CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The afternoon sun was shining directly on the glass high-rise where James Thornton lived. The deep window tint softened what would otherwise be a dangerously hot glow into a dull orange-yellow gleam, but it was still enough that even through her sunglasses, Kate had to squint to see.
“He doesn’t seem to have suffered too much in the divorce,” Marcus remarked. “Places like this go two k for a studio and three for a one-bedroom.”
“Depends on what he owned before this, I guess,” Kate said. “If he downgraded from a spread on Fisher Island like the Carltons had, this is abject poverty.”
“Fair enough.”
They entered the lobby, which was laid out like a four-star hotel.
Polished granite tile reflected light from an actual crystal chandelier, though the light was provided by over thirty LED bulbs rather than candles.
There was an actual concierge desk with attendants dressed in sharp suits and plastic smiles.
Those smiles faltered when Kate flashed her ID and informed them they needed access to the building to talk to James Thornton.
The attendants shared an uncertain glance. One of them, a woman of around thirty with a supermodel’s body and an actress’s face, said, “May I ask what this is about?”
“You may, but we’re not going to tell you,” Kate said. “It’s an active investigation. I’m not at liberty to share details.”
“Well… I’m not sure if we can let you in.”
“You can verify our IDs,” Marcus said. “And when our IDs come back valid, you can understand that the law requires you to let us in.”
The attendants shared another glance. The other attendant, a man about ten years younger, whispered something to the first attendant who sighed and reluctantly said, “Okay. I’ll give you a visitor’s pass. Mr. Thornton is on the fifth floor, unit 522.”
“Appreciate that,” Marcus said, giving her a smile that made her visibly forget all about how nervous she was.
The two agents took a gleaming brass elevator to the fifth floor, a journey completed silently enough that Kate was only aware of it by the changing numbers on the LED screen above the door.
What was it about wealthy people that they wanted everything bright and bold and garish but at the same time utterly noiseless?
The garishness mellowed considerably when they stepped onto the fifth floor. Here, the greatest nod to the luxury of these apartments was the thick velvet carpet that nearly swallowed Kate’s feet.
“Jesus, people like shit like this?” Marcus asked.
Kate's first thought was to ask how Cheryl felt about thick carpet. Her second thought was to marvel that, at her age, she was still capable of such great stupidity. But at least she didn't ask the question out loud.
522 was a corner unit. Marcus informed Kate that such units were usually larger and pricier than ordinary units. Apparently, he was fixated on the fact that James shouldn’t complain about his living situation. Kate suspected other things frustrated him about his divorce.
Marcus knocked on the door. Heavy footsteps shuffled to the door, and a moment later, it opened to reveal a tall, lanky man with veiny arm muscles and an oddly stretched appearance to his neck that suggested he had recently lost considerable weight.
He glowered down at the two agents. “Yeah?”
“James Thornton?” Marcus asked, giving the guy a sheepish hey, buddy smile.
"Who are you?" the stranger demanded.
“I’m Special Agent Marcus Reid,” Marcus said. “This is my partner, Special Agent Kate Valentine.”
“FBI?”
“Yes, sir.”
He blinked. “What the hell do you want?”
“If you’re James Thornton, we want to talk to you.”
“I’m James Thornton. What if I don’t want to talk to you?”
“Well, that might be a problem,” Kate said. “Because we have a record of an assault you committed on Dr. Patricia Hammond. Now she’s dead, along with Richard and Vanessa Carlton, with whom we hear you also had a past.”
James stared at them blankly. “What? What the hell… Get out of my apartment.”
He started to close the door. Marcus brought a hand up and stopped it. “As my partner said,” he replied, still wearing his harmless just-a-guy smile. “We need to talk to you. To be clear, you’re a suspect in these three murders, and—”
James stepped forward. “You want to take your hand off my door, or do you want me to take it off of you?”
Marcus still smiled, but it was no longer a just-a-guy smile.
His eyes hardened, and for one of only a handful of times since Kate had known him, she saw the violence of the Navy SEAL he used to be.
He wouldn’t start this fight, but he would finish it if he had to.
“That would be a very unfortunate decision, Mr. Thornton.”
Thornton, to his credit, seemed to realize that, especially when Kate put her hands on her hips, thus opening her jacket and revealing her service weapon.
He swallowed and said, “Fine. This is bullshit, but you can talk to me. You try to arrest me for shit I didn’t do, and we’re gonna have a problem. ”
He stomped into the apartment. Marcus shared a look with Kate, and the two agents followed him.
Marcus’s guess turned out to be correct. Kate hadn’t seen the other apartments in the building, so she couldn’t be sure how this one compared, but this was definitely not what she would consider living on limited means.
Two walls forming the exterior corner of the apartment were glass floor to ceiling and afforded a breathtaking view of Biscayne Bay and downtown. The floor was the same granite tile as the lobby, and the furniture was all real leather and oiled hardwood. James definitely still had money.
“You want to know why I hated that bitch?” James said, not offering a seat or a drink to his guests. “She ruined my fucking marriage.”
“You’re talking about Dr. Patricia Hammond?” Kate asked.
