Брайан Фриман - Alter Ego

They heard a tiny squeal of excitement, and Peach’s hand disappeared under the seat. When it came out, there was a rhinestone button pinched between her fingertips. They could hear her voice on the video, just a whisper.

Maggie realized it was the only time she’d ever have a chance to hear Peach Piper speak.

“Gotcha,” Peach said.

“I suppose you can’t smoke in here,” Jungle Jack said as he sat across from Stride in the police interview room. He pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of his burgundy shirt.

“No,” Stride replied.

“Oh, well.” Jack shoved the cigarettes back in his pocket. “I bet you used to be a smoker. Am I right?”

“In fact, you are.”

Jack grinned. “I can always tell. Doesn’t matter how long since somebody’s quit, I can see it in their face when they look at a pack. There’s still that longing, you know? It never goes away.”

Stride ignored the comment, although Jack was right. “Before I ask you any questions, I’m going to read you your rights.”

He rattled off the Miranda warning, and Jack listened with amused disinterest. The man didn’t seem intimidated or concerned. “Are you willing to talk to me without a lawyer present?” Stride asked.

“I can’t imagine why I’d need one.”

“Okay, good.” Then he added, “I like your shirt, Jack.”

A little furrow of confusion crossed the man’s brow. “Thanks.”

Stride took a photograph out of a folder and put it in front of Jack. It was the photograph Peach Piper had taken of the front door of Casperson’s house, with Rochelle Wahl standing next to a man who looked a lot like Jack Jensen. “Same shirt, right?” he asked, pointing at the picture.

“Could be.”

“That’s you, isn’t it?”

“It looks like me,” Jack allowed. “From the back, it’s hard to tell.”

“This was taken last Saturday night.”

“Right. The party.”

“Who’s the girl with you?” Stride asked.

“I have no idea.”

“You didn’t bring her to the party?”

“No.”

“She’s standing right there with you,” Stride pointed out.

“She must have arrived at the same time.”

“You’ve never seen her before?”

“No, not that I recall.”

“She’s not connected to the movie. How would she have gotten into a party at Dean’s house?”

“Pretty girls hang around the set all the time,” Jack said. “They hear about a party. They show up. Nobody says no.”

“Did you sleep with her?” Stride asked.

“No.”

“Did you sleep with anyone at the party?”

“The night’s a bit of a blur, but I usually do.”

“Who?”

“They all blend together, Lieutenant.”

“Did Dean sleep with this girl?” Stride asked.

Jack’s eyes narrowed in suspicion at the shift in questions. “Dean? Absolutely not.”

“How do you know? It sounds like you were pretty busy that evening.”

“I know Dean.”

“So you don’t actually know whether he did or didn’t?”

“I guess you’ll have to ask him,” Jack replied.

Stride took another photograph out of the folder. “Here’s a picture of the same girl leaving the party.”

Jack leaned forward. “Looks like she had a little too much to drink.”

“In the morning, she was found dead. Her name was Rochelle Wahl.” Stride waited a beat. “She was fifteen.”

Jack took a long time before he said anything. “Really. I’m sorry to hear it.”

“What was a fifteen-year-old doing at Dean Casperson’s party?”

“Lying about her age, I imagine,” Jack replied. “It happens.”

“If it came out that an underage girl had sex at one of Dean’s parties, there would be serious consequences. For the movie. For him and his reputation.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“It makes me think Dean would be willing to do just about anything to get that girl out of the house and make sure no one knew she was there,” Stride said.

“It sounds to me like you’ve been watching too many of Dean’s thrillers.”

Stride tapped the photograph. “We think this other man took Rochelle back to her house and changed her clothes and then knocked her unconscious and left her out in the snow to freeze to death.”

“Or maybe she went home and had an accident. If you’re a kid and you drink too much, bad things can happen.”

“Except when a girl leaves a party with a hired killer, it’s usually murder, not an accident.”

“Hired killer?” Jack asked. He made a show of looking at the photograph again. “Oh, this guy. You asked me about him before. He was staying at the same apartments as me. Hey, I wish I could tell you more about him, but like I said, I only bumped into him a couple times. That’s all.”

Stride showed him one of Peach’s photographs that showed John Doe and Jack Jensen talking outside John Doe’s rental cottage. “Was this one of the times you bumped into him?”

Jack smiled. “You have a lot of pictures, Lieutenant.”

“What were you two talking about?” Stride asked.

“I have no idea. He was probably asking me for a restaurant recommendation in town. I like that place by the water. Grandma’s.”

“Who called this man to pick up Rochelle Wahl at the party?”

“I have no idea about that, either. For all I know, he was at the party himself. Maybe he and this girl came together. Or maybe he’s an Uber driver. I don’t know anything about this, Lieutenant. You’re talking to the wrong guy.”

“We have his cell phone records,” Stride said. “Half an hour before this photograph was taken of him putting the girl in his car, he got a call from a burner phone. Do you know anything about that?”

“Not a thing.”

“Did you make that call? Was it your phone?”

“Nope.”

“Could Dean Casperson have made the call?” Stride asked.

“Dean? He can barely operate a flip phone.”

“Someone called this man to the party, he picked up Rochelle Wahl, he killed her.”

“I can’t believe that’s true,” Jack replied, “but I don’t know anything about it.”

Stride leaned across the interview table. “Do I need to lay it all out for you, Mr. Jensen? We have a picture of you arriving at the party with Rochelle Wahl. We have a picture of John Doe loading her unconscious body into his car two hours later. We have a picture of you and John Doe together two days after that. These pictures were all taken by the young woman who called herself Haley Adams. She was really a private detective from Florida named Peach Piper. The day after Peach took these photos of you and this man together, Peach disappeared. We found her body. She’d been shot by the gun that was found in this man’s car. By the way, that same gun was used to shoot a waitress in Florida on the same day you ate at her restaurant. Would you like to explain all of that for me, Mr. Jensen?”

Jungle Jack chuckled and shook his head. “So you really can’t smoke in here, huh?”

Stride said nothing.

“Well, look, I’d love to explain it for you, but none of it makes any sense to me. You’d have to ask this John Doe character, but I guess you can’t, because he’s dead, right? Too bad. If I’m hearing you right, he’s the one that killed all these people. Me, I had lunch in Florida, I went to a party at Dean’s place, and I said ‘Hey’ to a man who happened to be renting a cottage near mine. That’s what this all boils down to, isn’t it? The only contact I had with this so-called assassin was telling him where he could get a burger. Now you’re the cop and I’m not, but that sure sounds like squat to me. So if you want to put the cuffs on me, go ahead. Otherwise, I’ve got to be on the set in twenty minutes.”