CHAPTER NINETEEN
Jessie cursed silently. Somehow, that stunning detail had gotten past them.
“What’s Amanda’s maiden name?” she asked.
“Black.”
“So your wife kept in touch with them?” she asked.
“Yes, some,” he said, getting agitated. “Please, you can’t tell me that two people I know were murdered and then just expect me to answer a bunch of questions without knowing what happened. Were they out together somewhere?”
Ryan looked over at Jessie. She could tell that he thought they had to come clean at this point. If Krantz was innocent, then he wasn’t going to be any help to them if he was kept in the dark. And if he did this, maybe he’d say something incriminating. She nodded that she was okay with it.
“They were both strangled in their homes,” Ryan told him. “Diana Hartwell was killed last night. Caroline Sheffield, the night before.”
“Oh my god,” Krantz said, pausing for several seconds before adding, “Amanda is going to be devastated.”
“We’ll want to talk to her as well,” Jessie said. “We’ll try to be sensitive when we inform her.”
“More than you were with me?” he shot back as he stared at Ryan, showing real anger for the first time. Jessie hadn’t been sure if his other reactions were genuine, but this one sure was.
“You dated both of these women and now they’re dead,” Ryan replied coldly and without apology. “So sensitivity isn’t our top priority with you, Mr. Krantz. Speaking of that, how did things end with each of them?”
Jessie thought his attitude was unnecessarily harsh, but said nothing.
She wondered if he was more upset about their recent parenthood conversation than he’d let on and was taking it out on this guy.
Regardless, Krantz seemed mildly chastened by Ryan’s response, and he eased back on the anger when he answered.
“There were no hard feelings,” he said. “We were all so young. It was more play-acting at dating than anything really serious. Caroline and I were together for a couple of months. With Diana, it was maybe half that long. It was all very casual. The last time we all hung out together—maybe six months ago—they teased me mercilessly, saying that back then I was a wannabe player.”
“That didn’t bother you?” Jessie wondered.
“No. It was all in good fun. They knew I was happy with Amanda. She even joined in. They were all just giving me a hard time.”
“Did you date Amanda soon after you were with them?” Jessie pressed.
“No. I knew her through them, but we were just friends back then. But we ended up going to the same college—USC. We hung out a lot because neither of us knew many folks there. Things kind of evolved from there. By junior year, we were dating exclusively.”
Jessie noted that Alexander and Amanda Krantz’s story mirrored her own.
She had also gone to USC. In fact, she would have graduated the year before they started there.
And that’s where she met her first husband, Kyle.
Of course, that was back when he seemed like a good guy, before he cheated on her, induced her miscarriage by poisoning her, and eventually tried to kill her. She decided not to mention any of that.
Ryan looked unimpressed by the man’s answer. “So where were you the last two nights?” he asked sharply.
Krantz appeared taken aback that his love story reminiscences hadn’t won him over.
“Um, wow, okay. So I guess we’re doing this. You’re asking me for an alibi?”
“We ask everyone,” Jessie said, hoping to take the edge off the situation.
“Okay, in that case, Amanda and I were home last night. I don’t think we did anything special. Just streamed a show or something. The night before? Oh yeah, I met a client for dinner. It ran late. By the time I got home, Amanda was asleep.”
“All right,” Ryan said. “We’ll need to confirm that with your client and the restaurant. And we’ll want to talk to your wife to verify what you’ve told us.”
“Fine. I can get her on the phone right now. She should be home.”
“Actually,” Jessie said as delicately as she could, “We’d like to speak to her before you do. That way, when she confirms what you said, it will have more credibility.”
“But that means you’d be breaking the news about Caroline and Diana to her,” he objected. “I’d rather be the one to do that, to help her deal with it.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Ryan said firmly. “But you can certainly comfort her once we’ve spoken to her.”
“So what, am I supposed to do—follow you and wait in my car in the driveway or something?”
“We’d prefer to handle it another way,” Jessie said, hoping Ryan would go along with her idea.
“We’ll have an officer come by here and hang out with you while we go see Amanda.
He’ll hold on to your phone to ensure you don’t communicate with her.
Then when we’re done, we’ll inform him that you can reach out, either in person or over the phone. ”
“This sounds kind of like you’re arresting me,” Krantz said cautiously. “Should I be getting a lawyer?”
“We’re not arresting you,” Ryan said. “We’re just taking precautions to ensure that when we speak with your wife, we get her unadulterated answers, without influence from you.
To be honest, the reason we’re here now is because your connections to both women make you a person of interest. But that’s all you are right now.
And if everything you’re telling us checks out, it won’t go any further than that.
Of course, if you want to call an attorney, that’s your prerogative.
But it won’t change how we conduct the interview with your wife. ”
Krantz looked like he might argue some more, but then seemed to think better of it.
“Fine,” he said. “Please just be sympathetic when you tell her. This will be rough for her.
After assuring him that they would, Ryan took his phone. They left him in the conference room while they planned their next step.
“We can’t risk him using an office phone to call her,” Ryan said. “So we’ll have to stay here until the officer arrives to watch him. Do you have any preference who we use?”
“How about Devery?” Jessie suggested. “We know he wants to join HSS. This is grunt work, but I bet he’ll be happy to do anything that involves the unit.”
Harper Devery was just a rookie patrol officer at Central Station, but he’d proven to be good at more than grunt work.
On a recent case, he’d actually joined her when she caught a killer and proved himself to be cool in what was a tense situation.
And just last month, he’d taken down a suspect who lunged at her while she was questioning him.
The kid was still fresh-faced and na?ve when it came to everything he’d have to deal with in this job, but she thought he’d earned the opportunity to be more involved.
“I’m okay with that,” Ryan said. “Let’s just remind him not to be too much of an eager beaver. I don’t want him to actually try to do any investigative work. This is just babysitting.”
“Let’s be sure to sell it to him that way,” Jessie said sarcastically. “He’ll love it.”
“I’ll let you tell him,” Ryan said. “You’re better than me at smoothing that stuff over. But let’s get him here quickly. The sooner he comes, the sooner we can go talk to Amanda Krantz.”
“Believe me, I know,” Jessie said, pulling out her phone. She noted the time. It was almost 4 P.M. The realization sent a shiver through her.
They had two victims murdered in consecutive days, each of whom had been strangled in the late afternoon or evening. Soon it would be evening again. They needed to move fast, if they weren’t already too late.