CHAPTER SEVEN
Laura was the one to knock this time, and when the apartment door opened almost immediately, she found her hand twitching towards her gun – but stopping just in time.
The young man who had answered her knock had done a double take when he saw who was at his door, as if he had been expecting someone else. A half-smile dropped from his face entirely when he looked between them, and then he stepped backwards, as if he was going to close the door right in her face.
“Peter Yalling?” Laura asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah,” he said, hesitantly, still looking between the two of them. He backed up another step. “I’m not actually interested in buying anything right now, so -”
Laura pulled her badge out of her pocket and held it up, holding back a smirk. She had no idea how he might have mistaken them for traveling salespeople. Jehovah’s Witnesses, she could almost see, because of the black suits they wore. But salespeople? No, she felt they had to look at least a little smarter than that.
“Oh,” he said, and then stepped back once more, going pale. “Hey, I don’t know why you’re here, but I haven’t done anything.”
“Can we come inside?” Laura asked. “My partner and I have a few questions for you in relation to an ongoing case. I think it’s probably better if we can all sit down and relax.”
The ‘relax’ part was probably a little bit too far, she had to admit. The way Pete had gone pale, she didn’t think he was going to relax at all.
She had to admit, he wasn’t what she had been expecting, either. Pete was definitely from a different side of the tracks compared to his ex-girlfriend. Even though he was living in a small apartment, it was well-furnished, and he was well-dressed. For a perennial student who hadn’t yet finished his master’s degree, it looked very nice indeed. It was nicer than Laura’s apartment, actually – and though she’d lost almost everything to her alcoholism, she had begun to bounce back.
That meant that he was possibly working with more than the salary of an FBI agent – something that Laura found hard to believe if he was studying and working only part-time. He had to have inherited money, but then again he’d gone to the same school as Kenya, which didn’t make sense if he was wealthy from birth…
Which left something high-income like drug dealing, unfortunately. Laura scanned the airy, bright living room as they sat down, Pete on the couch and Laura and Nate both taking armchairs. It was set up for at least four people, but he lived alone. Frequent gatherings?
“What’s this about?” Pete asked, sitting on the edge of his seat, bouncing one of his legs up and down. He was nervous about something. But was it something he’d done, or just the normal kind of nerves some people felt when coming into contact with law enforcement?
“You have an ex-girlfriend,” Nate began, but he didn’t even get the chance to finish.
“Kee?” Pete said immediately. Laura saw him mentally correct himself, realizing that a pair of strangers wouldn’t necessarily know her by her nickname. “Kenya Lankenua?”
“Yes,” Laura said, watching him closely. “The two of you broke it off recently, didn’t you?”
Pete frowned slightly, staring at her. “Yeah… we did, but… I’m sorry, what is this about? You want to know why I broke up with my girlfriend? What has that got to do with the FBI?”
Laura exchanged a quick glance with Nate, which only seemed to make Pete all the more nervous. He clearly didn’t know. No one had told him. If they had any luck, he was going to spill what it was he had done wrong – although Laura was already getting the impression it had nothing to do with Kenya’s death. He seemed truly baffled by their interest in her.
“Where were you last night?” Nate asked, flipping open his notebook to double-check the ballpark times they were looking at. “Between around eight in the evening and one in the morning.”
“I was with a few friends, at a bachelor party,” Pete said. “We stayed out all night, more or less. I ended up getting back here and crashing at like five this morning – I just got up.”
“Were you at one of the bars in town?” Nate asked, ready to write down the name so they could check it out later.
“No, not here,” Pete said. “We actually went up to Pittsburgh. Took a good couple of hours to get back here this morning with all the early rush traffic.”
Ah. Now, that put a new spin on things. If he had that good of an alibi putting him far enough away that he couldn’t have just nipped out from the party, killed Kenya, and got back to it before anyone noticed him gone, then he wasn’t a viable suspect.
“Do you know a man named John Wiggins?” Laura asked, just in case he had some kind of connection to the first victim that would help them understand why both he and Kenya had been targeted.
“No,” Pete frowned. “Who is that?”
“That doesn’t matter at this time,” Nate said. “Regarding Kenya, can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt her in any way? Someone who was angry with her or felt that she had wronged them somehow?”
Alarm blossomed across his face. He was getting it, now. It often didn’t take long before they did. Being asked about where you were on a certain day, then right after about whether someone had a reason to harm your loved one – it did tend to create a mental link that connected all the dots.
“What’s happened to her?” he asked, his voice going slightly hoarse. “Is Kee alright?”
“I’m afraid not, Pete,” Nate said. His tone had softened. Laura knew he’d probably realized, as she had, that this man couldn’t be responsible. “Kenya was found dead last night in an alleyway in the center of town, near a number of late-night bars and clubs. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but she was murdered.”
All of the remaining color drained from Pete’s face, just like that. He looked like he was going to be sick. He clutched at the air for support until he found the side of the couch, and Laura found herself reaching out automatically to steady him.