Page 34 of Girl, Empty (Ella Dark #27)
Ella was mid-surreal dream; the sort of dream that came with uncomfortable sleep, when a hand landed on her shoulder.
‘Dark! You promised you wouldn’t do this again!’
She jerked back to life with a sound that was no doubt embarrassing, looked around, and suffered that brief window of disorientation when your surroundings, no matter how familiar, made no sense.
‘Huh? What did I promise I wouldn’t do again?’
‘Fall asleep in the office. You’re going to be in a wheelchair at 30.’
‘I’m already past 30.’
‘Then you’re old enough to know better. Happy Martin Luther King Day.’
‘Is that today? What time is it?
‘Nine. I’m late. What have you been doing all night?’
Ella shook off the cobwebs and thought back to last night. Most of it was a blur, and not in the hangover kind of way. ‘I found a few things. What about you?’
‘Me and Riggs went through the CCTV from Blackglass. We saw the whole ordeal with Amanda and Noah, but there were no camera blackouts. You know what that means?’
‘That the killer wasn’t in the building. He orchestrated the whole thing from afar.’
‘Yeah. No idea how he pulled it off, unless he just got lucky.’
‘If he can hack a bank vault, he can hack a camera feed. He probably watched the whole thing through that.’
‘Must be. And Riggs checked Amanda’s security app. It’s real. He didn’t put a fake on there like he did with Grayson, so he’s got full access to Amanda’s cell.’
‘Has she turned it off?’
‘We’ve got it in a Faraday cage. Got two officers outside her house too, just in case our guy tries to find her again.’
‘He won’t,’ Ella said. ‘If he can’t kill her in an impossible location, he won’t even try at all.’
‘Let’s hope. What about you? Find anything?’
Ella rubbed her neck and gestured towards her laptop, which was now just a black screen. ‘I… umm… think I found our unsub.’
Ripley cocked an eyebrow, looking unamused. Not the reaction Ella expected. ‘Excuse me?’
‘Yeah. Well, not our unsub himself, but I found his name.’
‘And you didn’t think to tell me this when I walked through the door?’
‘I was asleep, and it’s not the breakthrough it sounds like.’ Ella stood up, stretched her limbs. Her scalp was dry, mouth tasted like crap and her neck seemed to be fused into one position. Maybe Ripley was right about not sleeping at her desk.
‘So, what’s the deal?’
‘I contacted Alpine Cleaning Services. Remember, I told you I’d seen their name at every scene?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I asked the woman if any of their cleaners had done jobs at all three buildings, and there were two guys. One was dead, one was this kid named Zane Corvidale. Weirdly, there was no mention of Zane on the woman’s system. Like he’d erased himself off there.’
‘What? So how did she know his name in the first place?’
‘She had a handwritten log book. Look.’ Ella picked up Janice’s notes and passed them to Ripley. ‘There. Zane Corvidale. Worked all three buildings in April and March last year.’
‘Yes!’ Ripley slapped the book in triumph. ‘This is perfect. This must be our guy. Thank God for people who don't trust computers.’
‘Hold on. It’s not as simple as that, because Zane Corvidale doesn’t exist in any system. I found two guys with that name in the world. One lives in South Africa, the other in New Zealand. Our guy’s good, but he can’t kill from five continents away.’
‘True. But if we know he’s been at the buildings, then we-’
‘Way ahead of you. I called Terrence, Mark and Amanda, and they hooked me up with CCTV footage from their buildings. I went through all of them, camera by camera, and cross-referenced the footage with the times in Janice’s log book. And guess what.’
‘You found him?’
Ella nodded. ‘I found his face. The same guy. Over and over.’
‘You beautiful woman. I could kiss you.’
‘Hold it, we’re not done. Then I took all the clear photos of his face and ran it through the NGI-IPS. I was still waiting for results by the time I passed out.’
Ripley nudged Ella’s laptop. ‘You have access to NGI-IPS?’
‘No, but Roadrunner does. And he was working late last night.’
‘Who’s Roadrunner?’
‘Old pal from Intelligence. The good kind of nerd.’
‘Perfect. Did anything flag up?’
‘That’s the million dollar question.’ Ella hammered her space bar and kicked her laptop out of standby mode. When the screen glowed, it showed one result.
‘You got a hit.’
Ella's stomach did that thing where it tried to crawl up into her throat.
One hit out of millions of faces. Either the universe had just thrown her a bone, or it was about to kick her in the teeth.
