Chapter 9
Kate walked back into the office, frustrated and fed up, only for Lilliana to call out to her.
“I got a hold of the one girlfriend who had been going out with this guy—”
“Which guy?”
“Robert Blake. Her name is Lanny, the receptionist at work. She’s taking a few days off, so if you want to talk to her now, I’ve got the address where she’s at.”
Kate beamed and said, “Now, if only you had texted me that, so I could have headed there straightaway.”
“I did,” Lilliana replied, glancing back at her. “I didn’t hear back from you.”
She looked down at her phone and swore. “Yeah, you did. Okay, I had one development in that I had a woman come by John Smith’s apartment who was supposedly his long-term girlfriend, but further discussions have revealed them to be friends with benefits in an on-and-off relationship, depending on whether either one of them had somebody else on the hook. ”
Lilliana just lifted her head, then shook it. “Those kinds rarely make it.”
“In this case, she is pretty upset about the truth of that whole scenario. Plus, she walked in on me while I was there at John’s apartment and didn’t appreciate it.
Also she saw somebody at John’s place Friday night through the window.
She thought it was him, and, when he would not answer, she got quite pissy and took off again.
She then contacted him today supposedly to”—she rolled her eyes—“make up again.”
“Are you thinking she had something to do with John’s murder?”
“No. She was very shocked to hear what had happened to him. I don’t think she could have faked that. But she’s also not a very happy camper as she has finally, through some of our discussions, understood that she’s really just a side piece, and that’s not how she saw their relationship.”
“I suspect we’ll have a lot of women say that same thing,” Lilliana noted.
“I’ll go talk to Lanny now because I’m pretty sure that woman in particular was hanging on to a whole lot more of a crush than a lot of people really let on to. It might have been an office romance, but, for Lanny, I think it was a whole lot more than just a temporary thing.”
“You go talk to her then,” Lilliana said. “I’m still working on the phone calls, helping Rodney with those.”
Rodney lifted a hand. “Yo, I’m here,” he said. “And, yeah, these guys, all three of them, have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of phone calls.”
“So, you’ve checked social media and found all their hookup sites?” Kate asked.
Rodney groaned. “Lots to do here.”
Lilliana concurred. “We’re working on it, but again all three of these guys appeared to have been part of every possible dating site, even just hookups or meetups, that they could get their hands on,” Lilliana explained.
“They weren’t just living a studly life. They were almost … desperate about it.”
“Now that’s interesting,” Kate noted thoughtfully.
“And maybe, maybe that’s how they viewed it.
Maybe they saw life as a short-term thing, and they had to get the best of it and the most gain out of it that they could.
Either way, I will head over and talk to Lanny, one of Robert Blake’s girlfriends, whom Lilliana tracked down.
At least Lanny’s not too far away from here,” she added, as she glanced down at the address that Lilliana had texted her.
As she walked out, she wished she had seen Lilliana’s text earlier. It would have saved her a trip if she had. The traffic was pretty brutal, so she was exhausted and fed up and tired by the time she got to the apartment.
When she walked up and rang to be let in, Lanny answered the buzzer. However, when she found out who it was, she started to bawl.
Kate was having trouble calming her down.
“Either talk to me here or come down to the station,” she finally stated, having enough and saying it forcefully when Lanny refused to respond.
“And if you don’t come willingly,” she added, “I will send a black-and-white to come pick you up, here or at work. So, it’s your choice.
Either let me in now, and we’ll have this conversation in privacy, or you don’t let me in, and we’ll have the conversation down at the station. ”
Lanny hit the buzzer, and Kate walked through the building to her apartment.
When Lanny opened the door, tears rolling down her face, she cried out, “How can you be so mean?”
Kate shot up one eyebrow, putting her game face on because this wouldn’t go over well for Lanny. “Me?” she asked. “I’m dealing with somebody who has been murdered. What’s your excuse?”
At that, Lanny stared at her in shock and then totally panicked, almost to the extent of having a panic attack but needing to be parked in the closest chair regardless. When Kate pulled up a second chair and stared at her, she asked her, “Why don’t you tell me what you know about it?”
“I don’t know anything,” Lanny cried out in shock. “What do you mean?”
“We don’t have an official cause of death yet, but drugs are a very strong possibility.”
