The Collector
Page 7

“We appreciate that, Ms. Emerson, but we won’t need you to testify against this individual.”
“But he . . . Did he confess?”
“Not exactly.” Fine put her phone away. “He’s on his way to the morgue.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It appears the man you’ve seen with the victim pushed her out the window then sat down on the couch, put the barrel of a .32 in his mouth and pulled the trigger.”
“Oh. Oh God.” Staggering back, Lila dropped to the foot of the bed. “Oh God. He killed her, then himself.”
“It appears.”
“Why? Why would he do that?”
“That’s a question,” Fine said. “Let’s go over this again.”
By the time the police left, she’d been up for nearly twenty-four hours. She wanted to call Julie but stopped herself. Why start her best friend’s day off so horribly?
She considered calling her mother—always a rock in a crisis—then ran through how it would go.
After being supportive, sympathetic, there would come:
Why do you live in New York, Lila-Lou? It’s so dangerous. Come live with me and your father (the Lieutenant Colonel, retired) in Juneau. As in Alaska.
“I don’t want to talk about it again anyway. Just can’t say it all over again right now.”
Instead she flopped down on the bed, still in her clothes, cuddled Thomas when he joined her.
And to her surprise, dropped into sleep in seconds.
She woke with her heart pounding, her hands clutching at the bed as the sensation of falling rocked her.
Reaction, she told herself. Just a projection reaction. She rolled herself up, saw she’d slept until noon.
Enough. She needed a shower, a change of clothes and to get the hell out. She’d done everything she could do, told the police everything she’d seen. Mr. Slick killed Blondie and himself, ripping away two lives, and nothing could change it, especially obsessing over it.
Instead, obsessing, she grabbed her iPad, went on a search for any stories about the murder.
“Runway model falls to her death,” she read. “I knew it. She was built for it.”
Grabbing the last cupcake—knowing better but grabbing it anyway—she ate while reading the sketchy story about the two deaths. Sage Kendall. She even had a model’s name, Lila thought. “And Oliver Archer. Mr. Slick had a name, too. She was only twenty-four, Thomas. Four years younger than me. She did some commercials. I wonder if I’ve seen her. And why does that make it worse somehow?”
No, she had to stop, do what she’d just told herself to do. Clean herself up and get out for a while.
The shower helped, as did pulling on a light summer dress and sandals. Makeup helped more, she admitted, as she was still pale and hollow-eyed.
She’d walk out of the neighborhood—away from her own thoughts, maybe find somewhere for a quick, decent lunch. Then she could call Julie, maybe ask her to come over again so she could just dump all this out on a sympathetic, nonjudgmental ear.
“I’ll be back in a couple hours, Thomas.”
She started out, walked back, picked up the card Detective Fine had given her. She couldn’t reasonably stop obsessing until she’d finished obsessing, she told herself. And there was nothing wrong with an eyewitness to the murder portion of a murder/suicide asking the investigating detective if they’d closed the case.
In any case, it would be a short, pleasant walk. Maybe she’d use the pool when she got back. She wasn’t technically supposed to have use of the complex’s pool or gym as a non-resident, but the most considerate Macey had wheedled around that block.
She could swim off the dregs of fatigue, stress, upset, then end the day with a whine session to her best friend.
Tomorrow, she’d go back to work. Life had to go on. Death reminded everyone life had to go on.
Ash emptied the contents of the bag. “Effects,” they called them, he thought. Personal effects. The watch, the ring, the wallet—with too much cash, the card case with too many credit cards. The silver key ring from Tiffany’s. The watch, the ring, had likely come from there—or Cartier’s, or somewhere Oliver had deemed important enough. The slim silver lighter, too.
All the shiny pocket debris his brother had gathered up on the last day of his life.
Oliver, always on the edge of the next big thing, the next big score, the next big anything. Charming, careless Oliver.
Dead.
“He had an iPhone, we’re still processing it.”
“What?” He looked up at the detective—Fine, he remembered. Detective Fine, with the soft blue eyes full of secrets. “I’m sorry, what?”
“We’re still processing his phone, and when we’ve cleared the apartment, we’ll need you to go through with us, identify his possessions. As I said, his license lists an address in the West Village, but our information is he moved out three months ago.”
“Yeah, you said. I don’t know.”
“You hadn’t seen him for . . . ?”
He’d told her, told her and her hard-faced partner all of it when they’d come to his loft. Notification, that’s what they called it. Personal effects, notification. The stuff of novels and series television. Not his life.
“A couple of months. Three or four months, I guess.”
“But you spoke with him a few days ago.”
“He called, talked about meeting for a drink, catching up. I was busy, I put him off, told him we’d make it next week. Jesus.” Ash pressed his fingers to his eyes.
“I know this is hard. You said you hadn’t met the woman he’d been living with for the past three months, almost four months now.”
“No. He mentioned her when he called. Bragging some—hot model. I didn’t pay much attention. Oliver brags, it’s his default.”
“He didn’t mention any trouble between him and the hot model?”
“Just the opposite. She was great, they were great, everything was great.” He looked down at his hands, noticed a smudge of cerulean blue on the side of his thumb.
He’d been painting when they’d come to his loft. He’d been annoyed by the interruption—then the world changed.
It all changed with a few words.
“Mr. Archer?”
“Yeah. Yeah. Everything was f**king great. That’s how Oliver works. Everything’s great unless it’s . . .”