First Born (15 page)

“Thanks for coming in this morning,” Caldwell said. Lake sat in his office observing the interview from a closed circuit feed.

Two people had corroborated Seth’s alibis for the nights Marx and Sinclair perished. But no one confirmed his whereabouts the night his sister disappeared. His story was that he was asleep at home, by himself. Caldwell didn’t think he hurt Lily, but he guessed he probably knew something. He couldn’t ignore Seth Moore’s involvement with Professor Hitomi and the connection to Peter Marx.

“We’re looking at a connection between Ms. Sinclair’s death and your sister’s attack and disappearance,” Caldwell said.

Seth straightened in his chair. “How does the neighbor’s suicide have anything to do with Lily?”

“We’re not convinced the neighbor killed herself.”

“The news said a big animal attacked Lily and her date. I don’t understand what that has to do with her neighbor.”

“Don’t believe everything on TV,” Caldwell said. He looked at the surface of the metal table and breathed. “We’d really like your help. There’s some common thread here. If we can identify it, it could mean the difference between finding your sister dead or alive.”

Seth didn’t blink, but nodded. “Okay. Whatever will help Lily.”

“How well did you know Ms. Sinclair?”

Seth shrugged. “Pretty well. I mean I saw her a lot once Lily moved into her building. I knew my dad always checked on her so I guess that made me think of her every time I saw Lily or Pete. He jiggled his leg. The vibration shook the conference table, jacking up Caldwell’s nerves.

“Did Mr. Marx ever talk about her?”

“Well sure, he took her garbage out to the curb and that sort of thing ’cause she’s old, you know...
was
old.” Seth’s face blanched.

“You overhear any of their phone conversations?”

“I don’t get what you mean?”

“Records show that Mr. Marx made frequent calls to her.”

“Maybe he was worried about her,” suggested Seth.

“Perhaps,” Caldwell said, unconvinced. He twirled his pen around his thumb as he stared at him before looking down at his notes. “Did your friend Peter say much about Dr. Hitomi?”

Seth’s lips pressed in a tight line. “He talked about Dr. Hitomi and their work together.”

“What about their work—he mention any of their patients having reactions from the clinical trials?”

“I’m not aware of that. Pete was professional. He didn’t breach confidentiality about patients. He was getting his degree in psychiatry because he wanted to help people. He would never continue something if it was harmful to someone.” Seth yanked at the front of his red polo shirt.

Caldwell realized he’d struck a nerve. “Dr. Hitomi insinuated that Peter was anxious, stressed, hiding things from your sister. You know what it was, don’t you?”

Seth looked at the surface of the table before meeting Caldwell’s gaze. “I know Pete loved my sister. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt her. I told you before that he wanted to marry her. He had a ring.”

During the investigation into Marx’s death nine months ago, Seth had told Caldwell about an engagement ring. Although Caldwell traced a receipt from Zimmer’s Jewelers in Atlanta, he never discovered the ring.

“He may have loved your sister, but the question is, was he
hiding
things from her?”

“I really don’t know.”

“So he killed himself, then?”

Seth sighed. “I know it sounds like denial, but I agree with Lily. Pete was too careful. He wouldn’t inject too much insulin by accident or on purpose.”

“Any enemies?”

Seth shook his head. “Everyone liked Pete, but he did deal with people with emotional issues at that clinic.”

“A friend insinuated that he worked long hours with Dr. Hitomi. What were they working on that warranted such extreme dedication?”

He crossed his arms. “I didn’t work there. I don’t know what went on at that lab.”

“Sure you did. You were there that night with Koko. I have a police report that says as much.”

Seth pursed his lips as color seeped into his cheeks. “I was drunk and don’t remember everything.”

“You see much of her lately?”

He shrugged.

Caldwell leaned in. “You call her, Seth?”

“
I
don’t call
her
.”

“You still have a thing going with the professor?”

“No!”

“I know that for some reason she really likes
you,
but showed distaste for your sister who apparently she hasn’t met. I’m trying to get the dynamic here.”

“She likes to mess with me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know—she calls me incessantly. She started after that night. At first I tried to be polite particularly because Pete’s my friend and I didn’t want to piss off his boss.”

