“That’s right. Thank you for meeting me.”
He nodded. She looked at him. He was a tall, wide-shouldered man with thinning brown hair and rough stubble on his cheeks. His eyes were red-rimmed and tired. “You said this is about Veronika?”
“I wondered if you could answer a few questions.”
“Let’s talk outside,” he said, frowning. He turned to the other man. “You got this?”
The man nodded. “Sure, Cliff.”
They stepped outside, and Clifford fished a cigarette pack from his pocket. He put one in his mouth and offered the pack to Zoe. She shook her head. He shrugged, lit his own cigarette, and inhaled. “I assumed the police were done with the case.”
“It resurfaced in relation to another case that’s under investigation right now.”
“Yeah? At the time, they told me they were investigating a local drug addict. Is this about him?”
Zoe shook her head. The drug addict questioned during the investigation was in prison for armed robbery. “Not really.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, his voice tense. “Who, then?”
“We’re not sure yet. Would you mind if I ask you some questions about that week?”
The police had questioned Clifford three times, and Zoe had read the transcripts. The first interview was intended mostly to establish if he was a suspect. He had an alibi for the night his fiancée had disappeared—he had gone fishing with three friends. They all verified they had been with him during that time. One of his friends had actually walked inside the house with him because he needed to use the bathroom. They’d found the house in disarray, Veronika missing.
The second interview was when the police arrested the drug dealer as a suspect. They had showed Clifford some mugshots, trying to see if he could maybe recognize the dealer. He could not, said he had never seen any of the people in the pictures as far as he remembered.
The third interview was after the police had dropped the drug dealer as a suspect and were trying to poke holes in Sorenson’s alibi. Sorenson had quickly lost his cool, screaming at the cops that they were trying to frame him, and he had demanded to have an attorney present. The rest of the interview had been quite short and proved nothing.
Zoe knew that when an investigator had a suspect or goal in mind, the interview was often skewed to that purpose. There was a very clear example of this in the first interview when Clifford had mentioned that Veronika had seemed a bit on edge in the weeks before she had gone missing. A series of questions had been asked to establish if she had been on edge because of strain in her relationship with Clifford. But after asking him about that, they’d moved on. No one had raised the issue of her being on edge again. The matter had been ignored.
“I’ll try to answer whatever I can,” he said. “But I can’t promise to remember it very well. It’s been more than two years, and I’ve been working hard at forgetting that week.”
“I understand,” Zoe said, leaning against the wall. “So when was the last time you saw Veronika?”
“The morning she died,” Clifford said, his voice emotionless. “Before I went to work.”
“Did you talk during the day?”
“Yeah, once. She called to ask me something, I don’t remember what.”
According to the police report, she’d called to ask about the catering service for their upcoming wedding. Had he really forgotten, or did he simply want to avoid the topic?
“And then what happened?”
“I came back from work, and she wasn’t there. She was visiting a friend. Linda.”
Zoe nodded. That, too, was in the report. Linda was the main reason Clifford was not the primary suspect. She had verified that Veronika had eaten dinner with her, and by the time Veronika had left Linda’s home, Cliff had been long gone for his fishing trip.
“I went fishing with three friends. I came back home sometime after midnight. The house was a mess. The table and chairs were overturned. All the closets and drawers had been opened. Veronika was missing, as well as her jewelry.”
“And what did you do?”
He looked at her for a long moment. His mouth twisted. “Would you excuse me for a moment?”
Zoe blinked. “Sure.”
He turned around. “Hey, Jeffrey!” he hollered.
The other man appeared in the shop’s doorway. “Yeah?”
“Can you get that single-bowl Kraus sink to the van? I want us to install it today.”
“Sure, Cliff.”
Clifford turned back to Zoe, his face now composed. “When I saw she was missing, I called the police. Frank was with me—my friend. He came inside because he had to use the bathroom. He went looking for her in the neighborhood while I waited for the cops.”
“And then what happened?”
“The police showed up. I told them what I knew. They found the body six days later. That’s it, really.”
Zoe nodded. “Did Veronika seem different the days before she was taken?”
“I don’t think so.”
“She wasn’t preoccupied? Or worried?”
“I don’t really remember, Miss Bentley.”
“Hey, Cliff, I can’t find it,” Jeffrey hollered from inside. “You sure it’s here?”
Clifford looked at Zoe. “I really need to get back to work—”
“Just a few more questions. It would be really helpful,” she said smoothly. “Was Veronika the trusting type?”
“What do you mean?” he asked, walking inside.
She followed him to the back of the store. “Your home was trashed, but there were no signs of a break-in. Would she have opened the door to a stranger?”
“At night? I don’t think so.”
“What if he was dressed like a cop?”
“Are you saying a cop took her?”
“Not necessarily,” Zoe said. “I’m just theorizing.”
She was trying to fine-tune the killer’s MO. Though it was possible that the serial killer was a law enforcement officer or working in some other official role of authority, there was another explanation. Several serial killers were known to use outfits or identities of authority figures to lure their victims. Ted Bundy was a well-known example of that. He sometimes approached women pretending to be a police officer and took them somewhere secluded.
“I don’t know. Maybe. Here’s the sink,” he told Jeffrey. He bent and grabbed the sink, then groaned.
“I’ll get it. Don’t worry about it,” Jeffrey said and picked up the large steel sink, carrying it outside.
Clifford straightened up, grimacing, a hand on his back. He walked slowly back to the front of the store. Zoe kept following him.
“Would she open the door if someone was hurt or if there was a woman at the door?”
“Miss Bentley, I’m sorry. I don’t know.”
“Did you tell anyone you were going fishing that day?”
He looked at her, raising an eyebrow. “Why?”
“The killer knew when to strike.”
“It was probably just bad luck, Miss Bentley. I go fishing a lot. Twice, sometimes three times every week. Hell, I went four times with my brother last week. Of course, these days I tend to go fishing even more since I have no one at home . . .” His gaze became vacant. “I’m sorry. I really have to get back to work.”
Zoe nodded. “Thank you for your time,” she said.
He’d already turned away, checking something on one of the shelves. “Sure,” he said.
She left the store, disappointed. Outside, the day was bright, and she squinted, protecting her eyes from the glare with her palm. Jeffrey was loading the sink into one of the vans. The sink made a loud clang as he finally lowered it into the back of the van. He slammed the door and turned around.
“Hey,” he said when he noticed her. “Are you a cop?”
“I’m working with the police,” she answered, walking closer. He seemed slightly younger than Clifford, his hair thick and brown. He was tall, his shoulders wide.
“Listen, I don’t know what you told Cliff, but I hope you didn’t get him all worked up. Veronika’s death has been really tough for him. He acted like a zombie for more than a year after it had happened. He’s seemed better only in the last couple of months.”
“I’m sorry,” Zoe said. “Did you work for him when she died?”