Kiss of Death (23 page)

We're silent for a beat before Sloan says, “Mrs. Taylor, there is something else.”

“Yes?”

“It's come to our attention that Sherry was having an affair with her acting teacher, Professor Carrington.”

“What?” Her voice rises. “Are you sure? I mean, she
talked about him a lot, idolized him, but it sounded like he was much older and I certainly didn't think it was sexual….”

“He's in his mid-forties and he has admitted to sleeping with Sherry on a few occasions over the past three weeks.”

“That's…that's horrible. He took advantage of her, of Sherry's respect for him.”

I'm silent, even though I agree with Mrs. Taylor. Sloan keeps quiet, too.

“You think…you think he did this to our baby girl!” Her voice becomes shrill. “That low-life bastard, I'll—”

“Hold on, Mrs. Taylor. We've confirmed that they had a relationship but he has an alibi.” I don't bother explaining that he's only in the clear up until midnight, that it's possible he sneaked out of bed to meet—and maybe kill—Sherry. Besides, that's Sloan's angle, not mine.

“It better be
watertight,
Agent.” She grinds out the words.

“He's on our radar, Mrs. Taylor,” Sloan says. “As far as you know, did Desiree ever sleep with Carrington?”

“Desiree? I have no idea.” She takes a deep breath and lets it out in three sobs. “It sounds like there is one part of my daughter's life that she shut me out of.” She pauses. “What does Desiree say?”

“This is coming from Todd. Apparently Sherry told him.”

“Todd's a good boy. He wouldn't lie.”

“Okay.” We thank Mrs. Taylor and reassure her that we are making progress.

She hangs up, but Sloan and I stay on the line.

“Interesting, huh?” Sloan clicks her tongue twice.

“Yeah.” Another picture is beginning to emerge—one that's been played out countless times. Looks like Sherry
was part of a love triangle, with her best friend. But did it end in murder?

“It's time to see Desiree and Carrington again. You want to sit in?”

I really want to work on the profile, but it's hard to pass up the opportunity to find out why Desiree and Carrington lied. And what they've got to say for themselves now.

“Carrington's probably at UCLA and Desiree will be at college or her Brentwood home,” Sloan says.

And both locations are close by.

“Okay, I'm in.”

 

Twenty minutes later, Sloan and I are sitting in Carrington's office again.

“I don't have much time. I have to leave for a class in five minutes.”

Sloan gives him a big grin. “That's fine, Professor Carrington. We'll be quick.”

He sits down behind his desk. “Good, good.” He pats down his pockets, obviously looking for a pen or something.

Sloan continues. “Some new evidence has come to light.”

“Yes?”

“The list you gave us of the women you've had sexual relationships with in the past year—are you sure it's complete?”

He's silent for a little bit, and then says, “I think so, yes.”

I notice
I think
.

I lean on the chair's arm. “I'm sure you'd remember this one, Professor.”

“Oh?”

“Desiree Jones.” Sloan gives him another smile.

Carrington's face drops ever so slightly, and after a
beat of silence he finally speaks. “You're quite right, I did overlook Ms. Jones. We had sex. Twice, I believe.”

“Do you remember when?” Sloan's smile is gone and her voice is terse.

“Earlier this year. But it was not my normal…style.”

“How so?”

“
She
came on to
me
. And quite aggressively. Don't get me wrong, I make sure the students I date at least
think
it's their idea, but Desiree was different.”

At least he's being honest about his tactics.

“It was like she had something to prove,” he continues. “And after our second time my suspicions were confirmed. She talked about Sherry a lot, and how this time the tables were turned…that
she'd
got the man they both liked.”

“And?”

“I never saw her again outside of class. Never slept with her again.”

“It was a blow to your ego?” Sloan's voice is a little smug.

He laughs. “I didn't care that she was using me to get to her best friend. In fact, I'd already decided that ideally I'd like to have a fling with both Sherry and Desiree. They're both beautiful women.”

I shake my head. “You're some piece of work, Carrington.”

“I'm trying to be as honest as possible. I thought you'd appreciate that.”

I blow out a sigh. “We do.” I force the words out. Slimy bastard. But there's nothing illegal about what he's doing.

“So why didn't you tell us this yesterday?” Sloan stares at Carrington, unblinking.

“Purely an oversight on my part.”

“Yeah, right.” Sloan shakes her head. “Perhaps you're still seeing Desiree and you planned Sherry's murder together.”

