Chapter 13 #2
“I think most fathers would.” Bel fought the urge to check over her shoulder for her dad.
She was thirty-five, and she still shuddered at the idea of bringing home a man her father disapproved of.
She’d seen his response to Eamon during the Christmas break when he’d overheard their argument.
How would her chief-of-police father have reacted if any of his teenage daughters had brought home an adult boyfriend?
“We still don’t have proof these cases are connected, but the age gap could be Erik’s motive for killing Ariella,” Olivia said.
“If they got into a fight, or she saw him with Ondine, maybe Ariella threatened to tell her father the truth. Or she threatened to twist things so that it looked like he groomed her or coerced her. Mr. Triton is a big guy. I can’t imagine he’d take that news well, so Erik panicked and strangled her. ”
“That’s a good point,” Griffin said. “Erik’s age completely changes the narrative around their fake dating setup. Plus, in most cases, the perpetrator is the spouse or partner. Even if he isn’t connected to the murders, we need to bring him in for questioning.”
“Thank you for coming?” Bel shook Erik’s hand as she and Olivia settled across from him in the interview room.
“No problem.” Erik shrugged as if driving to the police station was an act of heroism. “Anything to help you guys with Ariella’s case.”
“This isn’t about Ariella.” Bel leaned forward. She wanted to catch even the slightest facial flinch when she went straight for the kill. “This is about Ondine. How long have you been dating your girlfriend’s best friend?”
“Dating Ondine?” Erik tripped over his words, and Bel could see the wheels in his head churning as he searched for a plausible lie.
“What? Did you fake date her for so long that you decided to kill Ariella to get her out of the way?” she asked. “One teenager wasn’t enough for you? You needed a second freshly legal girl?”
“What?” He leaned back as if he could escape the accusations. “That’s ridiculous.”
“So we didn’t see you making out with Ondine this afternoon?” Olivia asked.
“No… I…”
“You don’t remember?”
“Yes, okay. That was me, but it’s not what you think. I didn’t hurt Ariella. I loved her.”
“You would just very publicly date her best friend days after her murdered body was found,” Bel said.
“You don’t understand,” Erik said. “I missed her so much, and Ondine was the only other person who understood what I was going through. We didn’t mean for this to happen, but we knew Ariella best. Our grief brought us together.”
“What grief?” Bel asked. “We only just learned that Ariella had been killed, yet you’re already all lovey-dovey with her best friend, like you didn’t just receive the worst news.
Why grieve her and move on if there was hope she was still alive…
unless you knew she was dead?” She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back in her chair.
“Or you’re merely so callous that you heard your girlfriend had been choked to death and instantly called Ondine asking for a date. ”
“That’s not what happened.”
“It’s not? So then your girlfriend went missing, and your first thought was to move in on her bestie?”
“No, that’s not what happened!” Erik slammed his palm on the desk, but instead of flinching at the suddenness, the detectives exchanged a knowing look. They were rattling him, and rattled men made mistakes.
“I agree. That isn’t what happened,” Bel said, her tone even.
“I think you moved on to Ondine because you needed a young girlfriend to find your victims. You’re twenty-eight, but dating college girls gives you an excuse to infiltrate their parties.
Drunk teens aren’t reliable witnesses, and between hangovers and drunken hookups, no one would notice girls going missing.
College parties are the perfect hunting grounds for predators. ”
“I am not a killer!” Erik stood so swiftly that his chair teetered dangerously on its rear legs.
“I didn’t hurt Ariella, and Ondine is nineteen.
She’s legal, so you have nothing on me. You can’t arrest me, and I came here voluntarily, so I’m leaving.
This interview is over.” He stormed toward the door, ripping it open so fast that it threatened to fly off its hinges.
“If you want to speak to me again, contact my lawyer.” He slammed the door behind him, the echo reverberating around the small room, and Bel met her partner’s gaze, her eyes asking the questions for her.
“That was a lot of aggression for an innocent man.” Olivia stretched her arms over her head.
“And now he’s lawyered up, so it’ll be difficult getting anything out of him without evidence.” Bel grabbed the door handle and held it open for Gold. “We need to find something concrete that either links him or someone else to Ariella and the mermaids.”
“Maybe Ondine has what we’re looking for.” Olivia gestured to Ariella’s best friend, and the detectives watched the young couple exchange a confused look as they sailed past each other.
