Beautiful Affliction(23)

I head toward the kitchen, wishing I'd taken him up on having the night off.





Chapter Twelve





I sit next to a desk at the Norwich police station. There are only a few other officers milling around, and Jaime and Detective Donohue sitting across from me.

"Does that all sound right to you?" Donohue asks after he finishes reading my statement back to me.

"Yes, that's right."

"Just sign here," he tells me, and I take his offered pen and do so. "You have an interesting position in the house," he says. "You're the only one who wasn't there that night."

"What night?" I ask frowning.

"We talked to Moreno this morning. He admitted it was him who slipped you the note, and that he'd lied about seeing Jody that Sunday."

"Why would he lie about it? Oh, unless he's the one who, you know…"

"No, we don't think it was him. When we first talked to him, he thought we were asking him about his cousin," Jaime says. "He's a small time drug dealer and Moreno had been running an errand for him that afternoon. He thought he was clever for using Jody as his alibi, but then felt guilty when he saw you. Worried you might be in danger. His story checks out with his cousin, and he's on the security tape of his apartment building."

"But other people saw her in town, too, right?"

"When we talked to them again, now that they've heard she's dead, they weren't so sure. So now—"

"Now Jody could have been killed in the house," I say, completing Donohue's sentence for him.

"Not just that. She could have already been dead that Sunday. Now we know the last time anyone definitely saw her alive was Saturday night, the 17th. She was serving at a dinner party at the house." A shiver runs down my spine. I watch Jaime take out a list.

"It was small—just four people. Brent Redmond, of course. His mother Leigh, his sister Whitney, his attorney Mark Scanlon, and Scanlon's fiancé Kristine Harrington. All four slept in the house that night. Apparently it's common for Redmond to invite guests to spend the night. And Eugenia Mueller and Aaron Sarka."

"Wait…are you saying one of those six people killed her? That's crazy."

"Not so crazy. Take Aaron Sarka, for example. Did you know he used to work for an independent military contractor? We tried to look into his background and couldn't. His files are sealed. I don't think the government is trying to hide his acts of charity."

"But…Aaron? He's so…"

"Nice? And Eugenia Mueller, there's no record of her before around 1990."

"That…" I shake my head, unable to process what they're telling me. "But what if someone broke in? I mean, what if…what if…"

"What if someone jumped the ten foot tall fence, broke through the alarm system without anyone knowing, found Jody Hall, killed her, put the alarm system back on, then threw her body over the fence and escaped?" Donohue asks drily. "Even though he didn't have cameras, the alarm system is state-of-the-art. Apparently he's got some fancy paintings to worry about."

"That he does. Well, surely you can cross off Mrs. Redmond."

"Why? Jody was five foot one and a hundred pounds soaking wet. It would have been tough, sure, but I think any of those women would have been capable of picking her up and bringing her into the garage."

"Why the—oh. Into their car, you mean. And then you think they just drove out the next day like nothing happened."

"And with the next day being her day off, no one even noticed she was gone until Monday."

I sit up, excited by a sudden idea. "What was she wearing? If she was in her day off clothes, then—"

"She was found naked," Donohue interrupts me.

My stomach churns. "Was she…?"

"No sign of sexual trauma."

I lean back, frowning. "Well, the how of it aside, I'm just saying that I've met all those people."

"And what do you think of them?" Donohue asks.

"Oh, so that's what this is," I realize, glaring back at the two of them. "I'm not a spy. I don't think any of them are murderers, alright? And I signed a non-disclosure agreement when I first started working there, anyway."

"This is a murder investigation. I don't think some little NDA is going to hold up."

"Fine. Then why would any of them kill her?"

"Like you said yourself, no one ever notices the maid. Could be she saw something she wasn't supposed to."

I take a deep breath. "You made a mistake before. Maybe you're making a mistake now," I finally say.

Jaime leans forward. "Cora, I understand that you like these people, but the last maid there was smothered to death in that house, maybe even in your room."