Faye Kellerman - The Burnt House

“The upholstery was cream but the carpets were black. Why replace black carpets with new black carpets?”

Dresden’s eyes shifted. “Didn’t Jimbo tell you the whole story?”

“Jimbo doesn’t talk a lot. Why don’t you tell me?”

An exasperated sigh and a glance at his watch. “How long is this going to take? Am I under arrest or something?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I mean I can just walk out right now, right?”

“You don’t want to do that, Ivan.” Decker leaned forward and pushed the coffee in front of him. “Just tell me about your car and we can all go home.”

Reluctantly Ivan picked up the coffee and began to dress it to his liking. It gave him something to do. “I loaned the car to someone who left it out in the rain with the top down. Everything got ruined. Moldy and wet and smelly. That’s why I had it done.”

“Who’d you loan it to?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes, it does. We need names to verify your stories.”

Ivan’s eyes narrowed. “This was precisely why I didn’t want to come in here. Not only are you hounding me, you’re going to get someone else involved.”

“And you’d rather not get someone else involved?”

“I know why I’m here.” Dresden glared at Decker. “You think I hurt my wife.”

Decker said, “You sound outraged!”

“Of course I’m outraged. Not only did I lose my wife, but you idio-You people think I had something to do with her disappearance.”

“Do you have any idea what happened to her!”

“How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t know what happened to Roseanne!”

“I believe you, Ivan.” Decker leaned in again. “I really do and that’s precisely why I insisted that we call you up and have you come in voluntarily. So you can explain the problem we have.” He paused, giving the words a chance to sink into Dresden’s brain. “We found stuff in the car, Ivan. We need some help with that.”

“What do you mean by stuff?” His eyes got big. “Oh shit! The cops planted drugs-”

“Not drugs, Ivan.” Decker shook his head in earnest. “No drugs whatsoever. We found blood, Ivan. Roseanne’s blood.”

Dresden went white. “What?”

“We found Roseanne’s blood in the car, Ivan.” Decker sincerely hoped that his words were the truth. He certainly didn’t want to deal with the possibility that the blood was from someone else. “Lots of blood, and that’s troubling. That’s why I brought you in. Out of respect. Because I believe you when you say you don’t know what happened to Roseanne. That’s why I have to hear your side of the story.”

Dresden’s eyes went from side to side. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“So let me explain the situation to you. We know that nothing bad happened to Roseanne in your condo. We searched it and it looked okay. So right away, we didn’t suspect that you did anything bad to her. Are you with me, buddy?”

Dresden nodded.

“But here’s the problem. Roseanne didn’t die in the crash, Ivan. Recovery has unearthed things or remains belonging to everyone involved in the crash except Roseanne. Nothing, nothing, puts Roseanne at the crash sight. And this is a problem for us. What happened to Roseanne? I assume because she’s your wife, it’s a problem for you, too. I mean not that you’re a ghoul, but you are entitled to insurance money once we clear up her disappearance.”

Decker waited for a response but nothing came.

“I’m sure you would like to put this entire episode behind you. And I’m trying to help you do that.”

“You’re not trying to help me. You’re trying to trap me to say something I shouldn’t say.”

“Then don’t talk for a moment and just listen. I’m thinking to myself that if nothing bad happened to Roseanne in the condo and Roseanne wasn’t in the crash, maybe…just maybe…something bad happened in her car. My detective and I were attacking the problem from every angle we could think of. We’ve been relentless: going back over our notes, knocking on door after door after door, reinterviewing witnesses.”

“What witnesses?”

“I’m getting to that. All I’m saying right now is we’ve been working nonstop on your wife’s disappearance and it finally paid off. We caught a break. On the day of the crash, the day that Roseanne disappeared, we found a witness who saw Roseanne’s car flying out of the condo parking structure at around sevenish in the morning.”

Dresden paled, but remained silent. Decker didn’t know how much longer he had before Dresden lawyered up. He tried not to sound too accusing, but the implication was clear.

“Ivan, this is the kicker. Roseanne wasn’t driving.” He didn’t know that for a fact, but Ivan didn’t have to know that, either. Decker leaned in close. “We did hard-nosed investigating, and we found out that you had the car reupholstered. No big deal concerning that. I accept your explanation. But just for the sake of completion, we learned that you told Jim Franco to throw away the original car mats from Roseanne’s BMW. I think the words you used were ‘to chuck them in the garbage.’ Do you remember telling Jim Franco that?”

“No.”

“Well, Jimbo remembers you telling him that. He’s willing to swear to it in court.”

Dresden was quiet.

Decker said, “Jimbo’s a businessman, Ivan. He doesn’t like to throw away money. So instead of chucking them, he cleaned them and sold them to someone on e-Bay. I think you know where this is leading.” Decker nodded. “We tracked that person down, found the carpets, and tested them for blood. They tested positive…very, very positive. Once the mats tested positive, that’s when we got a warrant for the car to see if it was just the mats were covered in blood or maybe there had been more blood where that came from. See, I really need to find out what happened to Roseanne. Taxpayers are giving me good money to do my job and I take it seriously. Now, I’m trying to get you out of this mess. So bear with me a moment, okay?”

Again, Dresden didn’t answer. Decker noticed his skin color had turned slightly green. He sipped coffee.

“The next step after we tested the mats was to test the car for blood. We stripped the car down and sprayed it with luminol and it lit up bright blue. That means forensics found lots of blood protein. We also found patterns-blood spurting, blood pooling, blood spraying.”

Dresden buried his head in his hands. “I’m feeling a little sick.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty sickening. You feel light-headed?”

“A little.”

“Can I get a paper bag, some water, and some paper towels, please?” Decker asked the video camera. A minute later, the supplies were delivered. He told Ivan to breathe into the bag while Decker mopped up his brow. “Try to breathe slowly-”

“Just leave me alone for a few seconds, okay?”

Decker complied. After the minutes passed, Dresden raised his head. He looked pale and dank. Decker offered him water and the stockbroker eagerly drank it up. “How are you holding up?”

“I want to go home.”

“Just let me finish and then we can talk about that.”

“I still feel sick.”

“I’m sure you do. It’s nauseating to hear all this, but for your own protection, you should know what’s going on. I’m trying to clue you in so you know what we’re after, okay?” Dresden nodded, although his eyes looked a bit dazed. “We know that something bad happened in that car. We know that for sure. We know that because we found other things besides the blood.”

Dresden stared at him, sweat pouring down his brow. Decker offered him a paper towel.

“We found fingerprints, Ivan. Not just your normal fingerprints, because we know that you drive the car. We expected to find your fingerprints. But we found bloody fingerprints.”