Gregg Olsen - Fear Collector

Grace suppressed the urge to roll her eyes when a servant dressed in a uniform of black and white answered the heavy, ten-foot door. Who but a jerk like Palmer Morton would make the help look like they came with the historic home?

“May I help you?” asked the dour man with a shiny pate and razor-thin moustache.

“Yes, I guess you could,” Grace said. “We’re looking for Alex Morton. Is he home?”

The servant studied the detectives, first Grace, then Paul. “I’m Richard Mathias, the butler. What is your business with Alex?”

Grace spoke up. “We’re investigating the disappearance of a friend of his.”

“Ms. Rose?” the man said.

“That would be right. Yes, Emma Rose. Did you know her?”

“I’d seen her a few times. Plus I saw her picture on KING’s news this morning. A lovely girl.”

“May we come in?” Paul asked, asserting himself into the conversation.

“No,” he said, backing off a little. “Floors were just waxed. Besides, no one is home. Just me and the housekeeper.”

Housekeeper, too. Morton has it pretty good, Grace thought. She was lucky to get Shane to spring for a Merry Maid before Thanksgiving the previous year.

“How come you didn’t tell us right away that Alex and Mr. Morton weren’t here?”

“Sorry,” Mathias said. “I made an assumption.”

The remark interested Grace. “What kind of an assumption?”

Mathias rolled his shoulder a little; it was somewhat sheepish gesture done more for the effect of it than for any real feelings he had about offending anyone. “I thought you were collecting for the library or something,” he said.

Grace was annoyed, but didn’t show it.

The butler must be taking asshole lessons from his boss, she thought.

“Thanks,” she said. “I guess. When will either Mr. Morton or his son be home?”

He started to close the door. “Next week, I think.”

As the door clicked shut, a voice could be heard. It was clear and unmistakable.

“What did those jokers want?”

It was the voice of a young man. Grace looked at her partner.

“Guess Alex was home after all.”

Paul nodded and Grace rang the bell again.

Mathias answered. “Did you forget something?”

“No, but evidently you did. You forgot that impeding a criminal investigation by lying is a punishable offense.”

The servant looked flustered. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Cut the Mr. Belvedere crap,” Paul said. “We heard the kid. Get him. We want to talk to him.”

“I don’t know… He’s a boy. He’ll need his father’s permission.”

“He’s over eighteen. Get him for us now. We’re trying to find a missing girl. Maybe he can help,” Grace said.

As Mathias appeared to weigh his options, a voice from behind called out.

“I’ll talk to ’em,” a young man’s voice said.

It was Alex Morton, a nineteen-year-old, wearing his slacker uniform-a rumpled T-shirt and khaki shorts that hung so low Grace Alexander almost stared to make sure they weren’t about to fall off in mid stride. He had bushy brows and the kind of fawn eyes that girls couldn’t resist. That he was rich, had a restored Porche Targa, and had the attitude that the world owed him (“It isn’t easy having an old man like mine to live up to.”) probably didn’t hurt him one bit in the dating department.

“Your father will need to be notified,” Mathias said.

“Then, Jesus, Mathias, do your job. That’s why you get paid the big bucks.” There was no trace of irony in his voice.

Grace wondered how it was that a seemingly nice girl like Emma could fall for a boy like Alex. Date him, yes, but anything more? Out of the question. What Richie Rich didn’t know was that he was a conquest as much as any girl.

Alex stepped outside, saving Mathias the quandary of whether or not he should invite the police into the house. Alex lit up a cigarette and offered the light to Paul-not to Grace. While neither detective smoked, it was clear just what Alex Morton thought of women in general. He looked only in Paul’s direction when he spoke.

“Fire away. This is, like, cool to be talking to the police. Lame that you think I know something, but I’m guessing you don’t have anything much to go on.”

“Why is that?” Paul asked.

The teenager shrugged. “Because I don’t know anything and you’re wasting your time here. Girl’s dead, isn’t she?”

Grace bristled at the remark. “Why would you say she’s dead?”

“Is she the good cop or the bad cop?” he asked, ignoring her question.

“She’s a little of both,” Paul said. When the teenager looked over at a small gathering of neighbors, Paul rolled his eyes and mouthed the words Piece of work to Grace.

She mouthed back, Piece of shit.

Paul grinned and looked back over at the oblivious teenager, whose glare at Grace became a full-on glower.

“I barely knew her. We messed around a few times. No biggie,” he said, drawing on his cigarette like it was going to get him high. Really high.

“Her mother said that you were serious until a few weeks ago. Said Emma dumped you and you kind of took it bad,” Grace said, refusing to be ignored by the twerp standing in front of the venerable mansion that would, indeed, be his one day.

“No one is serious at nineteen, lady,” Alex said.

“Detective Alexander, if you don’t mind.”

“Whatever. I dumped her. Big deal. I was tired of her. Too clingy. Wanting too much of my time.”

“That’s interesting,” Grace said. “Let me write that down.” But she didn’t. She just stood there letting her remark soak in along with the fact that she was mocking him with her proclamation that anything he said was worth believing. “Her mother said you Facebook stalked her, called her a hundred times in two days, and sent over ten dozen red roses.”

“That’s bullshit. I did not. I’m done talking with you. That bitch was crazy and so are you.”

“Hey,” Paul said, “that’s enough of that. You mom and dad ever teach you manners?”

“My mom ran off with my dad’s partner and my dad’s an asshole. So I guess not.”

“Where were you last night, say from six p.m. to midnight?”

“Home. Here. With my dad watching the tube. You can ask him. Ask Mathias, too. Don’t treat me like some punk criminal. I’m innocent. I haven’t seen her in weeks. No lie.”

Alex Morton’s words were strange. While it wasn’t a huge leap from the idea that he was a person of interest in the case to punk criminal, it was a sudden one. No one was saying that they wanted him to “come down to the station” to make a statement. Yet Alex Morton was sure posturing like he’d been directly accused. A guilty conscience, maybe? That, naturally, presumed that he had a conscience at all.

“You didn’t send her all those roses?” Grace asked.

“Never,” he said.

She pulled out her cell phone and scrolled through some images she’d taken while at the Rose’s. She turned the phone with the screenshot of Emma’s Facebook page before Diana pulled the plug that afternoon. It was photo of bloodred roses, so many it could have been culled from a florist’s website. But it wasn’t. It had clearly been taken in Emma’s bedroom.

She wrote: Creep sent these. Some people have too much money.

“Never saw that. Bitch unfriended me.”

Paul brightened. “Unfriended you? That’s interesting. Wonder why she did that?”

“I’m done talking to you. I’ve got stuff to do.”

Grace didn’t let him leave without a parting shot. She waited for that fleeting bit of eye contact that he afforded her. “Whoever bought that many roses had a lot of money… or his father’s credit card.”