“Yeah, I’m talking about her.”
He opened his fridge. Marcus crossed his arms, surreptitiously grasping the butt of his service weapon just in case James was planning a surprise for them.
James closed the fridge, holding a beer. Kate had a feeling it wasn’t his first of the day. He popped it on the edge of the kitchen counter and didn’t seem to care that a generous amount spilled on the floor. “She said we should have an open relationship. You know what that is?”
“Why don’t you tell us what she told you?” Kate prompted.
He was emotional and barely in control. It was a touchy game, but if he lost enough control, he might blurt out a confession.
“It’s when you sleep with other people.” He laughed and took a swig. “Bullshit. I can’t believe I fell for it.”
“How did Janice feel about this arrangement?” Marcus asked. He was back to a gentle look, but one of compassion. Hey guy, I get it rather than just a guy.
James scoffed. “At first, she loved the idea. She thought she was going to flaunt a bunch of men in front of me and punish me for not being a good husband or whatever. Turned out she couldn’t get a date, and I had no trouble finding dates.”
“Did that surprise you?” Kate asked.
“Hell yeah, it surprised me. Have you seen my wife? She’s beautiful.”
Kate noted that he still referred to her as his wife despite the fact that they were divorced. She noted also, the way his chest swelled when he showed her a picture of Janice on his phone.
Janice was not a bad-looking woman. She had a nice smile and kind eyes.
That was about all that was going for her, though.
The rest of her screamed plain. Kate didn’t feel wonderful thinking that way, but she could understand how it might have been difficult for Janice to sleep around while James, heavier in the photo but somehow better looking since he didn’t have the scrawny folds of flesh or the stringy muscles that made him look like a recent coke addict, had no trouble finding partners.
James Thornton really loved his wife.
“I just wanted her to be happy,” he said. “I thought… I mean when I slept around a little, I thought that maybe she’d realize we were better together. I don’t know why I thought that. I mean, it’s stupid, right?”
“You were desperate,” Marcus said, “and Dr. Hammond took advantage of you.”
“She did,” James agreed. “You know what she said when I called her out for ruining our marriage?”
Kate did, but she wanted to hear James say it. “What?”
“She said I was better off without her. Better off without my wife. The woman I loved more than anyone on Earth. The woman I…” He closed his eyes and squeezed his hands shut, taking steady breaths. “I was so mad at her.”
“Tell us what happened, James,” Kate said softly. “Tell us about last night.”
James laughed hollowly. “I was on a flight back home from Bali. I was there all last week for a conference. I’m a regional vice president for General Electric.”
Kate had to bite her lip to keep from showing her frustration. “Can you confirm that?”
“Sure. I can show you my boarding pass and my luggage tags. I keep those for expense reports. No one ever checks executives, but I keep them anyway. I like to be honest.”
The calm, subdued man who walked to his bedroom to get proof of his absence during the murders was very different from the belligerent man who had nearly fought Marcus a few minutes ago.
He returned from the bedroom with slumped shoulders and a face that looked a decade older than the forty-six listed in his file at Dr. Hammond’s office.
Marcus took pictures of the boarding passes and tags and said, “Do you mind if I call the airlines to verify this?”
“Go ahead,” James said. Marcus stepped away to do that, and he looked at Kate. “I’m not a murderer. I was angry, and I got into it with Dr. Hammond a little bit, but I wouldn’t have killed her. That wouldn’t have changed anything for me. It was already too late.”
He laughed and sank into a couch, staring past Kate with eyes filled with disgust at himself.
“I’ll never forget the way she looked. I’d just had sex with a coworker of mine, another vice president from a different division.
She’d been flirting with me for a while, and when Janice and I agreed to give this a shot, I figured she’d be the easiest one to…
you know. So, I hooked up with her and came home all excited to tell Janice.
I…” He laughed again and rubbed a hand over his face.
“I actually thought she’d be happy. Can you believe that?
I actually thought she’d be happy to hear that I was doing what we agreed.
I thought it would be something else we could share with each other.
” He shook his head. “I’ll never forget seeing the light die in her eyes. ”
He met Kate’s eyes. “Don’t ever cheat on anyone. It’s not worth it. Even if you think you don’t love them anymore. Even if you think they don’t love you. It never works out the way you think it will.”
From across the room, Kate saw Marcus glance at Thornton, then at Kate. She saw guilt fill his eyes and felt her heart twist.
She had nothing to say. She just looked through James’s window-wall as a cruise ship ponderously left its mooring and pointed its way south toward some exotic Caribbean destination.
Marcus came to her a moment later, the dejected look in his eyes telling her the alibi was valid before his words could.
James wasn’t their killer. Just another victim of a philosophy that treated marriage vows as optional.
Kate’s stomach slid a little when she realized she could sympathize with the killer’s point. Adultery was not a victimless crime. As often as not, it hurt the perpetrator as much as it hurt the spouse scorned.
She could sympathize with the killer’s point but not their actions. Patricia Hammond might have been a poor therapist, but she didn’t deserve the garish way she died. No one did.
And her killer was still out there, looking for the next person fated to lose their offending parts and their life so the killer could save their soul.