Beautiful Maids All in a Row (23 page)

I glared at the woman. “Don't you have work to do?”

“I…I…” she stammered.

Shepherd handed her back the pen and paper. “It was nice to meet you, Debra.”

Debra glanced at me, then back at Shepherd. “Thank you,” she said to him before scurrying away.

“You were quite rude to her,” Shepherd chided.

I snorted. “Excuse me,” I said, pushing past him.

I managed a few steps toward the ladies' room when he called to me. “Couldn't get them to talk, I hear,” he said. “You really think you could have?”

Fuck him.
I spun around. “Listen to me, you conceited, cowardly asshole—”

At that moment, Cyrus Beaton stepped out of the men's room. A smug smile crossed Shepherd's face. “Dr. Ballard, are you attempting to talk to my client outside the presence of his lawyer?”

“No.”

“Is this true, Jeremy?”

“Dr. Ballard was just expressing an opinion,” he said. “She didn't ask me a thing.”

Beaton glared at me again. “You don't say one word to my client outside of my presence, you hear me?”

“Loud and clear. But there is another option.” I looked directly at Shepherd. “Only a coward hides. At least I get the satisfaction of knowing I'm right about you. Boo!” He cringed with that last word. It was fun to be right.

With a smug smirk, I spun around and stepped into the ladies' room. The second the door shut, I rushed over to the sink. Three minutes of splashing cold water on my face and taking deep breaths managed to calm me down enough to walk out of the bathroom without punching the wall. I needed to be focused and alert, not blinded by rage. So I fixed my hair, tossed my shoulders back, and exited the bathroom.

When I walked into the observation room, Shaw was peering into Interrogation One. On the other side of the mirror Clarkson and Luke sat with their backs to us, with Shepherd and Beaton facing us. Shepherd seemed relaxed, with a hint of amusement on his face. His legs were stretched out under the table and his feet flat on the ground. Beaton did not share his nonchalant attitude in the slightest.

“Are you sure?” Beaton asked Shepherd. “Because I strongly,
strongly
recommend you rethink this.”

“I know what I'm doing, Cyrus,” he said. “Anyway I'm sure these fine agents will let you stand on the other side of the mirror with them. You can always come in and rescue me if I need it.”

“What the hell are they talking about?” I asked Shaw.

“We'll see if we can find her,” Luke said as he stood from the table.

“I saw her entering the ladies' room,” Shepherd told him. “You might start there.”

What the hell was going on?

Both Beaton and Clarkson also stood. All three men shuffled out of the room, leaving a pleased Shepherd all alone. A second later Beaton and Luke stepped into the observation room, looking far less upbeat. Clarkson must have been on his way to the ladies' room.

“What was that all about?” I asked.

“My client
insists
you be the one to question him,” Beaton answered, his eyes narrowing with each word. As if it were my fault. Okay, so it was.

“He'll answer your questions without a lawyer in the room,” Luke added.

I couldn't help it. A smug smile crossed my face. He'd taken the bait again. Iris Ballard, master manipulator.

“Is there something about you and my client I should know about?” Beaton asked.

“Just the fact that he calls me in the middle of the night and sends me flowers charged to a dead woman's credit card.”

“You can't prove any of that,” Beaton snapped. “Where's the proof that these conversations ever took place?”

Luke and I exchanged a knowing glance.

“Let's try our cases
in
court, counselor,” Shaw said.

“We're wasting time here,” I said, tucking an earpiece into my right ear.

Luke leaned into the microphone on the wall, and I pressed my hand up to my ear. “Check one, check two,” Luke said.

“I can hear you,” I said.

I took a step toward the door, but Beaton grabbed my upper arm to stop me. “The second you step out of line I end this, got it?”

I looked down at his chubby hand around my arm. “Take your hand off me or I'll have you arrested for battery.”

He dropped my arm. I raised an eyebrow and walked into the hallway, stopping in front of the interrogation room door. I took a moment to focus. Two years. It had been two years since I sat across from a monster and engaged in a game of mental chess, and Shepherd was a master. Except in this game the stakes were life or death. One wrong word or look and the game was over. “You can do this,” I whispered to myself. I could. I smoothed my hair, stuck my chin out, and opened the door.