'Please be good. Please be useful, please don't be some random schmuck from England who just happens to have the same cheekbones. '
‘Just click it, Dark. You’re killing me here.’
Ella clicked.
The page crawled to life, then revealed a scanned newspaper clipping that looked like it had been photocopied a hundred times before someone bothered to digitize it. The Indianapolis Star, March 15, 2010. The headline read:
BUSINESSMAN DIES IN LOCKED OFFICE; FAMILY QUESTIONS CIRCUMSTANCES.
‘Whoa, Mia, you reading this?’
By Sarah Mitchell, Staff Reporter.
An insurance investigator was found dead in his locked office Monday morning, prompting questions from family members who dispute the medical examiner's preliminary finding of natural causes.
Dennis Roth, 49, was discovered by cleaning staff at 7:30 AM slumped over his desk.
The office door was locked from the outside, and Roth's keycard was still in his wallet.
Security footage shows him entering the building at 6:15 PM Sunday evening.
No other individuals were recorded entering or leaving his office.
Dr. Patricia Williams, deputy medical examiner, cited cardiac arrest as the preliminary cause of death, noting Roth's history of high blood pressure and recent weight gain.
Roth’s company, whose name has been withheld pending the ongoing investigation, declined to comment. Roth is survived by his wife, Susan, 49, and son, Calvin, 14.
Beside the article was a black-and-white photograph: Susan Roth in a dark blazer, and a teenage boy.
‘Calvin Roth,’ said Ripley. ‘Is that our cleaning boy?’
Ella’s hands were shaking so badly she could barely get a grip on her mouse. She mimimized the NGI-IPS, found a screen grab of CCTV footage from Blackglass – the clearest picture she had – and compared the two.
Fifteen years had filled out his features, but the essential architecture remained identical.
‘Holy shit,’ Ripley breathed. ‘That's him.’
Ella re-read the article again. A father dead in a locked office, just like Michael Rankin. A worker dead in a locked office, just like Thomas Grayson and Noah Redmond. ‘He’s recreating his father’s murder. Or he’s trying to prove his dad could have been killed.’
‘It’s just taken him fifteen years to figure it out. Calvin Roth. Check the name on the system.’
‘On it.’ Ella typed his name into the State PD records. Hit enter. Waited.
No results.
‘Nothing. Dammit to hell.’
‘Try his mom’s name,’ said Ripley. ‘Susan Roth. She’d be what, 64 now?’
Next attempt. Susan Roth.
Searching.
One result.
Roth, Susan. DOB: 01/05/1960.
‘Got her.’ Ella clicked into the file and found one report from 2010. It was an interview statement about the death of her husband, and it was noticeably short.
Ripley said, ‘Didn’t seem to be too bothered about her dead husband, did she?’
‘Maybe she was in shock. Or maybe she was hiding something.’
‘She got an address listed.’
Ella saw two addresses in her history, and the first one brought that bubbling frustration back to the surface. Windmere Nursing Home For Dementia Sufferers.
‘Ugh, she’s in a care home.’
Ripley sighed and backed herself against the wall. ‘For God’s sake. And if she’s got dementia, chances are she’s not going to help us much.’
‘Nope.’
‘What about her previous address?’
’346 Ashforth Lane, Greystone, IN. Where’s that?’
Ripley checked on her cell. ‘God, it’s like 80 miles away. And what are the odds Calvin Roth still lives there?’
‘Wouldn’t there be a record? You can’t own a home without some kind of documentation.’
‘Are there any records with this guy? But I don’t know. It’s a long journey, but… wait a second.’ Ripley was still scrolling. ‘I just searched the address online. That place hasn’t changed hands since the eighties.’
Ella’s mind whirred. Something about this seemed odd. ‘Maybe they abandoned it when Susan got put in a nursing home.’
‘But even so, ownership would go to her son, and the official docs would say that.’
‘Then I gotta go there,’ Ella said. ‘Do we have showers here?’
‘Every cop shop has showers.’
‘Give me ten, then I’ll be ready. Are you coming?’
‘We can’t both go, Dark. It’s 80 miles away. It’ll be late afternoon by the time you get back, and we can’t both be gone that long. I’ve still got to help process the official stuff from last night, and what if something major happens while you’re out of the city?’
‘You’re right. Then I’m going alone. Search for anything relating to Calvin Roth if you get five minutes, and I’ll keep you updated from the road.’