Chapter 22 #2
“There was one thing, but maybe I’m making a mountain out of a molehill.”
“Let me be the judge,” Michael said and smiled politely, even though he was getting antsy because he had a lot of people to talk to this morning. He spared a quick glance at his watch and hoped she didn’t notice.
“It was on Wednesday, maybe, when I had a drink with them at the pool. I was walking back to my suite to call my daughter—she’s
pregnant with her fifth child, said she’s done but we’ll see!” She laughed lightly. “Anyway, there was a woman lying in the
sun with a book, but she was looking at Matt and Kara.”
“How do you know she was looking at them?”
“Well, I said something like, ‘I just finished that book, it’s wonderful.’ It was a historical novel about nurses in Vietnam.
She said, ‘I haven’t gotten far.’ Yet it appeared she was more than halfway through the book, so I glanced back and saw her
staring at Matt and Kara. I said, ‘Aren’t they cute?’ And she said, ‘It won’t last.’ Then she went back to the book.”
“Would you recognize her?”
“No—I really don’t think so. She looked familiar, but I assumed because she was a guest and I had seen her in passing. She
wore dark sunglasses and a floppy hat.”
“Hair? Skin? Age?”
“She was a little tan, though lathered in sunscreen. I didn’t see her hair, because of the hat. I remember she wore a red
bikini. I wouldn’t know her age, I couldn’t really see her face. Thirty to forty, maybe older? Nice figure, the bikini suited
her.”
“This was Wednesday?”
She nodded. “Mid-afternoon. Just before four. That I know because of the call to my daughter. But certainly that woman has
nothing to do with anything!”
Michael thanked Bridget for her time, though he wasn’t sure that it was time well spent. Still, he called Brian. “Are there
security cameras on the pool area?”
“No,” he said. “Did you find something?”
“A woman, possibly a guest, watching Matt and Kara on Wednesday. Are staff allowed to use resort facilities?”
“Off duty, yes. It’s a perk.”
That got Michael thinking, but he didn’t know if following this thread would get them any closer to finding Matt and Kara.
Sloane accepted the use of Brian’s office and closed the door. Catherine was on another call, so Sloane was taking this interview
solo. She’d coordinated with Agent Sylvia Black out of the Tampa FBI office, and encouraged her to make contact early, as
this was a critical investigation and lives were at stake.
At 7:45 in the morning, Sylvia called Sloane and put her on speaker. “Agent Wagner, I’m here with Mrs. Blanche Richardson
and told her why we wanted to speak with her. She’d like to cooperate, though indicated that she hasn’t seen Mr. Reid since
before she left Los Angeles.”
“Thank you for your time, Mrs. Richardson,” Sloane said. “And I apologize that we came to your door so early.”
“I’m up before six every morning,” she said. “How can I help?”
“Did Agent Black tell you why we are inquiring about Garrett Reid?”
“He was arrested.”
This was when Sloane wished she was there. Seeing facial expressions was important. But she had talked to Sylvia earlier and
the senior agent knew what to look for and would interject if warranted. “Are you surprised?” Sloane asked.
“I don’t know,” the woman said. “Maybe. Why was he arrested?”
“Attempted abduction of two law enforcement officers,” Sloane said.
Mrs. Richardson laughed. “Garrett? That’s—almost unbelievable.”
“He’s a suspect in a homicide investigation,” Sloane said bluntly.
“Murder? Garrett? I—I don’t see that.”
“How would you describe your relationship with him?” Sloane asked.
She was silent for a moment, then said, “You think I’m a fool.”
“No, ma’am.”
“So does my son. He thinks Garrett manipulated me, that he used me. Maybe he did, but I didn’t care because I used him as
well. We had a mutually beneficial relationship based on very selfish common ground.”
“Can you explain further?”
“You want details?”
“If they are relevant.”
“Relevant to what?”
“I need to understand who Garrett is, what motivates him, why he would kill someone he didn’t know.”
“Murder,” Richardson said, her voice full of doubt. “That I have a very hard time believing, Agent Wagner.”
“Who was Garrett Reid when you were involved with him?”
“Attentive. Inventive. Intelligent. I was quite demanding of him in bed, and he was more than willing to learn everything
I had to teach him.” She paused. “I had a good marriage, but it wasn’t sexually satisfying. When my husband passed suddenly,
I was upset because I loved him and he was a good man. But I never had a real orgasm with him.”
Sloane did not need to know this, and was about to interrupt when Richardson continued.