Welcome to Thunderdome.

I took my seat in the cold room without looking at Shepherd. He watched me intently, almost as if he were studying me. His eyes scanned me up and down, stopping on my chest. He was trying to make me uncomfortable. It worked. The temperature change gave my body a jolt, and my nipples stuck out like two pencil erasers under my white cotton shirt, something Shepherd seemed to relish. I folded my arms across my chest.

He gazed into my eyes. “I just realized what an attractive woman you are,” he said with a grin. “You have a kind of natural beauty rare in women.”

“You called me in here to hit on me?”

“Just paying you a compliment.”

“Save the flattery for someone who can't see right through you,” I said. “This is Dr. Iris Ballard, consulting forensic psychologist with the FBI. I am interviewing Dr. Jeremy Arthur Shepherd at the FBI field office in New York City. The date is June the nineteenth, the time is twelve twenty-one
P.M.
Have you been read your rights?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Do you wish to have your attorney present at this questioning?”

“Not at the moment.”

“Very well then. Dr. Shepherd, where were you the night of June thirteenth of this year?”

“At my cabin in the Catskills, with Miss Diana Hall and my chief of security, Henry Mooney.”

“Have you ever heard the names Audrey Burke or Justine Romy before?”

“No, not until the news reports of their deaths.”

A stack of files sat to my left, and I opened the top two, taking out pictures of Audrey and Justine just before their deaths. I handed them to Shepherd. “Are either of these women familiar to you?”

He glanced at the pictures. “As I said, I recognize them from the news.”

“So you never met them before?”

“Not that I recall.”

I reached under the table for the box placed next to my chair. I pulled out two of the books and tossed them across the table. I threw one so hard it went sliding to Shepherd, who caught it.

“Two books, each signed by you. One belonged to Audrey Burke and the other to Justine Romy. I also have two more books, each signed by you, that were in the possession of Amanda Denker and Patricia Curtis, both killed by the Woodsman.”

“My book is very popular, and I do
many
book signings around the world. I don't doubt these women attended one of them, but I don't remember any of them. Sorry.”

“You have to admit it's a pretty big coincidence.”

“Am I going to be a suspect every time someone dies in the possession of one of my books?”

“These women lived in separate states. They never met, and had pretty much nothing in common. The only thing in common they had was
you.
”

“They must have something else in common,” he said, “because I had nothing whatsoever to do with their deaths.”

I leaned back in my chair and sighed. “You have a history of abuse toward women. You were arrested for raping a woman in college.”

“She dropped the charges.”

“After you paid her fifty thousand dollars to go away.”

“You can't prove that,” he said. “She had a boyfriend back home and felt guilty after our tryst. That was her way of shifting responsibility off herself for cheating.”

“She killed herself six months later,” I told him. “Did you know that?”

“No, I didn't. How terrible. She was a nice girl,” he said pleasantly.

“And you ruined her.”

He scoffed. “I told you what happened.” He opened his mouth and yawned.

“Tired?” I asked with a half smile.

“Yes, actually. I'm a very busy man. Sleep is a luxury I'm not often afforded.”

“I'm tired too. Last night someone called me after one o'clock in the morning. It was the same man who phoned me a couple of nights ago.”

With a glint in his eye, he asked, “Who was it?”

“He sounded a hell of a lot like you.”

Shepherd scoffed. “I didn't even know you until two days ago, and even still, I did not call you.”

“Do I have to play the tape?”

His eyes widened a little. “Tape?”

“You didn't hear that little ‘click' in the background last night? Your hearing must be going in your old age.” I reached into the box and pulled out my recorder.

“I want to help others live good and happy lives,”
Shepherd said on the recorder
.

“Tell that to the six people you killed.”

“I don't want to talk about them. I want to talk about you and me.”

