Silent Neighbor
“No. They partnered me back up with Rhodes. She and I have been working this profiling project. A little boring at times, but it keeps us busy.”
“You two getting along?”
“Better than the first time around, that’s for sure.”
He leaned in closer and once again gave her a skeptical look. “What brings you to these parts, Fine?”
“I wanted to see you.”
He smiled. “That makes me feel much better than it should. But I don’t buy it. Not completely anyway. What’s up?”
She looked away from him, starting to feel embarrassed. Before turning back to him, she was finally able to squeak out something of an answer: “My father.”
“Your father? The one who just popped back up in your life a few months ago? The one that spent most of the last twenty years or so in prison?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“I thought you were happy about that, for the most part.”
“I was. But then something else popped up. And then something else. There’s just been this huge pile of crap that keeps getting added onto. And this last thing I discovered…I don’t know. I think I just need someone not attached to him to give me an opinion.”
“Maybe someone who worked closely with you before getting thrown in prison?”
“Maybe,” she said, giving him a smile that felt a bit too flirty.
“Well, hearing the story would be the most interesting thing I’ve taken part in over the past two weeks or so. So let me hear it.”
It took a few seconds for Chloe to find the courage to talk about such a personal issue but she knew it needed to be done. And as she started telling Moulton about Danielle’s constant warnings about their father as well as the revelations discovered in the journal, she understood why she had refused to discuss it with Danielle; it was opening her up to vulnerability. And that was not a state that Danielle had ever seen her in.
Even as she told Moulton everything, she kept some of the more private details to herself—particularly when it came to memories pertaining to her mother’s death. But getting out the bits she did was extremely helpful. She knew that at the core of it all, this was nothing more than a venting session. Be that as it may, it still felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
It helped that Moulton never questioned her or even made faces to indicate his true feelings on the matter. He knew what she needed; she just needed someone to listen—someone to maybe even offer some advice.
“I assume you’ve considered taking this to Johnson?” he asked when she was done.
“I have. I’ve thought about it a lot. But you know as well as I do that nothing would be done just because of a few journal entries written two decades ago. If anything, it would probably just clue him in. The moment police or FBI start questioning him, he’d know something was up.”
“You think he’d run?” Moulton asked.
“I don’t know. You have to remember…I don’t know him all that well. He spent most of my life in prison.”
“And what about you and your sister? Do you feel safe? You think he’d come after you?”
“Doubtful. He still sees me as his confidant. Although I’m sure he might figure something is up since I haven’t returned his calls or texts. And I’m not answering the door when he comes by.”
Moulton nodded, understanding. He was looking at her in a way that was slightly uncomfortable. It was the same thing she had seen in his eyes a month or so ago when they had nearly slept together. And God help her, she wanted to kiss him quite badly in that moment.
“You know what you have to do,” he said. “I don’t know if you came here hoping I’d back you up on it or what.”
“I know.”
“Then say it. Speak it out loud and make it real.”
“I need to find out for myself. Not an official investigation, but just… keep tabs on him, I guess.”
“You think that involves reaching back out to him?” Moulton asked. “Maybe just carrying on like normal, as if everything is the same as it was before you read those journal entries?”
“I just don’t know.”
A brief silence fell between them, which Moulton eventually ended with a sigh. “There are a lot of things I’m going to miss out on because of what I did,” he said. “Too much stuff to really even think about, honestly. But one of the things I’m starting to truly regret is that I think you and I could have been pretty great.”
“I’m trying not to think about that.”
He nodded, looked into her eyes, and slowly leaned in. She felt herself being drawn toward him like a magnet, could even feel her lips starting to part to accept his kiss. But she turned her head at the last minute.
“Sorry. I can’t. All this nonsense with my dad…the last thing I need is some weird strained relationship with a criminal.”
He chuckled at this and rested his head playfully on her shoulder. “You’re right,” he said, pulling his head up and looking at her. “But hey…I call rights on being able to hit you up when I get out of here.”
“And how long will that be?” Chloe asked.
“Officially a few years. But good behavior and some bureau loopholes…no one is sure just yet. Could be as little as eight months.”
