8 Whom to Suspect

"How can you tell he's lying?" Ray asked as he looked over at the door Ace had just walked out of. He could no longer see the other, but could as he walked away.

"Because someone who's only tie to a person is that they helped get them a job isn't generally enough of a reason for them to have such a strong reaction to hearing that they passed." Abel replied in the tone that made it clear he thought it should've been obvious.

"Plus he also slipped up on another point. Why would someone ask a person who doesn't know where their house is to deliver something?"

"Hm. I didn't think about that. Perhaps because boyfriends are usually the first suspect? Especially ones that have a record already. Breaking and entering, stealing, disorderly conduct." Ray replied as he realized that Abel had a point in what he was saying. Turning around, he went back to sorting through the items on the desk.

"How, do you know that much about his record?" His partner inquired, a hint of surprise or suspicion in his voice.

"I've been working here for a while already. His name sounded familiar to me and then I remembered that while I never worked with him, he was someone who was brought into the station a couple of time for minor things." Ray explained.

"Perks of working your way up in one place, you get to know at least some of the petty criminals in the area or rather those who have a few problems. Others as well, but generally the troublemakers are the ones who end up making frequent visits to the station because they can only behave for so long before they get caught for some minor crime or other."

"Shouldn't we have retained him then and taking him down to the station to question him properly about this matter?" Abel then asked, Ray shook his head in response to this question.

"Nope. While he may have a checkered past, I don't think that he's the suspect that we're looking for. We'll put him as a potential suspect of course, but like you said - someone wouldn't react that strongly if they didn't have feelings for the other person." His partner didn't quite agree with the approach that he wanted to take, but he didn't argue with him as he went over to look at the bookcase full of books.

"I know something is missing, but I'm not sure that we're going to find it here either." Ray sighed. He had looked over most of the desk and had cleaned up much of what was on top of it trying to find something that might lead to a clue as to why what happened with Victoria, but nothing seemed out of place on her desk, or at least nothing that stuck out to him.

It was all most drafts scattered across the desk, a scheduler that looked rather new and had very few appointments listed in it, and a few folders that held information about clients and what they were working on or not. Victoria had kept a few knick-knacks on her desk as well, but nothing that gave off the feeling that they were sentimental or held any type of personal value.

"Perhaps it's because we don't yet know what we should be looking for. Evidence can hide in plain site if it seems harmless." Abel commented as he continued to take books of the bookcase and flip through them. They all seemed to be in good condition and as though they had hardly been touched despite seeming like they had been sitting on the shelf for quite some time.

"So what, you suggest we put this office on lockdown, make sure the keys are secured and no one else can enter it until we have a chance to interview her colleagues and anyone else of interest."

"Precisely, though we will have to be rather quick about it because we can't keep this place closed for too long before I'm sure that they will be wanting permission to clear this place out so that they can use it for someone else's office." That seemed like a rather cold and careless thought to Ray, but he knew that was how things worked. Even if someone of those who worked with Victoria cared about what happened to her and it affected them, they couldn't let sentiment keep them from being as functional and practical as possible while working in a business such as this.

They went back to Mr. Clarke's office to let him know of the situation and put in call to have someone keep the office watched and locked for the time being. Clarke was able to also let them know he had a chance to talk with a few of the other employees who had worked with Victoria to keep their schedules open this morning because something unexpected had come up and he might need them.

Abel appreciated the fact that he hadn't taken the liberty to tell them what exactly was going on. He didn't enjoy the idea of having to track anyone down if it so happened that they were responsible for or knew who had done what. They would inevitably try to disappear before they were found out and that was just troublesome.

They decided to split up the questioning as they didn't yet have a solid suspect and wanted to lower the level of suspicion that anyone who wasn't involved in the situation might have over what was going on and to also keep word from spreading too fast before they got a chance to talk with everyone.

It was a tedious process with some may people to go over. Most of them had alibis for before and during the time of the event that checked out and almost everyone had something good to say about working with Victoria that seemed genuine rather than the fake 'I need to say something nice so I'm not a suspect so I'll pick something superficial to say about the victim.' responses that both were used to hearing. It was both a positive and negative. Positive on the note that it could narrow down suspects based upon their response, but negative on the point that it didn't give them any better of a lead in what direction to take in Ray's opinion.

For Abel, this didn't clear anyone off the suspect list because he had taken a different route of questioning than Ray had. While it was true that everyone seemed to have truly enjoyed working with Victoria and were distressed to hear what had happened- they didn't know if the same sentiments followed with the clients she worked with which would be where they needed to start with next. The second problem he found was that, no one had much of anything to say nice about Mr. Clarke.

"But what connection does that have to do with Victoria's murder?" Ray asked once they were back in the car and heading towards the station. He didn't see how the dots connected.

"It doesn't give us our answer though as to whom we should suspect still."

"Well it might actually." Abel replied.

"Think about it from this perspective. I'm certain that you noticed that outside of the secretary and those hired as assistants, most of everyone else who worked there were men."

"So what, you think that something might've been going on between Victoria and her boss that allowed her the position as an editor?" Ray asked, trying to understanding what direction his partner was trying too approach the situation from.

"It's not impossible, if there was any type of 'deal' made or agreement as to how Victoria could have a job as an editor, it could lead us back to looking at Ace if something was going on between him and victim or Clarke himself if she threatened to say anything to his wife or anyone else because something that happened between them. It's all hypothetical of course."

"It's a point work from. Checking alibis should come first while we're finishing interviews and determine if there's anyone else of interest that we should include on that list."

"And checking to see if they got anything from the phone record yet or the body that could give us clues. Mid afternoon... there's still a few more hours we could put to good use before we'll have to stop for today." Abel glanced at the digital clock in the car as he spoke.

"If you want, you could stay at my place tonight if we find anything interest and continue going over details." Ray offered. He wasn't sure about the other, but he knew if there was still much to go over, he probably wouldn't be able to sleep early tonight even if they did call it quits before it got late."

"That's a very kind offer, but I can't tonight. I have some personal things to attend tonight as I haven't been here for very long yet and I am still getting everything in order. If you wish to do any type of socializing however, I could put it on my schedule for this weekend." Abel replied as he pulled into the police station.

"Oh, no problem. I forget you probably still have a lot to do since you just came in over the weekend and kinda hit the ground running. I will take you up on that offer for this upcoming weekend if we can get the case solved." Ray replied as the other turned off the car.

"Very well, then for now we can get back to focusing on the tasks at hand until we're done for the day." He replied before stepping out of the car.