“What?” He stands up. “That's absurd.”

“Did you really think you could keep it a secret?”

“We only had sex twice. I swear to God.”

Sloan stands up. “Like
you're
a man of your word.”

“I am…I just thought…well, I knew you two wouldn't approve. If you'd sent a male down to question me maybe I would have told him.”

“A man? You're talking to the LAPD and the FBI, Mr. Carrington. It doesn't get any more official than that and what you've done is called obstruction of justice.” Sloan makes her dramatic exit and I follow suit.

Just like at the morgue yesterday, I'm having trouble keeping up with Sloan. She strides out, arms swinging. Man, I wouldn't want to get in her way now.

As soon as we're crossing to the car and away from too many prying eyes and ears she lets fly. “That man is…I don't know. I can't even think of the word.” She stops and flails her arms about. “And saying that he probably would have told a male detective?”

Law enforcement is a male-dominated career, and maybe Sloan's had one too many obstacles thrown in her face because of her gender.

“Maybe he would have. He'd know that sleeping with both Desiree and Sherry would overstep the mark in most women's minds, in our minds. Or maybe it's because the others were
his
conquests, something to be proud of, but it was different with Desiree—she was the initiator and he couldn't admit to that.”

Sloan leans on the car and shakes her head. “Men.” She finally seems to pause, to take a breath. “Let's see what Desiree's got to say about all this. She sure has got herself into one hell of a mess. And why lie to us? As far as we know she had opportunity. We don't know what time the family dinner ended and she could easily have snuck out of the house. Now we know she had motive, and she knew about Sherry's recent involvement in the Goth scene.”

Tuesday, 10:30 a.m.

W
e pull into Rose Marie Lane and stop outside Desiree's house. Following the bricked pathway bordered by a knee-high hedge, we pass several stone statues before reaching the front door. Within a few minutes of ringing the doorbell Mrs. Jones answers.

“Detective Sloan, Agent Anderson, come in.” She opens the door wider and we move through. “I've just brewed some coffee. Would you like some?”

The inviting smell drifts down the hallway. “Sounds great.”

“That'd be real nice. Thanks, Mrs. Jones.”

She closes the door behind us and leads the way down the corridor, past the more formal sitting room where we sat last time, and toward a kitchen and meals area. “Take a seat. Wherever is comfortable.” She motions toward our two options—stools at the kitchen counter or a dark wood table. We choose the table.

She moves toward a doorway on the far right of the room. “Desiree, the police are here.”

“Okay, Mom.”

Mrs. Jones moves quickly into the kitchen and pours
two cups of coffee, which she places in front of us on the table, before putting milk and sugar out.

“Do you want one, honey?” She looks up, past us, to the advancing figure of her daughter.

“No thanks, Mom.”

Desiree sits down at the table and Mrs. Jones is about to do the same when Sloan says, “Actually we'd really like to talk to Desiree in private. You understand.” Her voice is just the right combination of empathy and authority.

“Oh…sure.” Mrs. Jones takes her coffee, but her eyes dart uneasily around the room. “I'll just be next door.”

Desiree leans back in her chair, apparently at ease.

Once her mother is out of earshot, I kick things off. “We'd like to talk to you more about Professor Carrington, Desiree.”

“You think he had something to do with Sherry's murder?” Her voice only holds the tiniest amount of surprise.

“We're not sure yet, Desiree.” Sloan crosses her legs. “But we need clarification on
your
relationship with him.”

She shrugs. “He's my professor.”

Sloan takes a sip of her coffee. “Have you ever slept with him?”

Desiree gives a girlish grin. “No…but he is sexy, in an older-man kind of way.”

“Really?” Sloan gives Desiree a look that's made to break the toughest of crims. It's a look that says:
Are you sure you want to go down this path? 'Cause I know you're lying your ass off.
I keep my focus on my coffee cup, not wanting to break Sloan's moment.

Two minutes of silence go by, and they probably feel like ten minutes to Desiree. “Okay, okay. We slept together. Twice. It was stupid.”

“But you think he's sexy and your best friend was having an affair with him.”

“Sherry was stupid, too. And I told her that. Her soul mate…what a load of crap. That man feeds women any line of bullshit he can. First it was me, then Sherry. As soon as we slept together I could feel him lining her up as his next lay. I told Sherry exactly what he was like but she wouldn't listen.”

“When did you sleep with him, Desiree?”

