“When did you last see Mr. Bjurman?” Rhodes asked.
“Yesterday evening. He came over for a Pilates and core training session.”
“When did he leave?” Chloe asked.
“I don’t remember the exact time, but the session ended at seven. He’s usually out the door promptly after the session. So I’d say no later than seven-oh-five or so.”
“Please forgive me asking this,” Chloe said, “but was your husband present during the session?”
“No.” She paused for a moment, as if trying to decide if she should be insulted by what Chloe might be suggesting. In the end, she shrugged it off and went on as well as she could. “He’s on business right now. He’s not due back for another three days. But my husband has met Viktor and there is nothing to even think about there.”
She was not being defiant or mean-spirited. Her tone was quite polite, in fact. Still, Chloe noted that the woman had definitely been crying recently.
“Did you know Mr. Bjurman outside of your professional relationship?” Rhodes asked. “That is, would you consider the two of you friends?”
“Sure. We laughed together and joked around. He would even stay over for a glass of wine every now and then after the sessions, but only when Mike—my husband—was home.”
Chloe considered her next question carefully. Theresa Diaz had made a point to mention her husband several times in the last twenty seconds or so. She had also done her polite best to shut down any implication that there may have been an affair. So Chloe knew it was a touchy subject for some reason or another. This also made her know that if she pressed on toward that subject, Theresa was going to send them packing.
“How long had you been a client of Mr. Bjurman’s?” Chloe asked.
“About a year or so. He was very good…”
She stopped here, composed herself a bit, and shook her head. “Sorry. It’s all very sudden. I mean…I just saw him last night.”
“That’s okay,” Rhodes said. “Given your working relationship with him, can you think of anyone who might have had something against him?”
“That’s just the thing,” Theresa said. “I never saw him have a cross word with anyone. For that matter, I never heard anyone say anything bad about him.”
“What was your husband’s opinion of him?” Rhodes asked. Chloe cringed a bit, wondering if this would be the question that got them kicked out. But no, Theresa took it in stride or simply didn’t see the subtlety of Rhodes’s question.
“Mike got along fine with him. Now, full disclosure here, he did not like the idea of a male trainer coming into the house while he’s not here. But once Mike got to meet Viktor, all of that changed. I can’t stress enough how charming of a man he was. Everyone loved him. It makes absolutely no sense why anyone would kill him.”
“Would you happen to know if he had any clients in the town of Colin?” Chloe asked.
“I’m not sure. His wife might be able to get that information.”
Brave for her to mention Bjurman’s wife, Chloe thought. There’s almost certainly some degree of an affair or, at the very least, attraction here.
“Did Mr. Bjurman seem at all distressed or uncomfortable during last night’s session?” Chloe asked.
“No. Or, if he was, he hid it very well. I just…I don’t understand…”
So far, this seemed to be the running theme. And it was further proof that they weren’t going to get anything worthwhile out of Theresa Diaz. She knew the next logical step was to visit the town of Colin to see what they could find out about the murder of Steven Fielding. But by doing that, Chloe felt that they’d be leaving a cold trail to the murder of Bjurman because with every moment that passed, she was becoming more and more certain the murders were not connected.
“I just don’t understand,” Theresa said again, her voice wavering and close to tears.
That makes two of us, Chloe thought.
CHAPTER SIX
“So they were definitely screwing, right?”
The question was a blunt one, yet the sort of thing Chloe had fully expected Rhodes to ask once they got back into the car.
“That’s the feeling I got,” Chloe said. “You noticed she had been crying, right?”
“Yeah, the redness and slight puffiness around her eyes. The little tremor and creak in her voice.”
“So it’s clear why she’d not want to confess to the affair,” Chloe said. “Especially if what she said about her husband meeting Bjurman is true. Makes sense she’d want to cover her ass. If the man she was sleeping with on the side is all of a sudden dead, it makes the task of hiding the affair that much easier.”
“Still, I think we should check out the story about her husband being away on business,” Rhodes said. “We could probably get our new friends Anderson and Benson to hunt that information down.”
“You think the killer could have been the husband?” Chloe asked.
“Probably not. But seeing as how the murders so far seem to be unconnected, we need to check every box, I suppose.”
Chloe nodded. She liked it when she and Rhodes were so perfectly in sync. Their partnership had certainly started off rocky, so it was good to be reminded of just how far they had come every now and then.
“Hey, Fine?”
“Yeah?”
“What really happened out there in Texas?”
Chloe felt those thoughts of their in-sync partnership come to a screeching halt. She resented that Rhodes was going there—with or without Johnson’s guidance—but did not want to show that it angered her. She knew that would make it appear she had something to hide.
“Do you want the story with or without all of the family drama that comes attached with it?”
Rhodes grinned. “Without. I know how you hate dredging that shit up.”
Chloe hesitated for a moment, unsure of how to proceed. If Rhodes was playing a part, she was playing it well.
“Dad and Danielle got into some sort of skirmish at his apartment. I don’t even know what it was fully about because Danielle won’t give me all the details. But in the end, I just think Dad snapped and…”
“Yeah?”
“Rhodes, I hope you don’t take this personally, but I don’t really feel like talking about it. Not right now. It’s going to mess with my head and keep me from focusing on the case. You can understand that, right?”
“Of course.”
Chloe couldn’t tell if there was disappointment in her face and voice or not. She hated to think that Rhodes might actually be spying on her, tasked to report anything she learned to Johnson and those above him. But for right now, she had to be incredibly careful of every word that came out of her mouth.
Yet the silence that then fell between them indicated that Rhodes had not been expecting to be shut down in such a way. The moment sat thick between them as Rhodes guided the car into Colin.
It was so thick that when Chloe’s cell phone rang, she jumped a bit. Hoping Rhodes hadn’t seen her reaction, she answered the call quickly.
“This is Agent Fine.”
“Agent Fine, it’s Deputy Anderson,” came Anderson’s singsong voice. “Thought you should know that we just got notified that an officer in Colin just arrested a man. They’re pretty sure it’s Steven Fielding’s killer.”
“Any possible connection to Bjurman?” Chloe asked.
“We don’t know yet. But I told them I’d let you know. They’re literally