Page 27 of Girl, Empty (Ella Dark #27)

The ride back to the precinct had stripped Alexander Sinclair of whatever confidence he had in his trophy room, and now Ella was admiring his limp form through the one-way glass outside the interrogation room.

‘I’ve never seen you move so fast,’ Ella said. Ripley was standing beside her with an ice pack on her wrist.

‘Because I’ve never moved so fast.’

‘How’s your arm? You didn’t sprain it, did you?’

‘No. I just haven’t used that muscle in a while. Probably shouldn’t have grabbed him so hard.’ She put the ice pack on a table. ‘Don’t tell Edis I slammed his head against the wall, will you?’

‘Sure, but since when did you care what Edis thought?’ If Ella didn’t know better, she’d think that was Ripley was looking sheepish.

‘I don’t want him thinking I broke the rules on his last ever case.’

‘His last ever case is the perfect time to break the rules.’

‘Maybe, but speaking of breaking cases, you ready to get this guy in a cell so we can smash his cabinets up?’

‘You really don’t like this guy, do you?’

Riggs emerged from a nearby office and pressed his nose to the glass. He looked his young self again; unburdened by a serial killer terrorizing the city he swore to protect, because that serial killer was sitting in his precinct. ‘Has he said anything?’

‘He was silent the whole journey back, but we haven’t spoken to him yet.’

‘What? Why not? Smash this son of a bitch open.’

‘Psychological warfare,’ Ripley said. ‘Always let them stew in discomfort for a while. It makes things easier.’

‘Does it?’

Ella said, ‘Yeah. The paranoia will eat away at him. Guilty people know they’re screwed, and the longer they sit alone, the more they convince themselves at confessing might be the only way out. They imagine the worst, like what their family will think when they find out they’re guilty.’

‘And how hard they’re going to get railed in prison.’

‘That too. Did you get someone back to the Morrison crime scene?’

‘Yeah,’ said Riggs. ‘I’ve got a guy heading there now. He’s got pictures of the nameplate and he’s going to see if it matches the others at the company. If it does, we’re golden. Do we have anything else on him?’

Ella watched Sinclair through the window.

He wiped his sweaty hands on his pants, and it took a lot for someone to sweat in an air-conditioned room in January.

He was ripe for interviewing. 'Not physical, but the circumstantial evidence is there.

He's a tech guru and his company has the same security systems as Morrison and First National so he'd be familiar with them. '

‘Come on, Dark. I’m itching to get this done.’

‘We tag-teaming it?’

‘We sure are. And then I’m taking a gas can and paying a visit to his little museum. That’ll be the really fun part.’

Ripley seemed to have developed a taste for wanton destruction in the past 24 hours, and that was fine with Ella.

A destructive partner was preferable to an indifferent one, because destruction meant there was fire in the veins.

Ella had a moment of concern for Alexander Sinclair, because she didn’t see how he could come out of that interrogation room in one piece with Ripley guarding the door.

‘Grab the folder from the office, then let’s go put the screws to him.’

***

The interrogation room was as cold as a morgue, and Alexander Sinclair looked like he belonged in one.

The smug-looking tech lord from his headshot had morphed into a greasy-haired fifty-something who could have passed for a homeless man, and one with a bruise covering half of his forehead.

Ella took a seat opposite him while Ripley opted to stand. She had a folder perched under her arm.

‘Mr. Sinclair. Or can I call you Alexander? Alex?’

‘Mr. Sinclair,’ he said.

‘Alex it is. My name’s Agent Dark, and that woman over there is Agent Ripley. She’s the one who cracked your plasterboard a couple of hours ago.’

‘And you’ll be paying for it,’ Sinclair mumbled.

‘It’s not plasterboard, it’s drywall,’ said Ripley. ‘And we’re not paying for anything. Want to tell us who you are?’

Sinclair sat back and crossed his arms. He aimed for defiance but landed somewhere around pitiable. ‘You know who I am.’

‘The tape recorder doesn’t.’

‘Fine. I’m Alexander Sinclair. I run Sinclair Corp. Anything else you want to know?’

Ella said, ‘Yeah. What does Sinclair Corp do?’

‘We specialize in quantum encryption. Do you know what that is?’

‘No idea.’

‘It helps keep software safe. We work with major tech companies, banks, governments, courts. You name it.’

‘Fascinating. Tell us about the security systems at your workplace.’

Sinclair looked genuinely surprised by the question. ‘What? Why?’

‘Because we’re asking.’

‘Umm… the system is an integrated Sentinel-7 platform.’

Ripley said, ‘What does that mean?’