She shrugs. “I dunno. Guess it must have been at the beginning of the year. Maybe mid-January. I stayed back one afternoon after class and one thing led to another. The next day at college it was like nothing ever happened. But a few days later I got the booty call.”

It's very different to Carrington's version, in which Desiree was the instigator of the encounter.

“And you don't remember exactly when?”

She sighs. “Hold on, I'll get my diary and see if I can figure it out. I know it was the week my English paper was due, because I should have been working on that and not…you know.”

Desiree goes back into the room she came from and returns a few seconds later with her diary. Sitting down again, she flicks backward through the pages to January, while Sloan gets out her notebook and glasses.

“Okay, school started back on January 5, and the paper was due on January 23. So it must have been that week. The week starting January 19.”

“Okay.” Sloan writes it down. “And then how much time passed before Sherry slept with him?”

“She told me it was two months, but I had a feeling it was less. She would have confessed all in a couple of weeks' time…when he dumped her ass like he did mine.”

The image she's creating of Carrington is totally different to the picture she painted only yesterday at the college. And I definitely saw her looking at him adoringly. So while she may be talking the talk now, part of her still
has a soft spot for Carrington. Maybe more than a soft spot. Or she's still lying to us.

“You looked quite captivated by him in class yesterday,” I point out.

She bites her fingernails. “I get carried away when he's talking. But I come to my senses in the light of day.”

“Have you slept with him since January?” Sloan peers over her reading glasses. “Or while he was seeing Sherry?”

“No way.” She pulls her hand away from her mouth. “I didn't respect Sherry's choice in Jeffrey, but I knew she was head over heels for the guy.”

If Todd's right, that wouldn't have stopped Desiree. In fact, it may have spurred her on.

“She didn't pay you the same respect if it was only a month or two between you both.”

She chews on her nails again. “I won't lie. It did cause trouble between us. But as far as she knew Jeffrey was just a fling for me.”

“That's not how you felt?”

She's silent for a bit. “I don't know. I guess my ego was bruised. I know the guy's a womanizer, but it still hurt when he suddenly stopped returning my calls.”

“No one likes rejection,” Sloan comments. “It's natural to feel upset…angry.”

Desiree nods. “Yeah. And part of me feels that Sherry shouldn't have gone there, not so soon after I'd slept with Jeffrey.”

“She was your best friend.” Sloan gives Desiree a sympathetic smile and waits a few seconds before saying, “Desiree, it's really important that you're up front with us. We need to know everything you know. And lying…it doesn't do anyone any good, least of all you.”

I know that at least part of Sloan's sympathy, maybe about ninety-nine percent of it, is strategy. The woman's just not that understanding.

“So,” she continues, “is there anything else you haven't told us? Anything at all?”

Desiree shakes her head. “I swear to God, that's everything.”

“I don't need to tell you that lying to us, to law enforcement, has consequences. And I'm talking legal ones, such as an Obstruction of Justice charge.”

Desiree bites her nails again, seeming to realize the seriousness of her previous omissions and lies.

“You understand?” Sloan's voice is almost over the top with kindness. “Nobody wants to go down that path. It's certainly not what Agent Anderson and I want.”

“Okay.” Her bottom lip trembles, accompanied by several rapid blinks.

“So, who would you say initiated the sex between you and Carrington?”

She sits in silence for a few beats. “I guess the first time was mutual, but like I said, it was a booty call the second.”

Sloan nods. “Do you know if Sherry was seeing her old boyfriend, Todd, sexually?”

“She slept with him a couple of times, but felt so horrible about it. She came to me in tears, saying she couldn't believe she'd cheated on Jeffrey.”

“What did you say?”

Desiree lets out a sarcastic chuckle. “That I doubted Jeffrey would care…. But that upset her even more, so I changed my tone. I comforted her and told her it was a little slipup with an ex. You know, not to worry about it too much.”

Sloan gives me a questioning look and I know she's about to close out the interview if I have no more questions. I shake my head.

“Okay, Desiree. That's it. If you do think of anything, you be sure to give me a call.” She hands Desiree her card again. “One more thing. What size shoe do you wear?”

“I'm an eight.”

We don't react.

“Okay, thanks.” Sloan gives her a nod and then we head off, saying goodbye to Mrs. Jones on the way out.

“So who's lying?” Sloan says quietly as soon as Desiree has shut the front door.

“Maybe neither of them.”

Sloan shoots me a confused look.

