Empire of Lies
The red eye drops are definitely in effect, and I look like I’ve been crying all night.Stepping out of the car, I follow the redhead’s lead into the station. I expect her to lead me to the interrogation room, but she shows me over to a desk.
“I know that since your wife is gone, that you probably haven’t had any real intimacy in weeks…” She picks up a foil covered pan and holds it out to me. “So, I took it upon myself to make you the most intimate treat of all: a cherry chocolate pie. I’m also including my phone number, just in case you need someone to cry to late at night. I’m also willing to come over, if a phone call won’t do.”
I blinked. “Is the sergeant coming now or later?”
“A man who looks like you should never sleep alone.”
“I’m insanely devoted to my wife.” I actually mean those words. “I would never cheat on her.”
“If she’s dead, it’s not cheating.” She lowers her voice, and slowly bites her lip. “You can’t make love to a cold corpse.”
“No, but I’m tempted to turn you into one, if you don’t stop flirting with me…”
“Huh?” Her eyes widened. “What did you just say?”
“Over here, Mr. Anderson.” Sergeant Ware finally shows up and saves me from saying something much worse, and the redheaded officer storms away with her unwanted pie.
“Officer Sheffield takes it upon herself to bake pies for most of the men who are in your unfortunate position,” he says, sighing. “She thinks a home-cooked treat will somehow make you forget about things for a few minutes. Don’t take it personally. Between you and me, you’re not missing much of anything.”
“I already assumed that.”
“Right. Well, I’ll take you to the room for now, and leave you there for a bit before presenting a few things to you.”
He leads me down a long hallway and into a small grey room, where Meredith’s father and aunt are sitting at a square metal table.
I stop at the sight of her aunt pressing a handkerchief against his eyes.
“It’s okay, Leo,” she says, her voice cracking. “She’ll turn up soon. I’m sure of it. Don’t cry.”
I clench my jaw and resist the urge to strangle him on the spot.
“Good to know I won’t be alone to hear whatever news they have,” I say, forcing them both to look up at me.
“Hey there, Mike.” Her aunt says, giving me a weak smile. “You did say that I can call you, Mike, right?”
“Michael will suffice.”
“Sorry.” She presses the handkerchief to her own eyes. “Mr. Thatchwood and I were just talking about you.”
“I bet.” I look at her father. “I noticed a commercial from your campaign on TV yesterday…I could’ve sworn Meredith said that you’d dropped out of the race.”
“Well, that was before all of this,” he says. “I decided to stay in to give me something to keep me going, you know?” He lowers his voice. “I’m up in the polls due to people giving me the sympathy vote, so it’s nice that something good will come from this tragedy, right?”
I don’t answer that.
“If you’re ever in need of any investors for your little nightclub, I’d be happy to reach out to some of my top donors and let them know,” he says. “Family has to stick together in these tough times.”
My “little nightclub” brings in millions of dollars every weekend. I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “I’d like you to stop listing her last name as Thatchwood when it’s Anderson. That’s what you can do for me.”
“The press responds better when it’s a known name.” He looks genuine. “I mean, everyone in New York has run across something I own or branded at some point in their lifetime. You only own one club, you know?”
I almost tell him that half of the businesses that he thinks he owns are indirectly tied to me and my brother, but I hold back and say nothing.
Sergeant Ware returns to the room seconds later, armed with a thin manila folder. Avoiding eye contact with us, he takes a seat.
“Last night, my team followed up on a certain bit of evidence,” he says, pulling out pictures of an open trunk. “As you know, strands of hair and blood were found in the back of an abandoned Honda eighty miles outside of the city.”
I still can’t believe it took them this long to find this shit. I parked that car there a month ago.
“We rushed everything to the lab to test it and um…” He swallowed. “It’s a definite match for Meredith’s DNA.”
Her father sucks in a few breaths as if he’s about to have a panic attack, and her aunt starts to cry like the world is ending.
There are no tears falling from her eyes.
“We’re having our crime scene unit run tests on the entire vehicle to see if we can find some fingerprints to run through the system, and the blood we found isn’t enough for alarm yet. There’s still hope we’ll find her alive. We also know that whoever has done this, isn’t as smart as we are, and they probably left something behind.”
I didn’t. I’ve never left anything behind at a staged scene, and at the rate that their investigation is going, I’m twenty years ahead, and I won’t be able to take Meredith to stage two of my plan for another two months.
“Do any of you know if she had any friends in Connecticut?” he asks. “The backseat was littered with Burger King receipts from there.”
I mentally vanish from this conversation and put on my best “utterly devastated and at a loss for words” face. Me coming here is officially a waste of my time, and I decide to call in another tip to The New York Times tonight to accelerate this sloppy, half-assed investigation.
When the sergeant’s lips finally stop moving, he stands up from his seat. “I’ll leave you three alone. If you have any concerns or other questions, I’ll be right