It wasn't even 7:30 a.m., and Nikki and Mike had been at their desks for less than ten minutes when her landline rang. The doorman told her Patrick Dunin wanted to speak to her and Mike.
Five minutes later, the photographer entered the bullpen. He was holding a gray folder in his hands.
"Mr. Dunin," Mike greeted him and showed Dunin the way to the conference room, followed by Nikki. 'What can we do for you?'
Dunin sat on the chair Mike offered him and looked at the two detectives. "Last night, I reviewed my database again with different search terms. I enter these keywords for the entire series. After you left, I realized there may be photos in which other things were more important to me than Harry or Miriam Labo. Then their names don't appear." He licked his lips and placed both hands on the folder. "I searched for various events where the two might have participated. And I found quite a few. Most of them show similar situations to the photos you already know, but there are two pictures of a fundraising gala from three years ago that you should take a look at." He pointed to the folder lying between him and the detectives.
Mike grabbed it, opened it, and exclaimed, "Okay!"
Nikki looked over his shoulder. In the next moment, she knew what her husband meant.
In the photo on top, the journalist and actress sit at a table again. Unlike the other photo they already knew, Upton's hand is on Miriam Labo's thigh, while he is apparently stroking the back of her neck with the other hand. The scene in the second photograph is even more explicit. The two of them are just inches apart, and it looks as though they are about to kiss.
"Wow," Nikki murmured, glancing at the photographer. 'That's pretty explicit.' She sat down at the conference table. "Thank you for coming all the way out here for this. But tell me, why go to all this trouble?"
Dunin hesitated for a moment. "There are two reasons. First, I hope my name will appear if these photos help clarify what happened to Miriam Labo. And second... Well, I knew Miriam, and to this day, I can't believe she just disappeared voluntarily."
"How well did you know her?" Mike finished his question.
Dunin looked at him openly. "Friendly. And not so well that she would have confided in me. But I am still sure she was unhappy a few weeks before disappearing. She seemed as if something was bothering her. I could tell by looking at her. Then she got an offer to be in a movie. A role. Her dream. That boosted her, and she was almost as carefree as before. And then she disappeared." Nikki could see from the man that he was still struggling with it. "Something must have happened to her, I'm sure of it. There was nothing I could do back then, but if I can help you find out what happened to her now, I'll be happy to spend a few hours at the computer."
"Yes, I understand that," Mike said quietly, glancing briefly at his wife, who had been wholly focused on Dunin. 'Thank you very much. Detective O'Laighin will accompany you to the elevator.'
When Nikki returned, Mike held one of the new pictures and looked closely at it.
"I'll call Upton then." She pulled her smartphone out of her pocket without waiting for Mike's reply. She searched for the last connection with the journalist and pressed redial.
"Things are starting to get a little uncomfortable for Harry Upton," Mike remarked while Nikki listened to the dial tone. "For my taste, he has lied to us at least once too often."
Nikki was about to answer when Upton's wife answered. "Veronica O'Laighin here. Good morning, Mrs. Boutroux. Could I speak to your husband, please?"
"No," Boutroux replied, pausing. 'Harry's not here. He's at the office.'
That monotonous, emotionless voice...
"He's working again?"
"What else would he be doing there?"
"Yes, well, thank you. Goodbye."
When Nikki put the cell phone away, Mike had already gotten up. "Let's go. I can't wait to hear what story he will tell us now."
xxx
They registered with Peter Carducci and went to his office first. Nikki introduced herself and then her husband since they only knew each other from a phone call. "We would like to talk to Harry Upton," she continued. "As we learned from his wife, he is working again."
"Yes, he is. Please, sit down." Carducci gestured to two chairs at an angle in front of his desk. 'That's him. He always works where it's most helpful to him. Wait, I'll get him for you.' He was about to reach for the telephone, but Nikki held up her hand. "No, that's all right. We'll go to him if you don't mind. Where is he working?"
While Carducci was explaining the way to her, she noticed out of the corner of her eye that Mike was looking at her questioningly.
They had to go through a corridor that led them to the open-plan office, behind which Upton's single office was located, separated by a glass wall.