“What happened that night?”

“God I wish I knew.” He looked down at the table. “She asked me out for a drink. I went. I swear it was like I was drugged. I didn’t remember anything until I woke up naked in the lab.”

“You think she drugged you. That’s a serious accusation. Why didn’t you tell the police?”

“Who would you believe, Detective?”

“So you have yourself a stalker. That doesn’t explain her animosity toward Lily.”

“I don’t think she’s altogether stable. I mean she’s wicked smart, but really intense. Pete mentioned he thought she had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.”

“And there’s no possibility that Mr. Marx was her new obsession?”

Seth ran his fingers through his hair. “I know he would have told me.”

“Okay, let’s switch gears to Phillip Miller.” Seth stiffened. “Did you know your sister was involved with him?”

“No. I can’t believe she went out with that loser.”

Caldwell raised his eyebrows in question.

“I worked with him at European Dreams. He’s just...not someone I would let my sister go near.”

“One of those guys?”

“Yeah, always on the prowl.”

“Did Mr. Marx know Phillip Miller?”

“Sure. You know Phil went to grad school for a while. I think their paths crossed. And then—” his brow furrowed.

“And then?”

He shook his head.

Caldwell dropped his pen on the table, abruptly leaning forward. “Look Seth, two people are dead. Your sister could be as well. You need to tell me if you know something.”

Rattled, Seth’s eyes widened. “Peter mentioned that Phil was a roid user.”

“When was this?”

“When I got the job at the car place. He was being a jerk to some customer, completely over the top, and I told Pete about it and he made the comment.”

“Did Lily know Phillip?”

“Honestly, I don’t think so. She may have come into the car place to see me once and he was there.”

“So you can’t see any reason he would want to hurt her.”

His nose wrinkled. “I don’t know why anyone would want to hurt her.”

“You’ve had no contact with your sister since that night?”

“No. That’s why I’m here. I hope you can find her.”

“I know we’ve been through this before with you, but have you thought of anything new related to your sister and her behavior leading up to her disappearance?”

“No, Sir.”

“Okay. Please call us if you think of anything else.”

After Seth Moore left, Caldwell sat back with his feet on the table as he reviewed his notes. Seth made Hitomi almost sound like a predator.

Lieutenant Lake leaned his head in the room. “He knows something about his sister.”

Caldwell brought his feet down to the floor and sat up. “I know. So it wasn’t just me?”

“No,” Lake said.

“As close as he was to her, he strikes me as the type who would be bawling like a baby thinking about her dead or injured or someone hurting her.”

“So if he knows something, why isn’t he telling us?” Lake asked.

“I don’t know,” Caldwell said. “Maybe he’s hiding something.”

Seth didn’t respond to phone calls, texts, or emails. Lily’s brain was a cesspool of anxiety full of Seth angst, grandma worry, and Kung Fu dread.

The previous night she had prayed for her grandmother, the one she had never known. That dynamic had her wide awake as did the fact that she would be attempting martial arts training the next morning. She spent half the night reading
The Art of Shaolin Kung Fu, the Wong Kiew Kit
that Mr. Liu had handed to her before she left the previous day. The other half of the night, she spent fighting the urge to open the locket. She didn’t have her grandmother’s phone number. She had never contacted her. Now seemed like a good time to try. Maybe Seth could help. She had been so preoccupied that she forgot about sneaking out and attempting to retrieve items from her condo.
Oh well, I’ll have to deal with the granny panties a while longer
.

As the mild morning light filtered into the kitchen, she sat on guard with the utmost foo dog patience, waiting for the boys to leave for work so she could do something.
Must be nice keeping banker’s hours.

Larry turned from the doorway of the garage and looked at her, his top lip curled as he considered her.

Lily backed up.
He did not just hear my thoughts!

He studied her another moment before yelling into the house. “Frank!”

Frank strode into the kitchen carrying his briefcase and dressed for the day sporting aviator sunglasses. His demeanor was a calm spring breeze to Larry’s hurricane gale winds. “Yes?”

Larry’s raised hand trembled. “What is this?”

