Page 11 of Passions in Death
“Got it. So shortly after midnight, you went back to crash for thirty.”
“Yeah. Set the alarm on my ’link. I can show you.”
“No need. And when you went into the privacy area?”
“Okay, I was walking by, and I saw the room—not mine, the one a couple up from it—wasn’t locked. See, Crack wants the privacy rooms locked, occupied or not, right? We don’t want anybody sliding in one of them without paying. Or if someone’s using one, the door has to be secured or it’s a violation.”
“But this door wasn’t secured.”
“No. The green light was on—that’s open. So I pushed the door open and—”
“You pushed the door open? It wasn’t closed all the way.”
“I…” Frowning, he rubbed his eyes again. “Um, wait. I was heading down, I saw the green light, and I… Yeah, yeah, I just pushed on the door. It wasn’t all the way closed. I didn’t say that before. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I didn’t think of it. I—”
“Pete.” Eve put a hand on the solid wall of his arm. “Take a breath. You’re doing fine. You pushed open the door.”
“I didn’t tell the other cop that. I didn’t think about it, but yeah. I just gave it a little nudge. And she was… God, God, there was so much blood. I’ve never seen that much blood, not for real.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed.
“And she was just lying there in all the blood. I couldn’t stop staring, then things went sort of gray. I pulled the door closed. I didn’t want anyone to see that. I’m always going to see that, all the blood, and her lying in it. I pulled the door closed, and I went and got Crack.
“I fucked up. I didn’t handle it like I should. I left her lying in all the blood.”
“You handled it exactly right,” Eve corrected.
He gave her a pitifully hopeful look. “I did?”
“If you’d gone in, you’d have compromised the scene, made it harder for us to find who did that to her. You closed the door, and if you hadn’t, maybe someone else would’ve gone in. You got help. You did exactly the right thing.”
He covered his face with his hands. “I kind of knew her. She used to come in a couple times a month. Not lately, not for a while, I guess. But she used to, so I kind of knew her.”
“How long have you worked here, Pete?”
“A few years. Almost three.”
“So you’ve got a sense. Did you notice anybody paying too much attention to her?”
“Not the wrong kind. She—all of them—were really bashing it, so other customers watched some. And some of them got up and joined in. It’s like contagious, you know? The energy. It seemed like the ladies in the group weren’t interested in hooking up tonight, right?”
“Someone mentioned a man named Wade got some of their contacts.”
“Yeah, well, Wade would.”
He said it with his first shaky smile.
“He’s a player,” Crack told her. “Comes in most every week, targets some of the ladies. Goes smooth, not pushy.”
“Got a last name? We need to check all the boxes.”
“I can get it. He always runs a tab.”
“Okay. Pete, when you went back for your break, when you pushed open the door, did you see anyone, or anything that seemed off besides the unsecured door?”
“I didn’t see anything but her. Swear to God. All I could see was her.”
“All right. If you think of anything else, you can contact me. You’ve been very helpful.”