"What's the point of this?" Mike wanted to know while they were walking along the narrow hallway. "Why did you want to go to Upton? We could have sent Carducci."
"I wanted to see what his office looked like."
When they entered the large room, where about twenty people were sitting at desks or hurrying back and forth, they spotted Upton immediately. He was holding a cup at a water cooler right next to the entrance.
"Good morning, Mr. Upton," Mike greeted him, causing Upton to jump so hard that he spilled some of the water.
"Oh, you... You startled me."
Mike pursed his lips and nodded slowly. "Yes, I know I do that sometimes. We'd like to have another talk with you. Shall we go to your office?"
Upton looked at the frosted glass walls on the opposite side as if he had to ensure his office was there. "Yes, of course, please."
As they walked between the desks, Nikki watched Upton's colleagues. She didn't miss the glances some female employees threw at Upton. She thought she could see more than just curiosity in their eyes.
Upton, on the other hand, stared stubbornly ahead. He was putting on an act; that much was clear to Nikki. And the picture she had gradually formed of Harry Upton became more complete.
Once the three of them had reached the office and the door was closed, Mike got straight to the point.
He placed the two new pictures on Upton's desk and looked the journalist straight in the eye. "What can you tell us about this?"
Upton took only a quick glance at them, and then he let himself fall back into his chair with a snort. "I should have known I couldn't keep it a secret forever. Yes, I admit it, we... liked each other."
Define 'we liked each other,'" Nikki prompted him, hearing the slightly aggressive undertone in her voice.
The journalist looked first at Mike, then at Nikki. "We had a relationship."
The bang Mike hit the desk with made Nikki and the journalist jump. "Damn it, I've slowly had enough of your lies. What do you think we're doing here? Playing 'Cheat Max'?
"Why didn't you come clean earlier?" Nikki asked, much calmer, for which Upton thanked her with a grateful look.
"I know it was a mistake, but... my God, I... there was blood all over me. Miriam's blood. If I admitted that I had a relationship with her, I'd be even more of a suspect than I already was."
"Do you seriously think we won't find out?"
"Yes." It sounded honest. "No one else found out while we were together either. We were very careful because Miriam's boyfriend was just as jealous as my wife. We only communicated via messaging services like WhatsApp or Viber, so nothing would appear on the phone bills. How could I know that these pictures exist? Did you get them from Patrick Dunin?"
She nodded slowly. "Yes. Do you know each other?"
"We worked together once."
"And? Do you like each other?"
"Yeah, I guess. He's all right."
Mike took a deep breath and sat on a narrow stool against the wall. "Mr. Upton, are you aware that you're about to be arrested on suspicion of murder because of your lies?"
Upton bowed his head. After silence, he said, "I guess we're done now. Or are you really going to arrest me?"
"Yes, we're done for now. But stay in touch until further notice. And pray that we don't come across any more of your lies."
"So?" Mike asked as they were on their way out. "What do you think?"
"I don't know. I sensed from the beginning that he was hiding something, but I still don't think he killed that woman."
"And why not?"
"It just doesn't fit."
"Whatever you mean by that, I now think it's very possible that he did it. I think he didn't just screw us over because of his relationship with Miriam Labo."
They passed a black Porsche 911 Cabriolet in the parking lot with the letter combination HU on the license plate.
Harry Upton. I'd love to see inside your head for a minute. What is your role in this game?
xxx
Nikki was woken from a dreamless sleep by a cell phone ringing. Still half dazed, she fumbled for the smartphone on her bedside table and saw that the display showed 4:17 a.m.
She groaned and looked to her left. "Mike?"
Mike hung his head and took a deep breath. "Time to get up, honey. We have a body."
She was wide awake instantly and swung her legs out of bed. "Miriam Labo?"
He threw back his head and stretched his back. "I don't know, but it's a woman, and she must have been badly beaten. If it is Miriam Labo, the perpetrator took her damn far away. She's lying in some bushes by the Charles River." He looked over his shoulder with a frown and clenched his teeth so hard that the muscles in his jaw were clearly visible even in the dim light of the bedside lamp.
