“Did it occur to you that strangling her would also suffocate the baby?”
Anna gave her a bewildered look. “Is that what happened? Well, now that I think about it, I guess that makes some sense, though I tried to work very fast.”
“Was the baby already dead when you called 911?”
“I think so. It was such a disappointment. But I didn’t have time to dwell on it. I had a plan to follow, and I stuck to it. I got undressed, smeared the maid’s blood on my thighs, because it wouldn’t look right if I wasn’t bleeding, then I put her body in the plastic with everything, taped her up, and stuck her in the wall. Then I called 911. That’s when I could let go and feel my pain.”
Her eyes actually started to well up with tears, as if she were the one who’d endured the suffering, not Priscilla and her baby. Eve found herself at a loss for words.
Duncan turned away from the window and looked at Anna. “What were you going to do if you got away with it? Just leave her in your wall?”
Anna wiped away her tears. “Of course not. What if we remodeled again or if we sold the house someday? It was too risky. So before Jeff got home, I was going to take the body out to the desert, somewhere off the highway on the way to Victorville, and bury it. Even if the body was found someday, nobody would know who she was. She was here illegally. She wasn’t anybody.”
“Tell that to her husband and children,” Eve said.
“What about me?” Anna said. “That’s the sad part. I would have been an amazing mother.”
They arrested Anna for murder, handcuffed her, put her in the back seat of the Explorer, and drove back to Calabasas. There were a dozen satellite TV news vans parked outside the Lost Hills station when they arrived, with cameramen setting up lights and placing microphones at a podium in front of the main entrance. A press conference was coming. Eve hoped that Captain Shaw hadn’t leaked the news about Anna McCaig’s arrest. This was not a case she wanted to talk about on television or see sensationalized, though she knew it would be.
But none of the press paid any attention to them driving in, or going through the gate, and Eve took that as a good sign. The media was here for something else, but she had no idea what it might be.
They brought Anna inside for booking and she finally spoke again, asking for a public defender. They asked if she’d like them to contact her husband, who was still in Berlin, for her and she was adamant that she didn’t want them meddling in her marriage. Since Eve and Duncan had no reason of their own to talk with him, they abided by her request. So Duncan went off to arrange for Anna’s public defender while Eve finished the processing and put her in a cell to await her transfer to the jail downtown for her arraignment.
When Eve walked into the squad room, she saw Garvey standing at his cubicle, all dressed up in a nice suit, checking himself out in a mirror that Biddle held up in front of him. Duncan was at his desk, watching with amusement as Garvey primped.
“Looks like someone is getting ready for his close-up,” Duncan said.
“Set your DVRs, it doesn’t matter which station, because we’re gonna be on all of them.” Garvey licked his finger and smoothed his eyebrows.
“What happened?” Eve asked.
Biddle said, “We found the Ferrari that hit the surfer on PCH. It belongs to Justin Marriott.”
“Who is that?” Duncan asked.
“You don’t know?” Garvey said. “He’s a singer. The kid made his first $10 million before he was eighteen with a song about jerking off constantly because he can’t screw the girl of his dreams.”
“How did I miss that?” Duncan said. “Sounds like my kind of song.”
“I’d never heard of him, either,” Biddle said. “We arrested him for vehicular manslaughter and felony hit-and-run. Now he’s sitting in a cell, going through extreme Twitter withdrawal. We may have to call paramedics.”
“Every newscast and talk show in America wants this,” Garvey said. “My Twitter is going to explode.”
“You have a Twitter?” Duncan said.
“I also have electricity and running water,” Garvey said. “You really are a dinosaur. If you aren’t on social media, you might as well be dead.”
Captain Shaw opened the squad room door a crack and stuck his head in. “Pavone. Ronin. Can I have a word with you in my office?”
Duncan got up and the two of them stepped out into the hall, where Shaw was waiting. He led them down the hall.