“I tried, but my dear husband didn’t have the same drive I did.
This isn’t something I could explain to my son.
I never strayed in our twenty-seven-year marriage.
Not once. But I told Garrett my fantasies, and he fulfilled them.
I knew he wanted a comfortable place to live, good food to eat, a state-of-the-art gym to work out in, luxuries that I had more than enough to share.
In exchange, he gave me complete and total physical satisfaction and treated me like a queen.
I never harbored any fantasies that he loved me, and I didn’t love him, not like I loved my husband, though I think we both loved the image of us. ”
“How did the relationship end?” Sloane asked.
“My son. Dear boy threatened to kill poor Garrett. Garrett doesn’t like conflict, and even though I told him to ignore Johnny,
he walked away. Well, we had one more amazing night together, and then he left. I harbor no ill feelings. Garrett taught me
as much about myself as I taught him about what makes me—what makes most women—happy. Garrett is not a violent man, Agent
Wagner. If he killed anyone, I’m certain it was an accident.”
She sounded confident, Sloane thought.
“Did Garrett tell you any of his plans after your relationship was over?”
“No. We never saw each other again, though I talked to him a few times on the phone. I heard he had brief affairs with a couple
of other women my age, but they were short-lived. A few weeks, at most.”
“What about his ex-girlfriend, Becca McCarthy?”
“What about her?”
“Did you know her?”
“I’d met her. Garrett and my son went to school together, and I’d met Becca at high school events. They were cute together.”
This conversation was weird for Sloane. She didn’t understand how an intelligent woman could have a relationship with a man
young enough to be her son—who had gone to school with her son—and sound so matter-of-fact about it.
A real-life Mrs. Robinson.
“Why do you care about Becca? As far as I know, she and Garrett split up when they went to different colleges.”
“Like I said, we’re trying to piece together Garrett’s background.”
“Becca was his first love, as it often is with high school sweethearts. They grew up and apart—again, very common. But he
still loved her. He didn’t say it, specifically, but I could tell.”
“So he did talk about her with you.”
“In passing. None of the girls he dated in college held a candle to Becca, he said once.”
“Has he contacted you since he moved to Florida?”
Silence.
Agent Black said, “Mrs. Richardson, did you know Garrett has lived in Florida, north of Daytona Beach, for the last nine months?”
“No,” she said somewhat curtly.
“Does that bother you?” Sloane asked.
“No,” she said. “I left Los Angeles for Florida three months after Garrett and I split. I was angry with my son for interfering
in my life, and I wanted a fresh start. I’m happy here. I have friends, I have a lover, I’m content. I assumed Garrett would
stay in Los Angeles, though I heard that he’d taken a job at a resort in Scottsdale.”
“And in the nearly eight years since you split, you only talked to him on the phone?”
“Correct,” she said. “Maybe two, three times. The last time was the week before I moved. I had already sold the house and
had the furnishings I wanted shipped, so I was staying in a hotel. I called him for a, well, I guess you would say a booty
call. He said he couldn’t, that he had plans he couldn’t break. I told him if he was ever in Florida to look me up. And that
was it.”
She was upset, Sloane realized. Upset that he had been here for months and hadn’t reached out to her.
“If that’s all,” Mrs. Richardson said, “I have brunch plans.”
“Yes, thank you for your time.”
Five minutes later, Sylvia Black called Sloane. “She was upset at the end,” Sylvia said.
“I thought so.”
“She cared about him more than she let on at the beginning of the conversation.”
“You believe her that she hasn’t spoken to him?” Sloane asked.
“Yeah, I do,” Sylvia said. “She was forthcoming. Not at all embarrassed about the affair, though is it an affair if neither
of them are married? Anyway, she didn’t know he lived nearby, and I doubt she lied about not talking to him. Did any of it
help?”
“Maybe,” Sloane said. “It gives us more insight into his personality, but I don’t know if that’s going to help us nail him
for murder.”
The personnel manager at the Scottsdale resort returned Ryder’s call and promised to send Garrett Reid’s application. Ten
minutes later, it arrived via email and Ryder read through it.
He’d listed his parents’ home address as his last address, even though Ryder knew that he hadn’t lived there since he left
for college when he was eighteen. He’d included two references—Blanche Richardson and someone named Jeff Maddox. Ryder made
note of his address and phone number, then ran it through the FBI database. He wasn’t in the database—which didn’t necessarily
mean anything, just that he wasn’t wanted for a federal crime.