“Do you have video of my house?” Sam asked. “Of Adeline arriving?”
“Yes,” Billings said.
Sam braced for the answer to his question—a question he had to ask. He had to know. “Did she leave in the night?”
Holloway cocked his head. Billings studied Sam for a long moment. “No. She didn’t. After you and Miss Anderson returned to your residence, no one left until the two of you—along with your son—departed that morning for the cemetery.”
Tom was saying something. But Sam was in another place. He was only vaguely aware of the interrogation room. What he had learned, at that moment, was that Adeline was innocent. She hadn’t returned to Nora’s house. Not that he could ever imagine her doing that. But the world was strange sometimes.
Adeline had gotten her feelings hurt that night. But she hadn’t done something that couldn’t be undone. The truth would free her. And him. He clung to that thought like a rope hanging over a cliff. Absolom was below, and the facts would pull them free.
Sam had given the eulogy at his wife’s funeral service. It had been the hardest thing he’d ever done. The words he said next were a close second.
“How did she die?”
Holloway turned in his chair to Billings, who seemed troubled by Sam’s question.
“We think you know.”
“Just show me. Please.”
Elliott and Tom shared a glance, and so did Holloway and Billings. The detective slid the tablet forward.
The picture Sam saw there nearly made him vomit.
Nora lay on the floor of her kitchen, a wide gash in her neck. A pool of blood spread out around her on the tile floor.
Sam inhaled.
And exhaled.
He felt like he had woken from a nightmare only to learn that it wasn’t a dream. This was reality.
It couldn’t be.
It was wrong.
Nora Thomas was the kindest, gentlest woman he knew.
The picture of Nora lying dead, her blood spilled out like the liquid contents of a shattered wine bottle, gutted Sam.
If he stared at it much longer, the picture would break him. He had to focus. He had to protect Adeline. That was his life now. He knew it then. And nothing else mattered.
“Why,” Sam said, “do you think Adeline killed Nora? She clearly went home. And you admitted she didn’t leave that night. Until the morning.”
“The murder weapon,” Billings said.
“What about it?” Sam asked.
Billings tapped the tablet again, and a picture appeared of a knife laid out on a white plastic background.
“We found it in the tank of the toilet in the half bathroom off the foyer,” Billings said. “They have Miss Anderson’s prints on the handle. We detected significant amounts of Dr. Thomas’s blood on the blade. The water didn’t wash it away completely—or the prints, as Miss Anderson hoped they would.”
Billings watched Sam, but he couldn’t bring himself to speak.
She pressed on. “CSI detected a significant amount of both females’ blood in the living area and kitchen. Your prints are everywhere. We detected both women’s blood on your skin—we collected the sample while you were unconscious this morning. We also found trace amounts of Dr. Thomas’s blood on your daughter’s skin. Lastly, audio from surveillance cameras outside the home confirms the verbal altercation between the victim and Miss Anderson. It overlaps with the deceased’s projected time of death. It’s easily enough to convict both of you. You were there. Her prints are on the murder weapon. Both of you have blood on your hands.”
“We’re done here,” Sam said. “I want to see my daughter. Right now.”
SIX
I? n the plush holding cell, the door opened, and Adeline marched in, eyes wide.
Sam rose from the club chair and held out his arms.
She ran to him and wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his chest and sobbed, a long, ragged cry filled with hurt. It was a single word: “Dad.”
“It’s going to be okay,” he whispered. “Did they tell you?” he asked.
“Yeah.” Adeline sobbed again. “I was so mean to her, Dad. So mean.”
“You were upset. You had every right to be. It’s understandable. She understood. I promise you.”
Her sobs receded, and Adeline broke the hug and looked up at her father. “What happened?”
Sam sensed that now was a time for truth. And he told her the truth: “I don’t know.”
“She was alive when we left.”
“Yes. She was.”