‘Multi-factor authentication at every access point. Biometric palm-vein scanners tied to a triple-redundant server, retinal pattern matching at all secure-zone thresholds, and geo-fenced RFID keycards that deactivate the second they leave the property.’

‘I wish I hadn’t asked. So you’re pretty familiar with that system, right? You know your way around it?’

‘Not really. I’m not great with that kind of security. I do software, not hardware. Why are you asking this?’

Ella said, ‘Because Morrison & Associates have that same security system. First National Bank, too.’

Sinclair smoothed his pony tail, although it did nothing to alter his appearance. ‘I see. This is about that murder in the news.’

A laugh tore from Ripley’s throat. ‘Why else would we smash your head in and drag you into a police station, Zuckerberg? What did you think this was about?’

‘I thought it was about… the things you were looking at. My collection.’

‘Oh, we got questions about that coming right up, but first tell us where you’ve been the past two nights, say around midnight.’

‘I was at home. Both nights.’

‘Can anyone confirm that?’ asked Ella.

‘No. I live alone. You don’t really think I murdered anyone, do you? That’s madness. I wouldn’t hurt anyone.’

Ella was building up to the finale. You always started small.

The little questions were the bars of the cage, and the last one – the real one – was the lock on the door.

She motioned for Ripley to make with the goods.

Her partner opened her folder and slammed a photograph on the desk.

A wide-shot of the bank vault, punctuated by Thomas Grayson’s dead body, stared up at them.

‘Wouldn’t hurt anyone? This look familiar?’ Ripley snapped.

Sinclair took a closer look. Ella studied his reaction.

His fidgeting had escalated, and now he was rolling his shoulders repetitively.

Sweat had gone from a sheen to actual droplets on his forehead.

His feet were pointed towards the door in the classic flight response, and one hand gripped the table while the other rested on it.

Ella didn’t like that because guilty people usually kept their posture symmetrical.

Sinclair lingered on the photo for a few seconds too long, then when he looked up, his face had gone blank.

‘I don’t know what this is.’

'You sure about that?'

Sinclair wiped his palms on his pants again. 'I'm sure. This is… awful.'

Ripley leaned over the desk. ‘That sounds like fake sympathy to me, Alex.’

‘What do you want me to say? That I’m broken hearted. I don’t know this man. Who is it?’

‘Thomas Grayson. Head of security for First National Bank. Found dead inside the vault.’

Sinclair eyes expanded. ‘In the vault ? How’d he get in there?’

Ella shrugged. ‘Dunno. Next photo please.’

Ripley dropped the next one on the table. This time it was Michael Rankin’s lying face down on his office floor. ‘I’ve got a feeling you’ll recognize this one.’

‘That’s…’ Sinclair leaned in. ‘I don’t know who that is. Should I?’

‘Yes you should, because you’ve got this guy’s nameplate in your little cabinet of curiosities.’

The color drained from Sinclair in a blink, and what bothered Ella was that it was the white of genuine shock. Not the pale of someone who’d been caught lying.

‘Michael Rankin? That’s him?’

‘Yes. Found dead in his office at Morrison & Associates, and something from his office wound up in your house. What do you think about that?’

Sinclair took a panicked breath. He scooped a load of sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand then used that same hand to pull his ponytail tighter.

Ella looked past the grossness of the act to the subtle tells on the suspect’s face.

There was pure emotion tugging the lips downward and narrowing the eyes, but cowardice and confusion shared some overlapping tells.

‘I didn’t know. I mean, I knew a guy named Michael Rankin had died, but I didn’t know it was the guy from Morrison. It’s all a little…’

‘A little what?’ Ella pushed.

‘Complicated, okay? It’s messy. All this… stuff.’

‘We know better than anyone it’s complicated, so you better lay it out for us real simple. Why do you have a dead guy’s nameplate in your house, because that Rankin’s office has been quarantined for two days, so it isn’t like you could slip in there and pick it up.’

Sinclair’s jaw went slack. For a moment he reminded Ella of a fish out of water.

The suspect then swept the room with a paranoid gaze.

He looked to the corner, the door, the one-way mirror, then back to Ella.

He avoided Ripley, probably because he could sense through some primal awareness that she was on the verge of punching him.

‘If I tell you everything, you have to promise me it won’t leave this room.’

Ella and Ripley laughed in stereo. Ripley said, ‘What are we, Egyptian mummies? We don’t keep things under wraps. Whatever you say may be used against you, and you can bet that we’re going to use it against you.’

‘But it could… ruin everything.’

Ripley slapped Ella’s shoulder. ‘Hey Dark, they have the death penalty in Indiana?’

‘They do, and they’re awful generous with it.’