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The first thought Laura had was that this wasn’t the right man. He had a gut, spilling out over the top of his jeans and only just constrained in a gray button-down shirt, while the man in her visions had been of average build.
But then she checked herself. The last vision she had seen dated back to two years ago. If someone really let themselves go – if, say, they had an injury that left them laying on their back for months and they got into really bad eating habits – wasn’t it possible for their physique to change so drastically in that amount of time? Besides, she hadn’t seen his face – and she didn’t want to rule someone out at this early stage of the investigation just on something that she wasn’t even sure about.
“Maybe we can take a seat,” Laura suggested, leading the way back over to where John had already been sitting without waiting for permission. She wanted to make sure that she and Nate controlled this interview, not the other way round. If they could get John on the back foot, maybe he would slip up.
And if she could work in the fact that his namealsobegan with a J, just like the victims Joy and July and also just like Jayson Shaw, maybe he would crack.
“I’m sure you’ve already been brought up to speed by your very conscientious manager, here,” Laura said, earning a beam from the woman herself, who was hovering nearby as if unsure whether she was still needed. “So, let’s cut to the chase. What can you tell us about the night that July Hall went missing?”
“July?” John grunted. “That’s the second one? I don’t know anything. She didn’t disappear from here; she was at another bar across town.”
“We know that,” Laura said evenly. She was taking him in as she spoke. He was in his fifties now, she guessed. Could it be that he had perhaps been more prolific when he was younger? Had he only been targeting drunk women, and only over a longer period of time, because he was less able now to pull off physical attacks? “She was here earlier in the night, though.”
“So what? So are a lot of people,” John grunted. “Look, I don’t have time to go over a hundred questions that don’t lead anywhere. This was all covered the first time I spoke with the police. I have other businesses to get to.”
“That’s right,” Laura said, latching onto it. “Your secretary told us you have quite a few local businesses. You’re a big deal in this town, aren’t you, Mr. Hart?”
“I suppose you could say that,” he sniffed, pride puffing out his chest even as he acted like it was nothing.
“Then why do you keep hold of this place?” Laura asked, gesturing around. “It’s not exactly the most reputable venue in your repertoire, and with the two deaths, I was told it had a pretty bad reputation a couple of years ago.”
“That’s why I didn’t sell it,” he said, grunting in displeasure. “I couldn’t find anyone who wanted it. They were all telling me it was tainted. Well, I’m laughing now, because reputable or not, it pulls in the most profit of any of them on a Friday and Saturday night.”
“So, it’s purely a business decision?” Laura asked.
“What the hell else would it be?”
Laura noted his antagonistic response, the way his body language was open and wide and yet aggressive, as if he was trying to show that he was the most dominant person in the room. It was all adding up to something. But did it add up to the figure she had seen in her vision, who liked to quietly scare women instead of announcing his presence aloud?
“We had a report from a former employee of yours about some questionable behavior he observed during his time here,” Nate said. “Apparently, you were seen on multiple occasions trying to take advantage of women who were far too drunk to tell you no.”
“What?” John exploded, standing to his feet. He had that explosive kind of rage, the kind that manifested itself in shouts and displays of macho posturing, hitting the table and jumping to your feet. Laura could see that. She wasn’t sure it matched up with what she had seen. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t the same man – because whoever killed the women wasn’t necessarily enraged at the time that he did it. “How dare you come into my bar and say that to me?”
“I’m not the one saying it, Mr. Hart,” Nate said, handling the situation as calmly as he always did. “It’s a report that we received. We’re duty bound to check it out.”
“Well, you can cross that off your list and throw it away!” Hart shouted. “Taking advantage – I’ve never heard such bull! Girls like me. They know who I am. I’m a big deal around here. They want to go back to see my sports cars and my art collection. They want me to buy them Gucci. If anyone gets taken advantage of, it’s me!”
Laura had no doubt in her mind, now, that the man was a creep. From what she had heard, from his severe reaction, she knew for a fact that he was taking advantage of women. She even knew that he knew what he was doing was wrong. He had to. That was the only reason why he would have that look on his face, that rage, that need to urgently dispel the accusations.
But did being a creep make him a killer?
Laura had an itching feeling up her spine. It told her that their suspect wasn’t this type. That he didn’t approach women in the open. If he could do that, if he could just have them eating out of his hand, then he wouldn’t need to stalk and kill them. In fact, Laura was leaning more towards the idea that the killer was someone who was afraid to talk to women face to face, not a womanizer.
There was one way they could clear it up, and that was by sticking to the case itself – instead of wasting time going around the area with these suspicions and rumors.
“Where were you on the day that the first victim, Joy Kingsley, was taken from outside this bar?” she asked, meeting his gaze direct and unwavering.
“When that first one happened, I wasn’t even here. I was on vacation,” he said, sitting down in his seat again and slinging his arm across the back of the chair. “That should be in the notes in the first investigation.”
“It isn’t,” Laura said. “In fact, you weren’t even mentioned in the first investigation.”
“See? Because they knew I had nothing to do with it. I wasn’t even in the state,” he said. “Look, I’ve got to get on with running my businesses. Time is money. So let’s wrap this up.”
Laura hated this man, even though she barely knew him. There was just a sense about some people, and she had the sense that John Hart was as sleazy and sticky as the bar he owned. But there was nothing she could do about that, not without proof and victims and people who actually wanted to press charges. There was nothing she could even do to keep him here, since he wasn’t under arrest. He could leave whenever he wanted.
“Fine,” she said, standing up so that at least she had the physical power for a moment. “But I would advise you not to leave town without speaking to the local precinct first. We may need to interview you again. And I’m going to need you to send over proof of that vacation – ticket receipts, travel stubs, anything that would prove you were where you say you were.”
She wasn’t even going to warn the local precinct. She didn’t need to know when Hart wanted to leave town. But it might stop him from going out for a while, and when he did feel the need, he would get some pretty baffled looks. The thought was enough to appease the rage that was whirling in her stomach just a little.