“They haven’t had time to practice their stories. Let’s see if we can play them against each other. She was Ariella’s friend first… Ondine, thank you for coming in.” Bel extended a welcoming hand to the teenager. “Come in and take a seat.”
“Am I under arrest?” She sank into the offered chair.
“No, we just have a few questions,” Bel said as they joined her in the interview room.
“About Ariella? I already told you everything I know about her disappearance.”
“No,” Bel said. “Erik.”
“Erik? Why Erik?”
“How long have you two been dating?” Bel asked.
“What?” Ondine blinked at her. “We aren’t…”
“We saw you kissing earlier,” Olivia said. “There’s no use lying about it. So, how long has this been going on?”
“About a month.” Ondine hunched in surrender.
“But I didn’t mean for it to happen. Ariella’s disappearance devastated us, and we leaned on each other for support.
We didn’t set out to kiss. It was just so nice to connect with someone.
I’ve felt so guilty about us, but he sees me.
I know it goes against girl code to date your BFF’s boyfriend, especially when she’s missing, but Erik is kind and understanding. ”
“And older,” Olivia added. “Erik plays off his youthful appearance, but did you know he’s almost a decade your senior?”
“I did, but I’m nineteen.”
“True, but don’t you find it odd that a man who’s almost thirty has dated not one, but two teenage girls?” Bel asked.
“No.” Ondine’s answer came too fast, but Bel saw the truth flicker in her eyes. The oddity had crossed her mind.
“How did Ariella and Erik meet?” she asked.
“At the community college coffee shop. Ariella always said it was fate because they had identical drink orders. He paid since he thought it was a sign, and they started dating almost immediately.”
“What was a man in his late twenties doing on a college campus?” Olivia asked.
“He…” Ondine’s indignance died, and Bel didn’t need her to answer the question. Ondine had no explanation for his presence.
“Did he pursue Ariella, or did she chase him?” Bel asked.
“Oh, he one hundred percent wooed her.” Ondine’s face turned dreamy, a stark contrast to the detectives’ expressions. “It was so romantic. But Mr. Triton would’ve been against their relationship, so Ariella resisted him at first.”
“Understandably,” Olivia said, not bothering to hide her disgust at Erik’s behavior.
“But Erik wouldn’t take no for an answer,” the girl continued, throwing a pinched glare at Gold. “He was sweet and charming, and he won her over.”
“When was this?” Bel asked despite not wanting to hear the response.
“Last year.”
“So Ariella was only eighteen?”
“Yes.”
“Desperate for an eighteen-year-old,” Olivia muttered under her breath as she leaned into Bel’s ear.
“The younger the girlfriend, the longer he can use her. It might raise suspicions if a man approaching thirty rotates through college girls, but one girlfriend for all four years? People would eventually tune him out, making him a normality on campus. No one would question his presence at parties.”
“But then Ariella went missing, and he had to pivot fast,” Bel added. “One month after her disappearance, he has a new college girlfriend, one that people already associate him with. One that won’t raise eyebrows as much as another girl.”
“What are you talking about?” Ondine asked.
“Did Erik ever behave weirdly at parties?” Bel asked. “Did he ever disappear or follow certain girls too closely? Or did he ever visit campus when Ariella wasn’t around?”
“No… I don’t know.”
“The night Ariella went missing. Did you stay with him after the police arrived, or did you get separated as well?”
“Um, no… I mean, yes. We stuck together for a bit but decided to go home when we couldn’t find her.”
“So he could’ve doubled back to kill Ariella?”
“What?” Ondine’s entire body shook. “No! He loved her. He wouldn’t kill her.”
“He loved her, yet he hooked up with you before we learned she was dead,” Olivia said. “Unless he already knew.”
“No, that’s impossible,” Ondine said, but her expression told them it was very much possible.
“We think Erik was using Ariella, and now you, to gain access to college parties so he could stalk his victims,” Bel said. “We wonder if that’s why he dates students despite his age, and we worry Ariella saw him kidnapping his next victim that night. That’s why he killed her.”
“No,” Ondine insisted. “No, he wouldn’t have. He loved her.”
“Like he loves you?” Olivia asked. “Tell me, Ondine. Who pursued whom? You already told us he was relentless in his courtship of Ariella. Was he the same with you? Did he pursue you?”
“We liked each other.”
“Did he pursue you?” Bel repeated.