“Yeah…I’ll give you first rights,” she said.
“Something to look forward to…that’s good. Because this place sucks. The food, though…better than I expected.”
She was reminded of why she enjoyed his company. He had seamlessly transitioned the awkward talk of her father into something else. And he had done it without making her feel like a burden.
They sat on the couch for another fifteen minutes as Moulton described what life had been like for him over the past few weeks. He was taking it all with a grain of salt and had no qualms about fully admitting his guilt and remorse. It was good for Chloe to hear it—not just because she believed he truly was a good man deep down, but because it showed that people were capable of being honest.
And given the nightmare she could feel brewing between her, Danielle, and her father, being in the presence of any kind of honesty was hugely refreshing.
She took her leave forty minutes after she had gotten out of her car in the parking lot. Moulton had not tried to kiss her again, though she secretly wished he would. She left feeling oddly satisfied, feeling that she was finally moving forward after three weeks of feeling stagnant and stymied.
As she made the walk back across the parking lot, her phone rang. She grabbed it right away. It was probably Danielle or her father. If it was her father, she thought she might actually answer it this time and make up some excuse as to why she had been dodging his calls. She figured he’d accept just about any reason, given the fact that he had just suddenly reappeared in her life after almost twenty years.
But the number she saw on the display was neither her father’s nor Danielle’s. It was a line from the bureau. She cringed a bit as she answered it. A call on a Sunday was sure to set up a stressful Monday.
“This is Agent Fine,” she answered.
“Fine, it’s Johnson. Where are you right now?”
She actually had to bite back a small laugh before answering. “In town,” she answered as vaguely as possible.
“I need you to visit a crime scene in Falls Church. Seems to be right in the area of your expertise. Wealthy neighborhood, murdered socialite-type.”
“Today?”
“Yes, today. The body was discovered Friday morning. The police have done their part and are coming up blank.”
“Just one body?”
“Yes. But we need an agent on it to ensure that it isn’t linked to a similar case in that area last year.”
“Sir…do you think Rhodes can handle it alone? I’m sort of dealing with some personal things.”
There was a brief moment of silence on the other end. “Is someone dead? A loved one pass away?”
“No sir.”
She knew that Johnson knew the scantest details about her father’s history. She wondered if he was silently considering all of that on the other end.
“Sorry, Fine. You’ve spent three weeks in an office, putting a profile together. I want you out in the field. I want you and Rhodes both down in Falls Church within three hours. Two if you can manage it.”
She opened her mouth to protest but stopped herself. She had no desire to be knee-deep in a murder investigation given everything she was dealing with. But at the same time, she knew that getting involved in a case might be exactly what she needed. It would not only distract her from the drama with her dad, but it might put her in the right frame of mind to figure out a way to bring down her father.
“Yes sir,” she said. “I’ll call Rhodes right away.”
And just like that, she had her first active case in three weeks. The timing wasn’t the best but who was she to argue? At the end of the day, she’d joined the bureau to help people in need—to help bring a sense of justice to a criminal system she had never fully trusted.
In light of all that had happened concerning her father in recent weeks—including her own misconceptions about him—it seemed almost fitting that it was this mindset that followed her as she got into her car and called up Agent Rhodes.
CHAPTER THREE
If Rhodes suspected that Chloe was dealing with personal issues, she made no mention of it as they rode out into Falls Church. In fact, she had not said anything about a change in Chloe’s personality for the three weeks they had been working together on the profile project—trying to come up with a profile on a man believed to be leading the charge on a series of armed bank robberies in New York. Then again, Rhodes was something of a hard ass and kept to herself. Even when their partnership had hit a new level after Chloe had saved her life following a near-fatal gunshot wound, Rhodes showed no signs of wanting to know Chloe on a deeply personal level.
And that was perfectly fine with Chloe.
In fact, most of the drive from DC to Falls Church, Virginia, was covered in silence. Johnson had not given them much to go on; the details on the murder were practically nothing. All he’d told them was that the local deputy would be on the scene to debrief them when they arrived.
