Already Dead (Laura Frost FBI)

Laura sat in the chair opposite him and leaned back, crossing her arms over her chest – the way he clearly wanted to, but couldn’t. She’d seen him try when they’d first left him in the room, finding the handcuffs too restrictive.

And then she simply looked at him while he reluctantly mopped up the spill, stopping it from spreading over the edge of the table and falling on his own legs, and heaped up the sopping wet tissues in a pile when he was done. Then he finally looked back at her, and glanced away, clearly uncomfortable.

Laura let the silence go on. The longer, the better, after all. She wasn’t in any rush herself. Not while she still had the suspect right in front of her. If he was the one who had been doing this, then there was no way he could take another victim from here.

Of course, there was still that doubt in the back of her mind. But she shut it down. The point of the exercise was to make him lose control – not to freak herself out instead.

“How long are you going to keep me here?” he said, at last. That was a victory in itself. He’d been the first one to blink.

“It doesn’t have to be much longer at all, Mr. Martins,” Laura said. “All you have to do is answer our questions. Why did you run from us at the factory?”

Martins grunted. “Because I don’t like pigs.”

Laura allowed a small smile to quirk the corner of her mouth, to show him that she was more amused than insulted by his choice of epithet. “That might be a reason to avoid us. But you didn’t just calmly avoid us, did you? You ran. You drove dangerously. It seemed like you were pretty desperate to get away from us.”

“No comment,” he said, apparently remembering that he was supposed to be sticking to the same technique.

Laura stretched out, catlike, getting comfortable in her chair. Where was Agent Won with that water? She hadn’t imagined it would take him this long to bring it through. She’d wanted to use that, too, as an opportunity to break down Martins’ barriers. Make him accept the grace of their drink, to soothe his aching throat. “Innocent people don’t usually run from the law,” she said, quoting an old line that was probably engraved into every cop’s brain. Every cop who had ever dealt with a suspect who ran and then pretended it meant nothing, anyway.

Toby Martins said nothing, so neither did she. They simply sat there, opposite one another. He didn’t like to look at her, she noticed. He couldn’t meet her gaze. He shifted in his chair, uncomfortably. It was working. The silence. It was drawing him out. He was about to say…

The door opened, and Agent Won burst in. He wasn’t holding a cup of water, like Laura had expected, but instead a brown file. Laura frowned at him. Not only had he interrupted the perfect moment – which, if she was being fair, he couldn’t have known in advance – but he seemed to be going off-book yet again.

“I’ve just received a report from Detective Waters and the Captain,” he said, putting the folder down on the table. He did it kind of recklessly, letting it slap down onto the surface somewhere between where Laura was sitting and where he would, before dropping into his chair. “They’ve just finished their search of Mr. Martins’s property.”

“Oh, really?” Laura asked, her interest piqued again. Maybe he had a good reason for defying her orders, after all. She picked up the folder, opening it at an angle so that only she could see the contents and Martins was none the wiser.

Which was a good job, really, because the pages inside the folder were blank.

“It’s interesting reading,” Agent Won said, pointing at the empty page as though there was something notable written there. “The sheer quantity of drug paraphernalia is quite impressive.”

Laura raised an eyebrow as though she was reading the same interesting facts, deliberately letting her eyes scan from side to side to carry on the pretense. “I see that,” she said. “What else did they find?”

Agent Won pointed a little further down the page, as if drawing her attention to a new paragraph. “A lot of equipment that came from the candle factory, by the looks of things. Chemicals, too. I think his employers are going to be very interested to hear about this.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Laura said, nodding and smiling. She glanced up at Toby, who was watching them with a look of horror. “Feel inclined to answer any of our questions now? You might as well. It looks like we know enough to have you put away, anyway.”

“I…” Martins swallowed, shaking his head. “I didn’t think they’d miss any of it. And they didn’t.”

“So, you set up a small-scale drug manufacturing operation in your own home,” Agent Won said. He was coming into his own a little, growing in confidence. Laura had to admit that she liked this side of him a little better than what she had seen so far. “Not the best of plans, was it? And how do the women fit into that? Did they find out?”

“The women? What women?” Martins said, shaking his head. There was a pause, and then his eyes widened. “The ones on the news that got killed? I don’t know anything about that. It’s nothing to do with me.”

“You think we’re going to accept that it’s just a coincidence?” Agent Won scoffed. Laura didn’t intervene. He was taking this in an interesting direction, to give him credit. She wasn’t totally unreserved about the fact she might have to step in eventually, but for now… “Two women found dead with the candles from the place where you work? We already know you’re stealing from the site. It seems ridiculous to assume you wouldn’t take candles as well. And given your history of assault…”

“I didn’t,” Martins insisted, his eyes wide. “I wouldn’t! I mean – hurt them! I wouldn’t hurt them. They didn’t do anything to me. I didn’t take any candles either because I didn’t need them. There wasn’t any point in taking a risk by stealing something I didn’t need and getting caught for all of it!”

“So, you admit you took the other items,” Laura said, picking up on that point before the less experienced agent let it drop, only because it was such an important one.

“… Yes,” Martins said, defeatedly, lowering his eyes. “Yes, I took them. But that was all. I never did anything else. I swear!”

“Where were you on Saturday night?” Laura asked. They needed to get right to the point.

“I was…” Martins stopped, looking down at the table. “I don’t think I should say.”

“You’re already in enough trouble,” Agent Won said, taking on a fatherly tone that was almost ridiculous given the difference in their ages. “The more open and honest you are with us now, the better it will go for you in front of the judge.”

Martins hesitated still, then brought a hand up to his mouth, using his thumb to swipe across it as though he was trying to wipe his worries away. “I was in the parking lot next to the pebble beach,” he muttered. “Selling.”

Laura took a breath. If he was telling the truth, he had an alibi. It was an alibi that would be very difficult to prove, because few people would want to admit that they had seen him there. But then again, most people wouldn’t admit to one major crime in order to give themselves an alibi for another.

“Can you prove it?” she asked.

Martins shook his head, but then glanced up. “I could give you the names of the people I was with.”

Laura nodded. She closed the file with a snap, so that he would never know they’d been looking at nothing. “We’ll leave you to talk to the police detectives about that,” she said, getting up from her chair. She glanced at Agent Won to make sure he was following suit; he did. “Don’t go clamming up again, Mr. Martins. You’re putting yourself in a good position by admitting it all.”

She left the room with that, allowing him time to digest those words. If they were the last thing ringing in his head when they sent the locals in to talk to him, hopefully it would help them to get a result.

Just not the result that they had hoped for in the first place.

“Do you believe him?” Agent Won asked, the moment the door was closed behind them.

Laura nodded, sighing. “Unfortunately, I do. He’s an idiot and definitely a criminal, but he’s not a killer.”

“Are you sure?” Agent Won asked. He was practically pouting. “I was really certain…”

“I thought he was a pretty good candidate, too,” Laura said, throwing him a bone. He hadn’t done too badly in there, after all. “But that’s how it is sometimes. The most likely suspect turns out to have an alibi. It just means there’s another suspect out there we haven’t caught yet.”

Agent Won looked at his watch. “It’s past ten,” he said. “We were supposed to bring him in by now. The killer, I mean.”

Laura nodded, accepting the uncomfortable truth. He was right. They’d had a deadline to work to, and they had most likely missed it.

“Let’s just hope we’re wrong about the pattern,” she said. Even as she said it, though, she had a sinking feeling that they were about to get a call about a body left somewhere in town with a candle clutched tight to its chest.