All three men watched me close, studied me. I didn’t look in the drawer—I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. The top of the dresser was cluttered with headbands, jewelry; earrings and necklaces sat in an open wooden box. My eyes fell on one particular necklace near the bottom—a bird feather attached to a thin leather strap. A sparrow feather.
I quickly looked away.
Chapter Eight
Michael
They took me to LAPD headquarters on First Street.
This time, Dobbs did handcuff me, although I wasn’t read my rights.
None of us spoke in the car.
Inside the building, Dobbs and Wilkins guided me past the front desk to a bank of elevators on the east wall. We got in one, exited on the third floor, and crossed through a large bullpen humming with activity despite the ungodly early hour. The dozens of desks, tables, and chairs were filled with people from all walks of life—gangbangers and prostitutes and men dressed in drag; old people and screaming children; a man in a four-thousand-dollar suit with a twenty-something woman wearing an equally expensive dress, both shouting at two uniformed officers. Their hair was disheveled, and he had a tear in his right jacket sleeve. At first I thought they were the victims of a mugging but then I realized they were both in handcuffs with a ziplock bag of colorful pills on the desk between them and the cops. At the far end of the room, I was photographed and fingerprinted. The female officer, clearly proficient, rolled my fingers one at a time over the digital reader.
When she was finished with me, Dobbs tugged at my arm and Wilkins gave me a shove. They led me down a hallway, deeper into the building, leaving the noise behind us.
Dobbs opened a door marked INTERVIEW ROOM 7—DO NOT ENTER WHEN RED LIGHT IS ON and ushered me inside. “Get comfortable.”
He left. The door locked with a loud clack! and I was alone.
I sat there for two hours.
I had never been in an interrogation room before, but nonetheless, the space felt familiar. I’d seen enough of them in films and on television and it was clear that those in Hollywood didn’t travel farther than LA for their inspiration. The room wasn’t very large, maybe ten feet square, with a drop ceiling and fluorescent lights beaming down. The cinder-block walls were painted a muted gray. A metal table was bolted to the wall and the floor with two black cloth chairs on one side and a single chair on the other. A large one-way mirror filled the wall to my left, and a camera faced me from the corner above. I tried to sit in the single chair but with my hands cuffed behind me, I had to sit on the edge of the table instead.
Two hours.
Dobbs returned alone carrying two cups of coffee. He set them down on the table and closed the door with his foot. “Turn around.”
He removed the handcuffs and told me to take a seat.
I rubbed at my wrists. “I’m supposed to get a phone call.”
“In a minute.”
“You haven’t even read me my rights.”
“I haven’t arrested you.” Dobbs slid one of the coffees toward me. “Take a seat.”
I lowered myself tentatively into a chair. “I need to call my sister. She’s got to be worried.”
Dobbs pursed his lips, turned his own coffee cup counterclockwise, and took a drink. “Have you thought about what I said?”
I looked him dead in the eye. “I have no idea who that woman is. I’ve never met her. I’ve never been to her apartment. I’ve certainly never slept with her. Somebody is trying to set me up.”
Dobbs looked down at his coffee cup, turned it slowly again. “Give me a DNA sample.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Why not? If you’re innocent, there’s no reason not to, right?”
I shook my head. “Not until I talk to my sister. I want my phone back.”
“Your phone has been logged into evidence. You can file a petition to have it returned to you but I can tell you, it won’t be released until this case is closed.” He pushed the second cup toward me. “Drink some coffee. Relax. Let’s just talk, okay? Just the two of us. Try to clear this up.”
“Right. Just the two of us. Who’s behind the window there? Who’s watching the camera feed?”
Dobbs glanced up at the one-way window. “Nobody’s in there and the camera isn’t on. No blinking red light. It’s just us now.”
“Right.” I smirked, took a sip of the coffee. “I know how this works.”
“Have you been arrested before?”
“You said I’m not under arrest.”
He waved a hand. “You know what I mean.”
“I’ve never been inside a police station before.”
“Really?”
“Never.”
“Never been in any trouble at all, huh? Perfect citizen?”
“I do my best.”
“Tell me about Alyssa Tepper.”
I took another sip of the coffee. “I’m not gonna kill a girl in my own apartment, then call the police to report it.”
“You’re on the road for, what, two-thirds of the month? Everyone’s got needs. Did she cheat on you? Did she catch you cheating on her? Tempers flare, emotions take over, bad things happen. I’ve seen it before, Michael, more times than I can count. You can be straight with me.”
“I’ve told you the truth from the beginning.”
Dobbs head tilted to the side. “Have you?”
“Yes.”
“You told me your name is Michael Kepler. Since we’re being honest with each other, why don’t you start by telling me your real name.”
Chapter Nine
Michael
That is my real name.”
“Your prints came back as belonging to Michael Fitzgerald,” Dobbs said. “You’re in the system because of your commercial license.”
“I’m adopted. Fitzgerald is their name, not mine. I was born Michael Kepler.”
“Legally, your name is Michael Fitzgerald.”
“Well, that’s not me. Never has been.”
“You’re not fond of your parents, are you?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Dobbs shrugged. “I looked them up when your prints came back. The Fitzgeralds are well known back east, a family of considerable resources. Both shrinks, right? I found their names on dozens of websites. Academic stuff, mostly. Over my head, for sure. Well respected in their fields, tenured professors at Cornell, your alma mater.” He lowered his eyes. “Sorry to hear about your father. Aneurysm, right?”
“Adoptive father.”
Dobbs twisted his coffee cup again. “They’re a family of considerable resources.”
“You said that already.”
Dobbs curled his fingers around the edge of the table. “I suppose that’s why you called your sister first? Give her a chance to run some interference?”
I looked at him, puzzled. “I’m not sure what—”
Two knocks at the door. Swift. Hard.
The door swung open.
Detective Wilkins came in, followed by a heavyset man wearing a charcoal-gray suit so perfectly fitted that the tailor might well have come marching in behind him holding a needle and thread. The man’s salt-and-pepper hair was slicked back, appropriate for an evening out, not walking into a police interview room at four in the morning. His sharp eyes held the wisdom of a man in his sixties, but his face and his even sharper, beak-like nose belonged to a much younger man, late forties at the most. He carried a slim leather briefcase, which he set in the middle of the table between me and Dobbs. He turned his gaze first on the detective, then on me.