The closest they came to a meaningful conversation occurred just as they got off on the exit ramp to enter Falls Church. “You know much about this city?” Rhodes asked.
“A bit. Mostly upper class, I think. But this neighborhood we’re headed to, if I remember correctly from a case study back in the academy, it’s one of those areas that’s rich mainly because of what they call old money.”
“Ah, you mean rich people that are rich because mommy and daddy were rich and didn’t have anything to do with the money after they died.”
“Basically, yes.”
Rhodes chuckled and looked out the window. “It seems to me that you and I have become the go-to agents on things like this. Well…you, anyway. How do you feel about that?”
It wasn’t anything Chloe had really considered before. She simply shrugged and answered honestly: “I guess everyone needs a niche to specialize in.”
Rhodes let it go after that. Chloe was doing her best to convey that she had no interest in small talk right now—trying to get the point across without being too rude. Apparently, it worked. They made it to the crime scene—a beautiful two-story home in an affluent neighborhood—without another word spoken between them. Most of the lots were either wooded or boasted huge backyards. The neighborhood itself was a bit removed from the more densely packed neighborhoods, giving each home a bit of space to breathe.
The presence of a single police car in the driveway seemed terribly out of place. It gave the residence an almost haunted feel after having seen so many of the other homes. It was like a blemish on the neighborhood.
They parked the car and walked up to the porch. The door was closed, so Chloe knocked, not wanting to be presumptuous by just walking in when there was an officer there waiting for them. Her knock was answered right away. The officer who opened the door looked to be in his early thirties. He was clean-shaven, quite plain looking, and appeared surprised to find two women on the other side of the door.
“We’re Agents Fine and Rhodes,” Chloe said. “We were sent to look into the murder of Jessie Fairchild.”
The officer extended his hand and introduced himself. “Deputy Ed Nolan. I’m running the wrap-up on this. Come on in.”
He ushered them inside, where Chloe discovered the house was larger inside than it had appeared outside. The foyer was nearly the size of the living room in Chloe’s apartment and the ceilings were at least twelve feet over her head. The place felt as if it hadn’t been lived in for quite some time, giving Chloe a creepy vibe.
“So what’s the story here?” Chloe asked. “All we’ve been told is that we need to rule it out as connecting to a case from last year.”
“What case is that?” Nolan asked.
“Three strangulation deaths about five miles away from here,” Rhodes said. “All women, all between the ages of forty and sixty.”
“Yeah, I think we’ll be able to rule that out pretty quickly.”
“Why is that?” Chloe asked.
“Well, the body has obviously been moved by now, but I can show you the pictures. Mrs. Fairchild wasn’t killed by strangulation, although she had been strangled too. It was more like a slice to the throat…but in a weird way that I’ve never seen before.”
He led them into the kitchen and grabbed a file folder from the bar. He used it to point up the stairs as he said, “The house cleaner discovered the body in the master bedroom upstairs. She went up while leaving the utility sink in the mudroom going. She obviously got a little sidetracked by finding the body, so much so that the utility sink overflowed.”
“Let’s go take a look at the bedroom, then,” Chloe said.
Nolan nodded and took the lead. As they passed through, Chloe noticed that either the cleaning lady was exceptionally good at her job or the Fairchilds just naturally kept a clean house.
The upstairs hallway was just as impressive as the downstairs. A bookshelf stood at the end of the hall, built into the walls. There were four rooms along the hall, two of which were bedrooms, the third a secondary bathroom, and the fourth an office.
Nolan led them to the master bedroom. While the body had of course been moved, Chloe saw that the sheets had not been removed since the murder.
“The room is exactly as it was when the body was discovered?” Chloe asked.
“All we moved was the body,” Nolan confirmed.
“Can you walk us through the details?”
He did just that as Chloe looked around the room with Rhodes. She listened to each detail, trying to play it all out in her head, imagining the scenes taking place in the room in which she currently stood.
