Apex Predator by J. A. Faura Page A

place. Sometimes it might be a pillow and blanket on the couch from a buddy crashing over, sometimes it was empty pizza boxes. It could be anything, but most of the time it was something.
    The thing both officers noticed at almost the exact same time is that there was nothing, nothing , out of place here. It was almost as if the guy didn’t really live here.
    Riche closed the door behind them and motioned to the living room, “Please come in, sit down. Can I get you any water, something else to drink?”
    Mullins and Grady declined politely. They were still scanning the walls without being too obvious.
    While paying attention to the fact that there was nothing out of place, both officers also noticed that there was not a single picture of a human being anywhere around the apartment. No pictures, no paintings, nothing that showed any connection to anyone. In and of itself, that might have been ticked off as a curiosity, but coupled with everything else, the reasons they were here and what both had to admit was something physically quirky about Donald Riche, it was definitely something to file away for later discussion.
    By now the detectives had Riche’s criminal, school and work history. They knew he had no family he kept in contact with. They knew he had never been in trouble with the law, that he owned a van registered in New York, and that he rented an industrial place close to the Brooklyn Bridge for which he was charged monthly out of his checking account.
    They had his transcripts from Wisconsin and NYU and had any and all performance reviews he had ever gotten. It was interesting that although in every review he had gotten glowing comments, every supervisor or teacher had made some sort of mention of the fact that while Donald was respectful and polite and that he had absolutely performed every one of his duties exactly as he had been asked to, there seemed to be a detachment from Donald toward his classmates, coworkers, supervisors, anyone he had to deal with.
    In every case, there was nothing anyone could put their finger on, it was just a sense that he was not willing to let anyone in past a certain point.
    Yes, prior to coming to visit Mr. Riche, detectives Grady and Mullins had put together what was starting to look like a really interesting file on the guy.
    Detectives from other precincts were tracking down anyone else that might know him or might have any information about him. They would speak with university teachers, supervisors, coworkers, but Mullins and Grady would be willing to bet that they would get the same type of story.
    And now that they were standing in front of the man, Mullins and Grady stole a sideways glance at each other and could understand what they had read. There was nothing remarkable about the guy, he looked nice enough, he was clean cut and professional, not a wrinkle on his clothes, but there was something that made it seem like he was playing a role, like he had the conversation and the exchange already planned out.
    The three men walked into the living room. Donald sat on the love seat and the two detectives sat on the sofa. Grady opened his briefcase and pulled out a file. He laid it on the coffee table, opened it and brought out the pictures of the missing girls. Donald looked at all of them and lingered on the pictures of Emily and Mia and his face softened.
    Grady picked up on it, “Do you recognize any of these girls, Mr. Riche?”
    Donald looked up at him, “Of course, you guys know I watched Mia and Emily for Nancy. I am just sick about all of this. I don’t know how to console Nancy and I just don’t know how to go about helping.”
    Mullins picked it up from there, “Do you recognize any of these other girls.”
    Riche looked at him, puzzled, “No, I’ve never seen any of them.”
    Mullins went on, “I think the best place to start is how you came about watching the girls for Nancy Hunt, how you came to meet them.”
    Donald went into the story about the girls in