“There is no ‘you and me.' We are not in any way, shape, or form together. You are just a psychopath I'm putting in prison, nothing more.”

“We both know that's not true. I'm more than just another criminal for you to catch. I'm your salvation, your redemption.”

I shut off the recorder. All amusement drained from his face. His mouth was razor straight, and his eyes were focused intently on me. “You're going to deny that was you?”

“It wasn't.”

I shrugged. “Sounded like you.”

“It sounded like a lot of men,” he said. “Besides, I know a little about the law. Taping conversations without a warrant or consent from the other party is illegal. Even if it was me, you wouldn't be able to use it in court.”

“Then why deny it?”

“Because it wasn't me,” he said with a shrug.

“He's not going for it, Iris,” Luke said into my earpiece.

Tell me something I didn't know.
I placed the recorder back in the box and suppressed a sigh. He had an answer for everything. I missed the days when only stupid people committed crimes. Time for a calculated gamble. The last one got us alone in this room. I sat up again, folding my arms on the table. “Let's just cut through the bullshit, okay?”

“If you wish,” he replied with a smile.

“I know you did this, and you know you did this. And I know you will never in a million years admit it, no matter what I say in here. You're a
very
smart man; I'm sure you've taken every precaution. But we have this time together, mano a mano, live in the flesh for the first time. So let's use it. Know thine enemy, right? So let's get to know each other. Nothing is taboo, total honesty. What do you say?”

“Iris, what the hell are you doing?” Luke asked into my earpiece. I pulled the tiny receiver out and set it on the table.

Shepherd smiled. “I think your partner is against the idea.”

“Are you?”

Shepherd fell back in his chair. “No. But just for the record, I had nothing to do with the deaths of those five women or that man.”

“If you say so.”

“You want to start or should I?” he asked.

“Be my guest,” I insisted.

“Okay.” He put his hands behind his head, fingers laced. “What was your husband like?”

He went straight for the jugular the first chance he got.
Me and my bright ideas.
I tightened my jaw. “The first word that comes to mind when I think of him is…
nice.
He was the kindest, gentlest soul I ever met. He was calm almost all of the time. Nothing frazzled him. The world could be ending and he'd just sit back in his favorite chair listening to jazz. His idea of heaven was driving for hours down to North Carolina in a convertible with the top down, singing along to the radio at the top of his lungs.” I chuckled to myself. “Lord, he liked to have fun. He'd actually request Halloween off so he could stay home and dress like Dracula to hand out candy to kids. We always had to carve pumpkins. I don't know, I…” I shook my head.

“He sounds wonderful,” Shepherd said. “Why do you blame yourself for his death?”

“I wasn't smart, quick, or brave enough to save him. When he needed me I was locked in a bathroom, thinking of ways to save my own skin. It was my job to protect the citizens of America from men like his attacker, and I failed the one person I should have put above all. That's unforgivable.”

“Is that why you quit the FBI?”

I looked at the dark blue circle hanging on the wall above the mirror. The seal of the top law enforcement agency in the world. “See that seal? Written on it are three words, which tell the characteristics of a good agent. Fidelity, bravery, and integrity. I wasn't faithful to my husband, but I don't mean just the affair. I put my career ahead of my husband more times than I can count. I chose my job over him. I could only be faithful to one of them, and I chose my needs and myself. My ambition over his love. As to bravery…” I looked down at my hands and noticed I was twisting my wedding ring again. I stopped. “I was locked in my bathroom when Meriwether ambushed my husband.”

“You were stabbed, Iris.”

“True, but I wasn't in pain because I was in shock. I was thinking clearly. He gave me two warnings to get out, and I ignored them both. When I finally did…step out there, I didn't charge at him. I had a knife hidden in my robe; I could have done it. If I had, he would have just fired at me, and Hayden might have gotten away. But I just stood at that door and
watched
as he shot my husband in the head with my gun. I didn't do a damn thing to stop him. I had a split second to decide between my life and his, and I chose me over him yet again because I didn't want to die. And that intense feeling of guilt from failing the person you love robs you of
any
integrity you have left.”