“Rosa Ramirez, the house cleaner, discovered the body around eleven thirty in the morning. Police were on the scene just before noon. I was part of the initial party to respond to the call, so I was able to see everything in this folder firsthand. Jessie Fairchild’s throat had been cut, but in a very strange and grisly fashion. While we do believe there was strangulation involved, the cutting was done with a very large diamond ring.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“Positive. Forensics confirmed it late yesterday. It was coated in blood and the jagged lines of the cut match the cut of the diamond. For what it’s worth, her husband isn’t sure if the ring belonged to his wife.”
“Hold on,” Rhodes said. “There’s no way a diamond ring is big enough to cut that deep.”
“We thought the same thing,” Nolan said. “But the angle of the cut hit a vital artery and it also punctured the windpipe.”
“Any motive?” Chloe asked.
“We originally assumed it was a home invasion or robbery. I’m sure you’ve noticed that this place is loaded with valuables.” He pointed to the walk-in closet on the left side of the room and added: “There’s a disgusting amount of jewelry in there. When we talked to the husband, he pointed out a necklace that’s worth about thirty grand. And it wasn’t in a safe, either. Just hanging there, on a plain old jewelry rack. There’s also two cars in the garage, one of which costs about three years of my salary. A huge pool in the back, a spa-level hot tub. It’s being humble to say the Fairchilds were loaded. And with them being new to the neighborhood, we assumed it was a robbery. But we can’t find any evidence of that.”
“Was anything taken?” Chloe asked.
“We had the husband do a run-through to look around, but he came up with nothing. He said he could not see where anything had been taken. Of course, he was distraught from having had his wife recently murdered so who knows how accurate of a search he did…”
“You said you thought there was some sort of strangulation involved,” Rhodes said. “Do you know what she was strangled with?”
“We don’t know for sure, but we think it was a fox stole—this fur wrap sort of thing. We found it tucked under the bed. Forensics says they’re pretty sure both ends of it had recently been tightly gripped and pulled. The husband also said he couldn’t remember the last time he’d ever seen her wearing it.”
“What can you tell us about the Fairchilds?” Chloe asked. She was stepping toward the bed, looking at the dried bloodstains on the top sheet.
“They were new in town. Moved in about five weeks ago. There are still some boxes out in the garage that they hadn’t even unpacked yet. The husband, Mark, is some kind of big-shot banker…something with finances and stocks. Jessie Fairchild dealt with social media…some kind of influencer for C-list celebrities. Instagram, Facebook, stuff like that. Moved here from Boston…the husband said it was because they were just getting tired of the big-city congestion.”
“Where is the husband now?” Chloe asked.
“He went to some cabin out in the mountains with his brother. Left this morning, actually. He’s um…well, he’s a wreck. I mean, people take death different ways, I know. But this man…I watched him just sort of crumple and wither up, you know? It was the worst I’d ever seen.”
“No fingerprints anywhere on the scene, I take it?” Chloe asked.
“None. We did find a single loose hair on that fox stole, though. It was blond, and Jessie Fairchild was a brunette. It’s being tested as we speak…should know something pretty soon.”
Chloe took a moment to take it all in. Because there was a strong indication of at least some sort of strangulation, she could not rule out a connection to the murders from a year ago. But the cut with the diamond ring told her this was something new…something different. She picked up the folder and nearly opened it up to start digging into it right then and there.
“You said you’re in charge of wrapping the loose ends?”
“Yeah.”
“Can we follow you to your precinct? I’d like to get a workstation set up.”
“So you do think it’s related to the strangulation murders from last year?” Nolan asked. It was clear that he had not been expecting this.
“I don’t know for sure,” Chloe said. “But what I do know is that a woman is dead—that she was killed in her own home—and we currently have no one in custody. So…let’s get to work.”
Nolan smiled at her go-get-’em attitude. He nodded and started back for the bedroom door, headed to the hall. “Let’s get started then.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Chloe opened up the folder on the Jessie Fairchild murder as soon as she was settled down at the precinct. Nolan had given them an office that had once belonged to an assistant deputy who had been let go as a result of cutbacks. Some of the former assistant deputy’s belongings had been left behind, making Chloe feel out of place.
