t possibly have allowed these criminals to continue abusing children as sex slaves.”

“Of course, we intended to do that.”

“I don’t understand. Not only could you have solved your sister’s case, but you could have been responsible for taking down an entire sex trafficking ring. What happened that two intelligent young people like you became murderers instead? Why didn’t you contact the police?” Hemphill blurted out.

“Because those guys didn’t deserve to live. Do you know what Miriam’s abduction and her unresolved case meant for our family? My mother was shattered by it. My father was only a shadow of his former self. I was in therapy for over a decade. And then, suddenly, this opportunity arises.” Arnold leaned back.

“That’s all awful, but that still doesn’t justify these murders, Mr. Arnold. Surely you and your half brother are aware of that,” Jen replied. “What did you tell Wainwright that made him suddenly race off to his death?”

“That his wife and daughter had been in a serious car accident.” Arnold grinned. “I know, that’s quite deceitful of us. But, somehow, it comes full circle, don’t you think? What I’d be interested in, though: How did you make the connection to Miriam’s abduction?”

“We have our boss to thank for that. He happened to find the photo with your sister’s necklace because we were investigating the break in at the Sandthorns’ house. Since he was involved in the kidnapping investigation at that time, he recognized the necklace and turned our gaze in a different direction.” This time it was Jen who smiled. “And now that you have made your confessions in detail, I would like to ask you, Mr. Schrader, to open your safe and to hand over the final evidence to me.”

Epilogue

Late Tuesday afternoon, Jen received a relieving call from Ralph Matthews. He had succeeded in locating the remains of Miriam Arnold. The girl had been buried not far from the lake, as they had already learned from the testimony of Christian Arnold and Alexander Schrader. A team of forensic experts had been sent to the site to take over the recovery of her body. Jen, Steven and Henry had also gone to Lake Washington in the early evening to question the forensic expert the police had called in for the initial assessment of the site. Due to the multiple bone fractures that the girl’s skeleton had shown on her arms, legs, ribs and in the area of the spine, the expert had concluded that Miriam Arnold's chances of survival must have been very slim. With such obvious bodily trauma, they had to assume she suffered serious internal injuries after the accident.

Still, the coroner’s assessment had been no consolation to the officers. What the three men had done to Miriam Arnold, and the girl's family, was unimaginably cruel. However, it was obvious and equally indisputable that this was no justification whatsoever for their murders.

Just a few days after the brothers’ arrest, the handcuffs had also clicked on Hank Lawson. As Jen later learned from Fred Kasten, the Vice detective, the brothel owner had been surprisingly cooperative after the prosecutor had offered him the prospect of a reduced sentence. He had willingly given the names of the people involved in the placement of the young, forced prostitutes with old, wealthy men. The boys and girls, who were passed from brothel to brothel like valuable merchandise until they were too old for their customers, came mainly from Mexico and were trafficked to the US and other countries via smuggling gangs. According to Lawson, the rich bigwigs had been willing to pay a lot of money to indulge their vile desires.

Patrick Sandthorn, who himself had once frequented the higher circles, had recognized this and established a flourishing business model at Club Amour. And not only there, but also in other such “clubs” in Seattle, where it had gradually become apparent that he was the man pulling the strings in the background.

What Lawson had reported about the fate of the forcibly trafficked children, and adolescents, was also more than sobering. Those who had not taken their own lives after their ordeal later had to continue offering their services in brothels as forced prostitutes. According to Kasten, it would take several more weeks until they had hopefully identified all those involved. The manhunt for the men involved, whom Lawson said he did not know all by name, was already in full swing. Some prominent faces from politics, business, and Seattle high society had already made acquaintance with Kasten’s people and the public prosecutor. Quite a few were already in custody, where they would probably not stay for long, Jen feared.

The officers of the Economic Department had also been able to celebrate their own achievement. Thanks to Patrick Sandthorn’s meticulous accounting, several members of a well known Mafia clan were also taken down. It turned out that the real estate agent had purchased luxury properties on their behalf for the sole purpose of laundering the illegally acquired money.

A few days after the last arrest, Jen was packing up Miriam Arnold’s investigation files, which officially would be labeled a murder, into a box for the archives. As she grabbed a stack of papers, the photo of the necklace once again fell into her hands. As she looked at the picture, she involuntarily had to shake her head and smile. She still found it incredible that this beautiful piece of jewelry had helped them clarify the girl’s unexplained fate. It was just as unbelievable to her that the necklace had been the trigger for three more murders. If that wasn’t enough, the jewelry had indirectly helped break up two crime syndicates and put a lot of people behind bars. Gently, she put the photo back in the folder, put the last investigation file in the box, and closed the lid.

Afterword

Dear Readers,

Thank you very much for choosing my crime novel "Silence Until Death". I hope you had as much fun reading it as I had writing it. "Silence Until Death" is, of course, a fictional novel and all the characters appearing in it are fictitious. Similarities and correspondences with living or real persons would be purely coincidental and were not intended.

The success of a book depends on having a good team at your side. That's why I would like to take this opportunity to thank my test readers Betty Majewski, Janine Odenbach and my colleague Werner Pfeil. Your criticism, food for thought, and advice played a decisive role in making Miriam Arnold's story a well-rounded one in the end. I enjoyed sharing it with you very much.

A very big thank you goes to my editor, Christine Weber, for the intensive work on my manuscript. It was a lot of fun and I am already looking forward to our next project together.

The fact that you can hold this book in your hands at all is thanks to Empire Publishing and the great team behind it. Not only have you accepted me into your family, you are also always there to help and advise me, and I can't thank you enough for that!

What would a book be without the matching cover? Right, pretty boring. Chris Gilcher has made sure that "We are silent until the grave" comes in the appropriate garb, thanks for that too!

I owe it to Maria and Bianca that as few typos or spelling mistakes as possible disturb the reading flow of my crime novel. Should you, dear readers, nevertheless stumble upon errors, I apologize, of course.

And last but not least, a big thank you goes to my friend Marion, who puts up with a lot of patience when I once again dive into my story for hours on end to go on a crime spree, forgetting everything else around me.

If you have any praise, criticism, suggestions or ideas for improvement, please feel free to let me know at any time. Just write to my e-mail address:

aachenkrimi@gmx.de. I'll definitely write back.

Yours sincerely, Frank Esser