“I didn’t see a note.”
“I’ll make sure the forensic team knows to look for one.” Elsie’s face is impossible to read as she jots it down on her pad. “But I’m going to level with you, Paris. It looks bad. Without witnesses or a suicide note, they can probably make a case for murder. His femoral artery was severed. They’re going to say that’s an unusual place for him to cut himself, because it is.”
Paris slumps.
“But we do have one good thing on our side,” Elsie says, but before she can tell Paris what that is, the officer is back.
Both women look up as the cell door opens again. “Detective Kellogg will meet you in room three,” he says.
Elsie packs up her briefcase. “Answer all her questions unless I direct you not to. In which case, you stop talking. Immediately.”
“Got it.”
As they follow the officer down the hallway, Paris’s hands begin to shake. It’s finally beginning to sink in. Jimmy is really dead. He won’t be home when she gets there. He won’t ask her if she’s in the mood to cook anything for dinner, or whether he should grill salmon or steak. He won’t kiss the top of her head and say, “I’m good with whatever you want, babe.”
Paris’s husband might not have been her greatest love—that honor still belongs to someone she knew years ago, in a different life, when she was a very different person—but Jimmy Peralta was the love of this life, the one she built from the ashes of her old one.
She chokes back a sob just as they reach room 3. A voice floats through her mind then, always the unwanted intruder, forever the snake in her brain that uncoils at the worst possible times.
You’re absolutely useless. Stop your crying before I smack the shit out of you again.
CHAPTER FOUR
Now that they’re sitting across from each other, Paris notices that Detective Kellogg is pretty, more like an actress playing a detective on TV than an actual detective. Her long blond ponytail bounces when she nods her head. Which is often.
“I’m surprised you’re representing her,” the detective says to Elsie. “You were good friends with the deceased, weren’t you? You must really believe she didn’t do it.”
“Because she didn’t,” Elsie says.
“You know, before we get into all that, where were you last night, Ms. Dixon?” Kellogg’s voice is amiable. Like Elsie, she has a notepad open in front of her, but it’s small, something that would fit in her back pocket. Her pencil taps the table.
“You’re asking me where I was?”
The detective smiles. “I’m asking everybody who knew Jimmy Peralta. You might be Mrs. Peralta’s lawyer, but you were Mr. Peralta’s best friend. Or so we’ve heard.”
Elsie exchanges a look with Paris and sighs. “I was out to dinner with friends until about nine. Happy to give you their names as well as the name of the restaurant. Got in about nine thirty and went straight to bed.”
“When was the last time you saw Mr. Peralta?” Kellogg is still directing her questions to Elsie.
“Last week. Monday, I think.”
“It was Tuesday,” Paris says to Elsie. “I was leaving to teach a morning class as you were pulling up.”
The lawyer nods. “That’s right, Tuesday. Jimmy and I went to breakfast.”
“Okay.” Kellogg seems satisfied. “I’m just asking because we heard your voice on the cassette tape we took out of Mr. Peralta’s portable stereo in the bathroom. It wasn’t easy to find a tape deck to play it on here, but yes, it did catch you saying something about having plans.”
“Jimmy likes to practice his jokes in the bathroom in front of the mirror,” Paris says. An image of her husband gesturing madly at his reflection pops into her mind, and a pang of grief hits her. “He uses his old boombox to rehearse.”
“He single-handedly keeps cassette manufacturers in business,” Elsie says.
“Every phone has a voice-recording app now,” Kellogg says. “Wouldn’t it be more convenient to use that?”
Paris and Elsie both snort at the same time.
“What?” the detective says, looking back and forth between them. “Why is that funny?”
“Jimmy was an old soul, Detective,” Elsie says. “He had a flip phone up until four years ago, and he still has a VCR in the living room. So, am I a suspect?”
“Not at this time, but anything can happen.” Kellogg smiles, then turns to Paris. “So. Your turn. According to your husband’s assistant, Zoe Moffatt, you were scheduled to be away for the weekend. Where’d you go?”