“Okay,” Laura said, taking out a notebook and standing at the front of the room, facing them. It was awkward not to be able to sit, but it was going to have to do. Nate stood beside her, resisting the urge to put his hands in his pockets or cross his arms over his chest. He wasn’t sure what else to do with them, so he dug his own notebook out of his inner jacket pocket, just for something to hold. “First of all, let us just express how very sorry we are for your loss.”
“Absolutely,” Nate added. “We understand that the circumstances of our meeting today couldn’t be worse. But your cooperation is very much appreciated. We’re doing whatever we can to bring whoever did this to justice.”
“You don’t know who it was, yet?” the brother asked, lifting his eyes. He looked angry. That was a fairly common reaction among grieving relatives.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?” Nate asked.
“Stephen,” he said. “Steve.”
“Steve, we’re still chasing down leads at the moment. How much have the local police told you?”
“Just that she was found dead in an abandoned warehouse,” Mr. Rowse said. There was a hitch in his voice as he continued. “Hung,” he said. “But she wasn’t… she didn’t do it to herself. Someone did it to her. That’s what he said.”
“That’s correct,” Laura said softly. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but we’re also investigating another death which happened in similar circumstances. We have reason to believe that the two killings are related.”
“There’s some kind of murderer out there?” Stephen asked furiously. “Someone’s murdering people, and they got my sister?”
“It looks that way at the present moment,” Nate said, putting as much respectful regret into his voice as he could. “But at this time, we’re not yet sure whether the two deaths are connected in more ways than that. What we need to do is to establish whether there was any link between your Veronica and our other victim, or whether there was anyone in Veronica’s life who might have had reason to want to hurt her.”
“We already told the other officer,” Mrs. Rowse spoke up, her voice wavering and sniffy. “She didn’t have any problems. She was just a normal person. She didn’t have enemies or anything like that.”
“She was unmarried?” Laura asked, waiting with her pen poised above the empty page of her notebook. She seemed so in control. Like she was handling everything just fine. Nate had to wonder, though, what signs he’d missed before.
“Yes, that's right,” Mr. Rowse said, staring at an indeterminant point in the carpet. Nate could see how the man was probably picturing his daughter, the life she could have had. The life that had been cut short so cruelly. It wasn’t a feeling he could completely relate to, not being a father himself – but he knew how bad it would feel to lose a sister. Sometimes, he wondered if his inability to keep a relationship with a woman going was something to do with all the death he’d seen. The fear of losing someone that you loved so much. “Never did quite get round to finding her Mr. Right, did she, love?”
Out in the hallway, a door opened and closed. “No,” Mrs. Rowse said, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue again. “Though we thought that Bradley had a bit of potential, didn't we? She didn't let us meet him, before.”
“Why not?” Nate asked, his interest piqued. This could be a potential lead. The statistics of the number of murders carried out by people who knew the victim, and particularly by romantic partners, spoke for themselves.
“It was all a bit new,” said a new voice from the hallway.
Laura and Nate both turned at the same time, relying on their whip fast reaction speeds to assess the direction of the newcomer, and whether or not they were a threat. The man framed in the doorway, holding a plastic carrier bag in his hand, looked to be in his early to mid-thirties. He was dressed casually, in a dark sweatshirt over jeans, and he had the same tired, haggard look that the rest of the family wore.
“That's Bradley,” Stephen said, with a hint of animosity.
Nate took this in, weighed it carefully. He thought about his own sister, who he was always very protective of. When she brought home new boyfriends, he often reacted the same way. Like they were an impostor, someone who needed to be kept an eye on. Someone who might turn out to be dangerous. Of course, he had the usual fear that big brothers did: that his sister might get her heart broken. But at the same time, he knew enough from being an FBI agent to know that sometimes, just having a broken heart would be a lucky getaway.
The question was, what kind of suspicion was it that caused Stephen to look at Bradley that way? The normal kind of brotherly suspicion, or something more?
“I've just been to the store for some tea supplies,” Bradley said, hefting his bag. He walked in, setting it down on the coffee table, having to step between Laura and Nate as he did so. Then he hesitated, awkwardly, like he didn’t know where he was supposed to fit in this tableau of family.
“How did the two of you meet?” Laura asked, which Nate knew was just her way of exploring the situation and starting to get an idea of exactly how Bradley felt about his deceased girlfriend. It wasn't necessarily in the w
ords he said, but in the tone, the body language. Even the look on his face. These things could give away more than a person realized.
“We both work at the hospice,” Bradley said. “We're both nurses. Days are long, you end up spending a lot of time in the break room if you can. We've been talking for a long while, but it was only recently that it became anything more than that.”
“She used to talk about you all the time,” Mrs. Rowse said sadly. “I wasn't at all surprised when it came out you had been out for a drink together. I started to get really excited for her. I thought...” Her voice trailed off, leaving unspoken the story of what might have been. Nate saw how her shoulders seemed to droop, further at that.
“Have you been able to think of anyone that might want to harm Veronica?” Laura asked. “Perhaps there's someone from work, or a friend you had in common? A family member of someone from the hospice?”
“No,” Bradley said, shaking his head mournfully. He looked tired and almost deflated, like he’d had all of the life sucked out of him over the past twenty-four hours. “And I don't know if she would have told me, not yet. We were only just getting started, like I said. There are things that you tell your long-term partner you wouldn't tell a friend, or even someone brand new. She didn't seem to be afraid, or to have any worries or fears in the last few weeks. I've been going over it in my head, trying to remember everything she said to me. But there was never anyone like that, not that I can think of.”
“That's very helpful,” Nate said, nodding. It was always good to encourage people in these situations, rather than just firing questions at them without pause. It made them feel like they were being interrogated, and then sometimes they would clam up. “So, to summarize, none of you can think of anything that might point to the reason why Veronica in particular was singled out?”
“No,” Stephen said, and the others shook their heads in agreement, and Nate studied them.
The parents were crushed. Stephen was angry at the world, at the killer, but not anyone in particular. It wasn't the kind of anger that he'd seen in violent criminals. It was a kind of hurt, defensive anger, the anger of a man who had not been able to protect his little sister and knew it. As for Bradley, he just looked like he was in an uncomfortable situation, dealing with something very sad among strangers. That would have been difficult for anyone to deal with, and Nate bought everything he was saying.