Chapter 6: What Richard Decided
Richard Holloway had been in the holding room for four hours when he asked for a piece of paper and a pen.
The officer on duty brought them without comment.
Richard wrote three lines.
Folded the paper.
Asked for it to be delivered to Detective Vance.
Vance unfolded it at her desk.
*I will tell you everything about Martin Greer.
Full cooperation.
In exchange, I want the attempted murd3r charge reduced to unlawful confinement.
Get me that in writing and I'll give you Greer, the other two women, the offshore account, and the name of the attorney who filed the fraudulent policy change.*
Vance read it twice.
Set it face-down on her desk.
Picked up her phone.
Her lieutenant's response was four words: "Get it on record."
She went back to the holding room.
Richard looked up when she came in.
He had straightened his tie — still wearing his funeral suit, still trying to look like a man in control of something.
"You read it," he said.
"I read it."
"And?"
"And I need you to understand something before we go any further." Vance sat down across from him.
"Whatever you give me on Greer — it doesn't disappear what happened in that room today.
Forty witnesses.
A recording.
A twelve-year-old boy.
A woman who was sedated and placed in a casket while her funeral was conducted above her." She let that sit for a moment.
"You're not bargaining from strength, Mr.
Holloway.
You're bargaining from the only position you have left."
Richard's jaw moved.
"I understand that."
"Then tell me about the other two women."
He told her.
It took forty minutes.
He spoke carefully, with the precision of a man who had rehearsed this possibility — who had always known, somewhere, that this day might come and had kept certain information close as insurance.
He named names.
He gave dates.
He described the mechanism: Greer identified wealthy widows and divorcées, Richard cultivated them, and when the policy and the paperwork were in place, Greer's network handled the rest.
"The first woman," Vance said.
"Patricia Elms.
You said she went to her sister's."
"That's what Greer told me."
"You didn't ask questions."
Richard looked at the table.
"No."
"Why not?"
He didn't answer.
Vance leaned forward.
"Mr.
Holloway.
Patricia Elms has not been seen by her family in three years.
Her sister filed a report eighteen months ago.
It was flagged as low priority." She paused.
"Why didn't you ask questions?"
Richard's carefully maintained composure developed a crack.
Just one.
A slight tightening around the eyes, a barely perceptible shift of his weight.
"Because I didn't want to know," he said.
"But you suspected."
He said nothing.
"Richard." Vance's voice dropped.
Not softer — flatter.
"If Patricia Elms is d*ad, your cooperation on Greer does not protect you from what comes next.
You understand that."
"I want my attorney."
"You've had your attorney.
You waived that right for this conversation.
You can stop it now if you want — but everything you've already said is recorded and admissible." She stood.
"Think carefully about what you want the next hour to look like."
She left him there.
In the corridor, she called the lieutenant again.
Two minutes.
Then she called the detective who had originally handled the Patricia Elms missing persons case.
He answered on the second ring.
"Vance.
What do you have?"
"I need you to reopen Patricia Elms," she said.
"And I need you to pull everything you have on a Martin Greer.
Financial advisor, Caldwell Street." She paused.
"And I need you to find out if there's a third woman we don't know about yet."
A silence on the line.
"How bad is this?"
Vance looked back through the small window in the holding room door.
Richard was sitting with his head in his hands again.
Same posture as the funeral home.
Same calculation underneath it.
May you like
"Bad," she said.
"Get moving."
