Chapter 3

“Before I tell you anything else, I need to take a break.” She lifted her pack of cigarettes and waved them back and forth.

“My partner, Detective Jones, will go down with you.” Finally, something that got his attention. He’d offered to help out, and I didn’t want to walk down so this woman could have a smoke break. I’d hear about this for sure after the interview was over. I was still considered a rookie to some of the guys, after all. If anyone should have gone out with her, it probably should have been me. But I hated cigarette smoke.

“Five minutes,” Jones mumbled.

By the time they returned, Carlotta seemed in better spirits. I guess she needed a nicotine fix. She took her seat, lay the pack on the table, and drank the last swallow of water from the bottle. It was only going to be a matter of time and we’d be taking another break.

Jones and I both sat down. The unpleasant smell of cigarettes emanated from her. I leaned back as my lips curled. I turned my head away from her and inhaled, hoping not to breathe in any of that smell. My parents had been chain smokers. Sometimes I saw them light a new cigarette before they’d even tapped the old one out. I hated their habit. But I hated it even more when I was forced to watch them both continue to decline and eventually die of lung cancer. I shrugged my shoulders in an effort to shake my thoughts so I could refocus.

I took a drink of my water, cleared my throat, and then resumed the questioning right where we had left off. “Tell us more about your husband. Everything seemed like it was going pretty good. When did things start to deteriorate between the two of you?”

“Like I said, it was really the last year or year and a half that I began to notice something was amiss. I worked a lot of hours. I own a fashion design house in the Manhattan, and I travel a lot, work late hours, and work on weekends. I thought our relationship was in good shape before then.”

“What was happening that led you to believe things weren’t so good anymore?” I asked.

“Chase was staying out late, and he wasn’t quick to answer my phone calls. When he’d finally come home, I could tell he’d been drinking – sometimes very heavily. At first I thought it was just harmless fun, blowing off steam and drinking with fellow professors. Then one night he came home with pink lipstick on his collar and was reeking of cheap perfume. I loathe that dime-store scent. When I questioned him about it, he told me I was crazy. In his words, I was ‘probably going through menopause,’” she said. She whispered just loud enough to be heard, “That fucking bastard.”

She inhaled and shook her head. Her eyes closed and that breath stayed trapped in her lungs while her body shook. Then, she exhaled every bit of breath in one huge puff from her mouth. Her face had reddened and a tear streamed down her face. She wiped it away quickly and raised her head. “Can I have another bottle of water, please?”

“Sure.” I kicked Jones’ foot indicating he was up, again. He shot daggers at me with his narrowly-pinched eyes before shoving his chair backwards so he could go out of the room.

“Your partner, Rob, doesn’t seem to be the talkative type. Is he new?”

“Jones? No, he’s been on the force for almost ten years now. He’s a very good detective. I’m actually the new one.”

“Hmpff,” she forced out of her throat. I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at her response. When she shook her head at me, I muffled myself.

Jones came back in with the bottle of water as I asked my next question. “Did your husband ever admit to having an affair? I mean, that’s what you thought was going on, right?”

“He never admitted it, not to me,” she said. “He was a coward. I told him early on in our relationship, when things began to get really serious, if he ever thought about being unfaithful, just tell me he wanted to call it quits. Not that it wouldn’t have crushed me, but it would have been proper. I just wanted him to be honest with me. He couldn’t even give me that courtesy.” Her shoulders rolled forward and her eyes were focused on the table as she shook her head slowly. We didn’t rush her or pry with more questions. Instead, we waited patiently for her to give us the signal that she was ready to resume.

With her body angled away from us, and her gaze on the wall, she continued. “My son, Jonathan, despised Chase from day one. You see, Chase is not my first husband … he’s my third. He and Jonathan only have a few years’ age difference. My son is very protective of me, and he felt Chase was pretending to love me but really was just a gold-digger. They fought a lot after we married, especially after a couple years into the marriage. I never really understood that because I thought they seemed to get along fine before we were married.”

“Did you ever overhear their arguments?”

“I tried to ignore them. Most of them started with Jonathan accusing Chase of one thing or another. But I did overhear Jonathan make a comment about Larissa a couple of times. She’s my secretary, and my son’s ex-girlfriend. I didn’t understand why she was brought into their argument. Not right away, anyway.”

“What do you mean? Why would they argue over your son’s ex-girlfriend?” I watched Jones scrawl Larissa’s name on the paper.

“Jonathan had fallen in love with her. They dated for a year. Then, all of a sudden, a few months later she broke up with him, saying she didn’t love him anymore. As any good, respectable mother would do, I comforted my son but I wanted to stay out of their affairs. My son begged me to talk to her for him, but it wasn’t my business to confront her on his behalf. She was my secretary and a damn good one. And I was able to stay out of it for nearly four months after they stopped seeing each other.”

“What changed?” I asked.

