“Not at all,” Eve said. “We’d just like to talk with her. Do you have her number?”
“Sure, it’s on my phone.” Daphne led them through the dining room and into the kitchen, giving Eve the chance to see what the McCaigs’ kitchen layout was like before their remodel, and in reverse. There weren’t as many cabinets in this kitchen and the appliances were in different locations.
Daphne picked up her phone off the kitchen island, which was half the size of the McCaigs’ new one, and scrolled through her numbers until she found the one she wanted. “Here you go.”
She held out the phone to them. Duncan entered the number on his phone, excused himself, and walked away.
Eve and Daphne settled into spots across the island from one another. “What’s Priscilla’s last name?”
“Alvarez.”
She took out her pad and started taking notes. “When did you last see her?”
“She left here on Tuesday, at one thirty, like she always does, so she could catch the two p.m. bus and be home when her kids get out of school,” Daphne said. “One of her kids is twelve but I think the other one is five or six, so she doesn’t like to leave them alone.”
Eve made notes, looking at her pad as she casually asked, “When do your kids get out of school?”
“I don’t have kids, not yet anyway. I’ve repainted the nursery three times, a fresh start each time we’ve tried in vitro.”
The comment startled Eve. Daphne was another woman in Oakdale who was struggling to have a child . . . and she just happened to be repainting her walls shortly after the day her pregnant maid entered the community and didn’t leave. Could Daphne be painting over the bloody evidence of a crime?
Eve willed herself to appear indifferent so she wouldn’t reveal how significant that revelation was to her. “It must be hard on you.”
Daphne went over to the subzero refrigerator and opened it. “It’s disappointing, that’s for sure. My husband is also getting tired of having sex in a cup and I’ve got to admit that getting clumsily stabbed in the butt with a syringeful of hormones is not my idea of foreplay, so we may give up and do a private adoption.”
“What’s a private adoption?”
Daphne took out three bottles of fruit-flavored vitamin water and set them on the island. “It’s when a lawyer finds a pregnant woman who doesn’t want her child and arranges in advance for you to adopt it.”
Eve made some more notes and kept her eyes on the page. “Did you think about approaching Priscilla?”
“Our cleaning lady? Of course not. That would be inappropriate and extremely offensive. Why would I dare to assume she didn’t want her baby? The thought never crossed my mind and, frankly, I’m surprised it crossed yours.”
Eve looked up as Duncan came back in.
“No answer. Not even voice mail.”
“Help yourselves to some vitamin water,” Daphne said. “Would you like some melon to go with that?”
“Do you have any cookies?” Duncan asked.
“Will Oreos work?”
“Oreos always work,” Duncan said.
Daphne went to the pantry, took out a package of Oreos, peeled it open, and set it on the counter.
“Thank you.” Duncan took out six cookies and stacked them in front of him like poker chips. “I firmly believe it was an Oreo, not an apple, that tempted Adam in the Garden of Eden.”
Just to be sociable, and to maintain the nonconfrontational atmosphere, Eve plucked a cookie from the package and asked Daphne, “What else do you know about Priscilla?”
“Nothing, I’m ashamed to say. We didn’t really talk. She’s only here a few hours and doesn’t want to fall behind and miss her bus. And there’s a language barrier.”
Eve took a bite of her cookie. “She doesn’t speak English?”
Daphne took a drink from her bottle of water before answering. “Only enough to get by, the broad strokes, but not the nitty-gritty, if that makes sense.”
“It does. How long has she worked for you?”
“About two years.”
Eve finished her cookie and opened her water bottle. “Does it bother you having a pregnant woman in the house when you’re trying so hard to have a child of your own?”
That question caught Duncan’s interest. He hadn’t been around for the discussion about Daphne’s failed attempts to get pregnant. And now that he was down to one cookie in his poker stack, he wasn’t distracted. He suddenly saw Daphne in a whole new light. Possible murderer.