Lily trotted to the door with Frank. Leaning into his legs, she peered out into the driveway. There was a ten foot skid mark down the length of it, leading right to the Hudson’s pitiful looking burning bush. Highly impressed with herself, she ran out and inspected it, wagging her tail violently.
How in the name of Buddha’s belly did I manage to avoid the mailbox?

Frank took off his aviator glasses while sucking in copious amounts of air. In slow motion, he turned to look back at the Fireblade. Larry followed his gaze. The bike was still under its tarp.

Her tail paused mid-wag while she waited.

Frank waved a hand at the bike as though dismissing it, then turned to Larry, “I didn’t do that! I haven’t ridden the bike in weeks.”

“Well, who the hell did?” Larry asked. “Mrs. Hudson was over here complaining about her bush!”

Frank’s mouth twitched. “Well, she’s certainly consulting the wrong men if she wants advice about her bu—”

Larry glared at him before reconsidering the black mark on the pavement. “Maybe it was one of the neighbor’s kids.” He laughed as he surveyed Frank. “Like you would know how to do something like this.”

Frank’s healthy ego must have taken a hit. He grimaced before repositioning his aviator glasses, which seemed to replenish it. He sauntered out to his Audi and blew her a kiss good-bye.

“Humph,” was Larry’s response. “Dog. Inside, I’m late for work.”

Thinking about the time he put a poster-sized childhood picture of her with braces and a bad perm up on her cubicle, she ran around for a good ten minutes while he attempted to catch her. After Larry spewed a satisfying amount of swears and sweat, Lily pranced into the house. She could hear him exercising his vocabulary with creative concoctions of her breed name as he huffed out to the convertible.

When the coast was clear, she shifted to human form, grabbed her fanny pack and Shaolin uniform, and walked out the back door naked. At least the heavily landscaped backyard offered her privacy. Only the shirt fit into the fanny pack with the crucible, phone, and her underwear. She stowed the pants behind a bush realizing she’d have to borrow another pair from Mr. Liu.

After shifting to dog form, she couldn’t figure out how to get the fanny pack on so she carried it in her mouth to the playground at Piedmont Park. Contact with it made her mouth tingle since the crucible rested inside. It was an unpleasant sensation, like licking the end of a battery.

Scanning the park, she noted that Mr. Liu hadn’t arrived. She wandered around the playground equipment, stopping at the double and spiral slides. As kids, she and Seth had always fought over the slides. Thoughts of her father buzzed into her mind, but she swatted them aside. He had always let her go first. Her head needed to be clear, not crowded with past woes. At the crunch of sneakers on the mulch, she slipped under a bench where she wasn’t so conspicuous, but could keep an eye out for Mr. Liu. A father positioned himself at the foot of the slide as his little girl slid down squealing with glee.

After fifteen minutes, Lily hid under some shrubs, used her mouth to unzip the fanny pack and checked her cell phone for any missed calls. None.

Forty-five minutes passed and she had finished another circuit of the park. With her nose on the touch screen, she found Mr. Liu in her Favorites. She called, leaving him a message on his voicemail. Perhaps he wouldn’t understand her words, but he would recognize the gruff voice.

Grabbing the fanny pack in her mouth, she ran for home. As soon as she made it inside as a human, she tried Seth’s work number. Reggie answered.

“Is this Katie?” Reggie asked.

Using a strong southern accent, she managed to find out that Seth went home sick. Reggie wasn’t stupid, though, he hadn’t heard Seth mention a “Tashi” before and he tried to pry information out of her. To get him off the line, she told him she had another call.
Katie? Is Seth talking to my friend, Katie?

Her life was now too confusing and complex for her liking. She couldn’t worry about one more person. Lily’s head hurt as she walked to the garage in a pink sundress and flip-flops.
Screw the blue pajamas.

She pulled the tarp off Frank’s Fireblade. No voices sang in her head this time. She did let out a groan, however, when she looked down at her feet. “Flip-flops, so not a good idea on a motorcycle.” Of course, neither was the dress, but she was in a hurry. Maybe she’d run by the Target store on the way.

Priority number one was checking Seth’s apartment, which was a ten-minute ride on the bike. Acid gurgled up her throat when she didn’t see his car in the parking lot. “Where the hell are you, Seth?”