CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
Jessie toweled off before joining the others.
A mere sixty seconds in the steam room had done a number on her. So while Nettles kept an eye on their suspect in the Elite Spa’s small conference room, which they’d commandeered for the questioning they were about to do, she cleaned up.
Once she was presentable again, she joined Nettles and Susannah, who had just done the same wipe down. Their suspect was wearing a robe provided by the spa. His clothes were in a large plastic bag and would be tested as evidence once they returned to the station.
Without his mask, Jessie got a better sense of him. The man looked to be in his mid-thirties, with brown eyes that matched his hair. He was clean-shaven and had a bland, generic look that she’d label “milquetoast good-looking.”
“Has he said anything?” she asked as she took a seat opposite the man.
“He keeps trying,” Nettles said. “But I told him to wait until you were both back. He’s very antsy, this one.”
Just then, he got a text that made his eyebrows rise. He got up and moved to the corner of the room, his fingers typing the whole time. Jessie was curious as to what that was about, but she had more pressing concerns right now.
She looked man’s ID, which was sitting on the conference room table, then glanced over at Susannah.
“You want to start, or shall I?”
“Considering that I already got way more up close and personal with him than I wanted, why don’t you have a go?”
“All right,” Jessie said, turning her attention to the man in front of her, “Gregory Lambert, is it?”
“Yes. Please, can I talk?” he pleaded. “If you would all just let me explain, then we can move beyond all this.”
“Go ahead,” Jessie said. She had her fair share of questions but anytime a person of interest was willing to talk of their own volition and without a lawyer present after having been read their rights, she was going to let it happen.
“I’m sorry that I ran out of the party like that, but I didn’t know you were with the police,” he said. “I thought that maybe you were private investigators hired by my wife.”
“Why would your wife hire investigators?” Jessie prodded.
“It’s possible that she got suspicious that I was having an affair or something,” he answered, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.
“It sounds like she’d be right,” Jessie noted. “Do you honestly expect us to believe that the only reason you ran out of that party was because your wife might catch you cheating?”
“I mean, kind of, yes,” he said. “That place would be hard to explain to her, you know. It’s not regular run-of-the-mill cheating. It’s an underground sex club. And even though I prefer to watch rather than participate, she’d probably have a hard time with it.”
“I would imagine so,” Jessie agreed.
Lambert put his head in his hands for a moment before looking back up at her.
“Look, can I be straight with you?”
“That’s kind of the whole point of this endeavor, Mr. Lambert,” Jessie said coldly.
“Okay, sure,” he said. “Here’s the thing. I’m on the executive board at my church. I coach a little league team. I guess I just saw my life flash before my eyes, and I got scared that this would come out and ruin everything.”
“How much do you pay for your membership in this club, Mr. Lambert,” she wanted to know.
“$11,000 a month,” he said.
“What do you do that you can afford to shell out that kind of money on a regular basis?”
“I work for a hedge fund,” he said, “and it’s run by a man who is also a board member at my church. So you can see how messed up it would be if this came out.”
“Were you at the party on Saturday night?” Jessie asked.
“No,” he answered quickly. “I was at a fundraiser for the church. Why?”
“And after the fundraiser?” she pressed, ignoring his question.
“We went home because the babysitter could only stay until eleven. I was in bed asleep by midnight. Why are you asking me where I was like I need an alibi for something?”
“Because you might,” Susannah snapped. “Stop asking questions and answer ours, or we’ll call your wife and ask her to pick you up. Is that what you’d like?”
“No,” he said, immediately chastened. “What else do you want to know?”
“Where were you last night?” Jessie asked.
“I was at my office,” he said. “Because of the delayed date for tax filing—were you aware of that?”
“Keep going,” Jessie said, irked. This whole tax thing was really doing some heavy lifting for the alibis of the suspects in this case.
“Okay, well, we always have last-minute issues with clients about how to best appropriate their investments for tax purposes. We’re basically on call until the filing deadline. So I was there until about 1 A.M.”
“Okay,” Susannah interjected, “but the filing deadline isn’t till tomorrow. So how are you able to cut out in the middle of the afternoon today?”
Lambert looked suddenly sheepish.
“I told my boss that one of my kids was sick and that I had to take her to the doctor,” he muttered, barely above a whisper. “I promised that I’d be back this evening.”
“So you were so intent on going to this sex party,” Jessie concluded,” that you lied to your employer about a sick child on one of the most important days of the year for your business?”
Lambert shrugged unceremoniously.
“I’m a sex addict of sorts,” he said. “I get off on watching other people get off. I’m not super proud of how I conduct my life, but I’m not committing any crimes as far as I can tell. But you seem to think I have. So can you please tell me what this is all about?”
Jessie looked over at Susannah. She wasn’t inclined to let the man know anything, but she’d defer to the detective on this one. Apparently, they were in lockstep. Susannah tossed a pen and a notepad on the table in front of him.
“Write down the names of everyone who can confirm your whereabouts at the times we discussed,” she ordered.
“Including my wife?” he asked. “She was in bed with me on Saturday night.”
“What a change of pace that must have been,” Susannah snarled. “Including your wife. You’re under suspicion for something much worse than staring at people having sex, Mr. Lambert. And the more proof you can give us of where you were, the better it will be for you. Maybe not in your marriage, but in terms of your freedom.”
As the man began scribbling, Jessie and Susannah exchanged a glance. Jessie knew her partner was thinking the same thing that she was: this guy might be a scumbag and a hypocrite, but he didn’t feel right for these murders. If they were right, then this whole undercover operation might have been for naught.
Jessie’s fear was further exacerbated by Jim Nettles, who had continued to furiously text during the entire interrogation. He looked up at her now.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Apparently the sudden departures by you two and Mr. Lambert here caused a bit of a panic at the sex party. It seems that folks there thought the event was about to be raided, so everyone bailed. The whole club has cleared out, and most folks are either currently in town cars or about to be.”
Jessie sighed.
“Including potentially, our murderer,” she groaned.
Gregory Lambert’s head shot up. His expression was a mixture of shock and horror.
“Did you say murderer?” he exclaimed in horror. “You thought I killed someone?”