“Two people's account of the same event will never be the same.”

Sloan unlocks the car. “But they should know who initiated sexual contact.”

“Yes. But their colored reconstructions may be about ego more than anything else. Especially Desiree—if she had to force herself on Carrington, she probably can't admit it even to herself.”

“Mmm…”

We both climb in the car.

“You know,
I'd
be pissed.” Sloan starts the car. “Sherry shouldn't have seen Carrington so soon after her best friend was with him.”

“I agree.” I buckle my seat belt. “The wound is still raw for Desiree, which means she did or still does care.”

“Motive for murder? It is one of the classics.”

“How many of those have you seen?”

Sloan gives a little laugh. “More than my fair share, that's for sure. And enough to make me happy I've been with the same man for thirty years.” She pulls into the traffic.

I smile. “Fair enough.” I hesitate, deciding whether I'm going to ask the personal question in my head. Eventually I do. “Do you find it hard to balance this job and a home life?”

She looks at me thoughtfully. “I did at first. But the key is to switch off…as much as you can, at least. No matter what atrocities I see during the day, I know what,
or who's, waiting for me at home. The files, the cases, they'll be there tomorrow.”

I nod. Sometimes I think my loyalty to the victims outweighs everything else in my life. And I know that's not healthy. She's right—the files are always there. At times it feels like a never-ending pile of bodies, of depravity. And I guess it will always be like that.

“What about you?” Sloan gives me a little smile. “You got a man in your life?”

“Uh-huh. But he's based in Arizona.”

“Ouch. You get to see him much?”

“He's actually here at the moment. But then this case—”

“Like I said, you've got to switch off.”

I sigh. “I know.”

After a few seconds of silence Sloan brings us back to the case. “Desiree could have been thinking about this since February or March…when Sherry first started dating
her
man. And the shoe size fits.”

My gut still says this is related to L.A.'s vamps, but I need to keep an open mind.

Sloan drums her fingers on the steering wheel. “The research into Goths and vampires could have given Desiree an idea for the method. And it would have been easy for her to lure Sherry to the park. Even if there was tension between the pair, it's unlikely Sherry thought she was in danger.”

“So you're thinking Desiree lures her to Temescal Gateway Park and then sets up the scene, or convinces one of her new vamp friends to do the deed?”

“Sounds plausible to me.”

Sloan's right—it is plausible. But we still have the circle of lights around two the morning Sherry was found, as well as my other major stumbling point—my vision. Sherry was being chased in the woods by two or more people and at least one of them was a man. Could I have
inserted my preconceived knowledge that most killers are male to complete that picture?

I chew on my bottom lip. “The circle of lights does indicate ritual…and vampires.”

Sloan shoots me an incredulous look. “Heeler?”

Her belief in the possibility that Heeler was right about what he saw seems to be on the decline.

I soldier on. “With no other cause of death identified, we have to assume it was blood loss from a relatively small puncture wound, which points to vamp involvement.”

“The two aren't mutually exclusive. Like you said, Desiree could have vamp friends do the deed. Desiree could be lying to us about her interest in the Goth world. Maybe she's joined one of the clans and used her new friends to exact revenge on Sherry. And don't forget the pump….”

Sloan's presenting a pretty good case.

“And you said the makeup could be remorse, right?”

I nod.

“So Desiree was caring for her friend's body.”

Sloan's mobile phone rings. She answers it and after a few seconds puts it on the seat between us.

“I've just put you on speakerphone, Doc. I've got Agent Anderson with me.”

“Hey.”

I recognize Belinda Frost's voice straight away.

“Hi.”

“You were saying you've got some results?” Sloan prompts.

“Yup. From the debris in Sherry's facial and arm wounds and the tox screen. The debris and pollen have come back as a match against species of nearby trees and shrubs in Temescal Gateway Park and Topanga State Park.”

“Not surprising.” It was a mere formality really—
logically, we knew the scratches must have been inflicted during the chase, but like everything in a murder case, we need hard facts.

“As for the tox screen, it reveals a small amount of alcohol in her system, with a blood-alcohol reading of 0.03. No drugs, prescription or otherwise. And nothing else that could have caused or contributed to her death.”

I let out a sigh. Just as I thought, the tox screen won't help in this case. Although it does seem to clash with the vision I had at Sherry's house—I felt affected by some sort of drug. If I got that wrong, did I get the whole vision of her being chased by vampires and bitten wrong, too?