"Give me ten minutes," she said, quickly jumping into the shower and then into jeans, a T-shirt, and sneakers. Precisely ten minutes later, she grabbed her jacket, and they left the house. All the while, her thoughts revolved around Miriam Labo. She was sure that it was the actress whose body was lying on the banks of the Charles River. Moreover, she hoped so because there was almost no doubt that Miriam Labo was dead.
xxx
They couldn't tell whether it was Miriam Labo when they approached the body. The murderer had put a garbage bag over the naked and horribly mutilated woman's body and tied it around her neck before placing her between the bushes behind a wooden bench. Garbage lay around the body as if it had been draped for decoration.
"He literally threw her away," said Nikki, looking at the three bulging garbage bags lying around the dead woman. One of them had burst open, and the refuse spilled out of it like innards from a ruptured abdominal cavity.
Nikki took a step and squatted down next to the body. The body was covered with stab and cut wounds, some of which were so deep that the flesh was gaping. The injuries were most dense around the mons pubis and on the breasts, which had been mutilated by the cutting out of the nipples."
"What sick assholes there are," murmured Mike, who was standing diagonally behind his wife.
Nikki looked up at him and then at a forensics technician, pointing to the head stuck in the garbage bag. 'Can I?' The man nodded and continued to take pictures of the surroundings.
The knot of the plastic tape with which the garbage bag was tied almost became loose. When Nikki looked at the dead woman's pale face seconds later, her stomach clenched, and she involuntarily let out a muffled sound.
It wasn't Miriam Labo, whose broken eyes seemed to stare milky into infinity. But she knew the woman because she had talked to her two days earlier. She was a journalist. And a colleague of Harry Upton.
"What's wrong?" Mike asked, obviously surprised by Nikki's reaction.
Nikki sat up straight and licked her lips. "Don't you recognize her?"
His eyes fixed on her face, and he seemed to think hard before shaking his head. "No, come on, tell me."
"She's one of Harry Upton's colleagues. I spoke to her in the newsroom two days ago. Wait—she pulled out her notebook and leafed through it. When she found the page with her notes from the newsroom, she scanned the lines. "There. I remember that's her. Upton was known for flirting, but that didn't bother her. He was a very professional colleague, and she liked working with him. Her name is Leila Decker."
Mike looked at the woman again. "Shit. Two things come to mind: Upton and the bank thing. Maybe she helped him with the story?"
Nikki shrugged. "We'll find out. But if it had something to do with Harry Upton's research if someone wanted to silence her... Why do that?" He pointed to the battered body. "Why stab her over and over again and cut the skin off her body?"
Nikki sniffed briefly and frowned. "I don't know. Maybe because the killer is a perverted pig and gets his kicks that way?"
She let her gaze rest on the dead woman for a while longer. She wondered if there would ever come a moment when the sight of a mutilated corpse would no longer make her doubt the theory that humans represented the highest stage of development in evolution.
"Who found her?" she heard Mike ask behind her and turned around.
"The woman over there." The officer in front of him pointed to a chubby woman around sixty leaning against a patrol car about ten yards away, looking distraught. In front of her on the ground sat a small, shaggy dog that Nikki couldn't identify.
While her husband made his way to the woman, Nikki turned to Maggie, who had squatted down next to the body.
"Can you say anything yet?" the detective asked, feeling like one of those TV investigators who acted the way screenwriters imagined detectives would.
Maggie looked up for a second, her forehead furrowed slightly. "Not much yet. At first glance, I see many injuries that couldn't have been fatal. In fact, that applies to almost all of them. I can't assess a few stab wounds. We won't know which injury ultimately caused the death until the autopsy." She let out a sigh and stood up. "But I can say one thing for sure: this woman has suffered an indescribable ordeal. It must have gone on for hours. Death must have been a relief for her."
Nikki gritted her teeth and nodded slowly. "Time of death?"
Maggie looked down at the body again. "A few hours ago. I think it was between ten and twelve at night."
"Shall we go?" Mike approached Nikki from the side. She nodded at her mother and walked towards their unmarked car with her husband.
"The woman found the body while walking her dog," he explained as they took their seats. 'I'm very curious to see what Harry Upton tells us.'
She was. She couldn't figure out the journalist. Which was irritating, but not in a negative way, but in a way that spurred her ambition.