She swiveled her body back to its original position, so she was facing our direction and able to look at both of us. “I walked into work and looked at my secretary. Really looked at her. I noticed her belly. At first I thought she may have turned to food for comfort, but then I overheard her on the phone making an appointment for an ultrasound. I may be an older woman, but I knew that either meant she was pregnant or she had a tumor growing out of control in her belly. The thought of having a grandchild thrilled me. I have to admit, I was more delighted than I should have been.”

Carlotta uncapped her bottle of water and took a sip. “I called Larissa into my office and, without beating around the bush, I told her I’d overheard her on the phone and I asked her if she was pregnant by Jonathan. She told me no. She was pregnant, but my son was not the father. I’ll admit, I was embarrassed that I’d asked her at all, and I felt silly for allowing myself to get so excited.” Carlotta flipped the pack of cigarettes over and over on the table. Jones’ gaze was locked on her hands, and he finally reached over and placed his large paw on top of her small hand to stop her. Their eyes met, but neither said a word.

“Interesting. But she had broken up with him only three or four months prior?” Jones asked.

“Those were my thoughts exactly. If my Jonathan wasn’t the father, I wondered if she knew who was. So, that was my next question. She seemed quite fidgety, but admitted she did know who the father of her unborn child was. At that moment, I stopped asking her questions because I believed it was not my business to continue querying her. She went back to her desk and I continued with what I was doing.”

“So, what happened? Did you say anything to Jonathan?” I asked.

“Of course I told him. I called him later that evening while I was sitting at home, alone. I was alone on most evenings I didn’t work late, with very rare exceptions. Anyway, I told Jonathan what had happened and that she’d confirmed he wasn’t the father. He assured me he knew he wasn’t because their relationship had been on the rocks for several months. Not that I had asked for this information; he told me that their sex life was non-existent for at least the last three months before the break-up. I asked the dear Lord for forgiveness as soon as the thought went through my mind, but I couldn’t help but think what a slut my secretary had become, and how relieved I was she wouldn’t become my daughter-in-law.”

I watched Carlotta’s fingers tremble as she picked at the label on the water bottle, before uncapping it again. She took a couple of sips from the bottle before putting the cap back on with a twist.

She raised her eyes to meet mine. “I really did feel bad that I had thought of my secretary, my friend, my confidante as a slut. But that ended up being short-lived,” she said.

“Why is that?” I asked.

“I asked my son to come to breakfast with me a couple of days later. I felt really bad for him. First his girlfriend breaks up with him, then he finds out she’s pregnant by another man. What else could go wrong? I wanted to sit and talk with him, just to make sure he was okay after all of that.”

“And was he?”

 

Carlotta Dupree

I looked up at the clock on the wall. Three hours. I’d been locked away in this room for three hours already. I needed to leave. They had no right keeping me here, but I knew if I didn’t continue along with the questioning, they’d think I was guilty. The only thing I was guilty of was finding my husband insufferable. First and foremost, I was completely repulsed by his cheating on me, with my secretary no less. And I despised him for what he put Jonathan through. Chase was weak and pathetic. But he did Jonathan a favor by exposing Larissa for the hussy she is.

“Jonathan told me he suspected Larissa had been having an affair for several months. He thought she was secretly seeing a classmate of hers from the college. He went on to tell me this particular boy, Douglas, called her cell phone in the evenings and on weekends. He continued to tell me she’d giggled and whispered during the calls. I thought he was being ridiculous. I’d heard her talking to that kid while at work. I never told Jonathan that, though. All of the conversations sounded very classwork related to me. I never heard anything that gave me an inkling of doubt as to the nature of the calls.”

“Is there some importance of this Douglas kid to our investigation? Do you think he could be involved?”

“I seriously doubt the kid knew Chase.” My patience was nearly exhausted. I was disgusted reliving how I’d found out about my husband’s secret. I could only hope my coming clean would prevent me from enduring another agonizing visit to the police station. “Jonathan followed her one night to the college, to her night class. He sat in the parking lot because he was planning to confront this guy. My son is very possessive person, and although he told me he was fine with the break-up he clearly could have benefited from a few lengthy counseling sessions.

“He said he watched when Larissa exited the building with a young kid who looked to be no more than twenty. He said he could tell from their body language there was no attraction on her behalf. The kid might have been infatuated with Larissa, but she wasn’t reciprocating. So, he sat there and continued watching. He had a sneaking suspicion something was going on and he was hell-bent on finding out that night. As he sat there fiddling with his radio, he said he heard a giggle. When he looked up, a man was leaning against her driver’s side door with his arms wrapped around her waist. Her books had long been tossed, probably in the car, because her arms were snaked around this other man’s neck. This was the guy. But it was too dark, and there was too much distance to get a good look at his face. After Larissa and the mystery man got into her car they drove off, and Jonathan followed them.”

“Holy shit,” Jones blurted out, drawing our attention toward him. I was glad to see I wasn’t the only one who’d been drawn in by this tale. “I mean, that really could have been dangerous for him.”

“You can say that again, but it gets worse.” I inhaled and exhaled as I prepared to continue with the story.