Still, she buckled down and pored over the information in the file. She was impressed with how well put together it all was. Apparently, Deputy Nolan had a knack for organization and details.
Beyond the basic police report, which included everything Nolan had already told them at the Fairchild residence, there were several pictures of Jessie Fairchild’s body. She was fully dressed, on the bed. Her head was cocked to the left, her opened eyes staring in the direction of the pool of blood that had collected around her head. The most noticeable feature of her body, though, was the ragged laceration along the center of her neck.
The pictures must have been taken within several hours of the murder because most of the blood was still wet. She could see where it was starting to congeal, but it was still mostly fresh. The cut itself was quite brutal. It was jagged and gruesome, a straight line that looked almost as if it had been sawed into the flesh. Chloe could also see very slight indications that something had been wrapped around her neck, though it was hard to tell for certain from the photos. Without seeing the body, she’d have to take the word of the forensics team. But if what she did see was indeed where something had been wrapped around her neck, it would line up perfectly with the fox stole that she saw in one of the other pictures.
She also saw a picture of the diamond ring that had been used to make the cut. It was sitting on the bedside table; the killer had not made any attempts to clean it or hide it. As far as Chloe was concerned, this was the killer trying to send a message.
But what message?
“The ring is throwing me off,” Rhodes said. “Why put it right there on the bedside table? Is he bragging? Maybe trying to tell us something?”
“I was just wondering the same thing. I wonder if the ring has any special meaning. Why that ring. It looks like one of those engagement/wedding ring combo deals.”
“It also looks expensive as hell,” Rhodes added.
“It’s got to be symbolic in some way. You don’t just accidentally place a blood-soaked diamond ring on a nightstand after using it to kill someone.”
“So you think it’s the killer trying to tell us something?”
“It might be. It could also—”
She was interrupted by the ringing of her phone. She pulled it out, assuming it would be Johnson to make sure they had arrived. But when she saw DAD on the display, she cringed a bit. A flare of anger went spiraling through her, leaving bits of fear in its wake.
She ignored the call and placed her phone face down on the desk. When she returned her attention to the folder in front of her, it was hard to get back on track.
“You okay?” Rhodes asked.
“Yeah, why?”
“Well, you just looked at your phone like it called you a slut or something.”
Chloe shrugged, hating the passive feel of it. “Just personal stuff.”
Rhodes nodded, clearly not wanting to engage in anything deep. “Yeah, personal stuff can certainly suck.”
As Chloe continued to try getting refocused on the folder, there was a knock at the door. When it opened, she saw Deputy Nolan’s face peeking in. When he opened it wider, she saw another man behind him. He looked much older and wore one of those thick gray moustaches that always reminded Chloe of a walrus.
“Agents,” Nolan said, “this is Chief Clifton.”
Clifton came into the office and looked at both of them, giving nods of appreciation. He looked at the folder, currently opened on the desk and revealing one of the photos of the gory cut along Jessie Fairchild’s neck, and quickly looked away.
Chloe and Rhodes ran through a quick series of introductions as Nolan entered behind Chief Clifton, closing the door behind him.
“Was Deputy Nolan able to get you everything you needed?” Clifton asked.
“Absolutely,” Chloe answered. “He was very accommodating.”
“Is there anything else we can get for you?”
“Well, being that it was such a large house, I’m assuming there was a security system. Any evidence of that?”
“Yes, actually,” Nolan said. “The husband gave us the code so we could reset it after leaving the house.”
“And he never got any sort of alerts that the alarms had been tripped?”
“None.”
“Can we get some sort of report on that?” Rhodes asked.
Nolan and Clifton nodded in unison. “I’ll get in touch with the security company,” Nolan said.
“Also, we’d obviously want to speak with the husband,” Chloe said. “Deputy, you said he was in the mountains somewhere with his brother, right? Any idea when he’s coming back?”
“No idea. He didn’t say.”
“I’d really like him to be here, in town,” Chloe said.
“You suspect him?”
“Not necessarily. But he is the man closest to the victim.” She did not put an accusatory tone into her voice, though she did find it irresponsible that the police had simply allowed the husband to leave.