“You don't have to,” Nate said. “If you don't, we can go away and then come back with an arrest warrant and take you in to the local precinct. Or, on the other hand, you can talk to us now and we can save all of that trouble. What do you think?”
Greendale paused for a moment, looking down at the ground as if thinking. Then he looked up, meeting both Nate’s and Laura's eyes in succession, as if he needed to test something in them. Finally, he nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Come in.”
They followed after him into a well-decorated and large living area, mostly decked out with dark woods and the kind of furnishings that would be described as masculine in a catalog. It looked as though he had asked a set designer to create a bachelor pad. Still, it looked lived in. They were framed photographs here and there, of Spike with different people. Some of himself as a younger child, with what had to have been his family. Some of him just on his own.
Laura and Nate both took a seat on a brown leather couch that squeaked unnervingly when they sat. Spike flung himself down opposite them, sprawling his arms out across the top of the cushions of a matching sofa and leaning back.
“What did you want to ask me, then?” he asked.
“First of all, we need to know what you were doing for the last few days in the evening,” Nate said, taking the lead on the questioning. Laura sat back and let him, thinking that it would be both easier for Spike to identify with him and easier for Nate to drive the knife home if he needed to follow a more aggressive line of questioning.
“Not much,” Spike said. “I've been working on setting up my new business, so I haven't been going out. Just registering domain names, setting up websites, all of that sort of thing. There's a lot that goes into it that you don't realize before you start.”
“And what is this new business?” Nate asked.
Spike grinned, leaning forward slightly on the couch. “I’m glad you asked. I'm actually starting up my own coaching business. I coach actors, you see.”
“You coach actors?” Laura asked, her eyebrow raised. Now her mind was working overtime. Was he bumping off the competition so that he would be able to get a larger share of the market? She had heard of more outlandish reasons to murder someone, even if it did seem disproportionately violent.
“Well, I'm going to,” Spike said. “The truth is, I've been trying to make it as an actor myself for quite a while now. But I have to face facts. I'm not going to make it in that sense. The thing is, I've had a lot of really great coaching. Actually, it was my coach, Suzie, who made me think about going into this line of work. I think I'm going to be really good at it. And the great thing is I can always ask her for help if I need to, because we're not even going to compete. I'm going to be looking for high end one-on-one clients, while she does community classes. So, between us we'll be able to cover most of the city.”
“That's quite ambitious,” Nate said.
Spike grinned. “One thing I've never been short of is ambition,” he said.
“So, let me just understand this,” Nate said. “You have the acting talent and skills, and you have the ambition. Why haven't you made it in Hollywood yet?”
Spike shrugged. “You must know what it's like,” he said. “Look at the color of my skin. I'm too dark for them. That's all it is.”
Laura was beginning to doubt exactly how truthful he was being with them. Playing the racist card was easy. There was every possibility that it was true, but then again, from what she had heard, this guy had other problems.
He was so calm and cool, so accommodating. He didn't seem nervous at all. But if he was a talented actor, then that was to be expected. Maybe he was just playing a role right now. It was time to turn things up a notch, try and put the heat on him.
And for that, Laura knew exactly which direction to head in. Nate had established himself as the lead in the conversation, spoken to Spike about something that he was passionate about in order to draw him in. Now, Laura could play the bad cop, push his buttons until he said something he regretted. Or did something, if the description of his angry and violent behavior from Guy was anything to go by.
“You had some headshots done recently with a photographer called Guy Andrews, is that right?” Laura said, making Spike snap his attention to her.
“If you can call them that,” Spike said, making a face. It was more of a casual, laughing face than Laura had expected, however. He wasn’t getting red in the face or clenching his fists. “They weren’t very good. I ended up not being able to use them.”
“Really?” Laura asked, deliberately trying to push him. “That’s funny. I’ve seen them, and I think they look quite accurate to life. In fact, I’d say they’re exactly realistic to how you look in front of me now.”
A darkness flickered over Spike’s face and then away. “I think he made me look a bit heavier than I really am,” he said.
Laura let her eyes flick over him, up and then down. “No,” she said. “I think they were accurate.”
She saw his jaw clench. Now she was making some progress. “Well, anyway. Why are you asking me about the headshots?”
“Because you weren’t very pleasant to Guy Andrews, the way he tells it,” Laura said. Nate was quiet, letting her nettle him and try to trigger a reaction. “In fact, he said he thinks you could be a serial killer.”
“A serial killer?” Spike exploded, frowning heavily. “What is this? Just another white guy who sees a Black face and thinks we must all be violent thugs, is that it?”
“Well, aren’t you?” Laura said.
It wasn’t something that would ever normally have left her mouth. She had no tolerance for racists. In fact, she’d seen enough of death and violence to have no time for any kind of prejudice. Gender, race, religion – none of it mattered in the end. You would still bleed the same color when they stabbed you.
Much like the killer had stabbed three women so far. If it took underhanded tactics to prevent there from being a fourth, Laura wouldn’t hesitate to use them.
Spike’s upper lip curled, and now she saw that his hands were fists, tightly held and ready. Strain stood out in the muscles of his arms and neck, and he bared his teeth in a snarl. “Get out of my face, fed,” he said, his voice dangerously low. “Before I make you get out.”