Lanny stared at her and then vehemently shook her head. “He didn’t do drugs.”
“And, if he didn’t do drugs, then what on earth is going on?”
“I don’t know,” she wailed. “I mean, if you had told me it was some gym steroid things, then maybe,” she shared, “that would make more sense.”
Kate looked at her. “Robert was a buff gym rat?”
“Yes, yes, of course he was a big buff gym rat. That went along with his whole I’m a big-bad-baddie vibe he had going on,” she explained, a tearful look on her face. “Look. He was a great guy, and I don’t want anybody besmirching his reputation,” she cried out. “He was a good man.”
“I’m not trying to damage Robert’s reputation,” Kate snapped, “but get real. We can’t confirm yet until we get the reports back but if he didn’t administer the drugs to himself, then somebody else did, and I want to know who because it sounds very much as if he died from those drugs.
” As Lanny sat here, shaking, Kate stared at her and asked, “Did you have anything to do with his death?”
In horror, Lanny screamed, “No, no, no, of course not. I would never—”
“Would never what?”
“I would never do that,” Lanny replied. “I can’t stand drugs and won’t have anything to do with them.”
“Right, so what is this all about?”
“I don’t know,” Lanny wailed, staring at her. “You’re asking me for answers, and I don’t—I don’t have any. I know nothing about any drugs.”
Kate just sat back and stared at her. “And you obviously didn’t want the office to know that you were still involved with him.”
Lanny flushed. “How do you know that?” she muttered.
“Because it’s obvious that you were still involved, and the fact that you took time off to be at home to deal with the loss is another good indicator.”
“No, we could just be good friends,” she muttered. “I’m sure a lot of women at the office are about to take some time off.”
Kate studied her for a long moment. “Maybe they are. You should probably tell me exactly which ones, since odds are they’re probably home doing the same thing you are.”
Lanny closed her eyes, her shoulders dropping, then whispered, “There’s at least one other.”
Kate held out her pen and asked, “And who is that?”
“Caroline.”
Kate had not met her among those seen at the office. Kate nodded and motioned for Lanny to continue.
“They weren’t getting along well, and there were definitely some issues at the office.
I don’t know what. I haven’t seen her in the last day or so, at least the day or so before I—I took a couple days off,” she clarified, scrubbing her face.
“I realized that, even though it might be over for me and Robert, it wasn’t over for her, though I didn’t even know about her for the longest time.
And then he—he would just laugh and say it didn’t matter and was none of my business anyway.
But for me, it felt as if it absolutely was. ”
“Of course it did,” Kate replied. “You somehow thought the two of you were exclusive, though I don’t understand how you could, since apparently he wasn’t exclusive with anybody.
From what we’ve been told, he was very upfront about not being tied down and was strict about telling each woman that very thing upfront. ”
Tears welled up in her eyes. “For the oldest excuse ever,” Lanny began, “I thought I could convince him that I was woman enough, and he would stop his catting about.” She waved her hand in the air.
“And yet, at times I seemed to be making inroads. Then, all of a sudden, he wouldn’t be available again for a while.
Then I saw him out with Caroline from the office, and he told me that I better not say anything because that meant his job and my job would be in danger. ”
Lanny took a deep breath. “I am not happy with myself over all this, and it is one hell of a chance to do a full reset, but, in the meantime, it’s just heartbreaking. I thought—”
Kate just waited for Lanny to talk some more. After a long silence, Lanny finally looked at Kate and said, “It was such a shock when we had just found out about Robert, and then suddenly you were there.” Lanny shook her head.
“I didn’t know what to think. I mean, we all knew Kurt’s death was likely a suicide, and that’s what we had been told—a drug overdose. I don’t think it was deliberate though,” she noted. “That would have been a drug overdose of maybe not thinking it through carefully.”
“Did you have a relationship with him too?” Kate asked.
Lanny looked at her in horror. “No, no, I didn’t.”
Kate just waited.
Lanny closed her eyes and muttered, “Honest, I didn’t.” And then she opened her eyes and faced Kate. “But I almost did.”
“And what stopped you?” Kate asked.
“I saw Kurt with Caroline too,” she replied, and then she winced. “Now Caroline’s lost both of them.”
“Yeah, that would … appear to be true,” Kate noted, staring at her. “So, just who is Caroline?”