Chapter 4

Detective Oliver

I felt like my ass had gone numb. We all readjusted our bodies in our seats before the question I had been waiting for was asked. “Can I take a break to go to the restroom? And please, anyone but Jones this time.” She patted the table next to his elbow. “No offense.”

“None taken. I was going to suggest someone else, too.” They both snickered.

“I’ll go get Officer Rodriguez to escort you,” I said.

Delilah Rodriguez was a sexy little piece of work, and a spit fire of a woman. When I let her know what I needed her to do, she gave me her side-eyed look that let me know I was interrupting her otherwise-boring day. She had a feisty personality and a petite five-foot-four-inch thin frame. She had a nice ass, too, even in the unflattering uniform pants. Her boobs were small and were almost invisible beneath the chest pockets on the uniform shirt.

Her physical appearance was what drew my attention when I first met her. Since that day, shortly after I’d joined the force, I had a few conversations with the seemingly-quiet officer. She was a brilliant, intelligent woman with a zest for life and family. And as much as I’d tried to figure her out, she remained a mystery. Each conversation left me wondering, How can such a beauty still be single?

“You owe me, Bradley Oliver,” she whispered. Her eyes were squinted and glaring at me.

I wanted to give her one of my typical smart-ass replies, but though better of it. Instead, I just smiled.

“I appreciate you,” I said.

She begrudgingly walked to the room where Carlotta was standing, then the two women made their way to the bathroom in the hall.

Within seconds, Skip called my cell phone.

“Can you talk?” he asked.

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“I talked to your boss already; he told me he had you leading the case with Jones. Congratulations. I wanted to let you know I’ve come up with an approximate time of death for you. I’ll see if I can get it narrowed down a little more, but for now you’re looking at Friday between eleven in the morning and three in the afternoon. Hope that helps.”

“Thanks, that helps a lot. I’ll be in touch as soon as we wrap up here with our questioning,” I said.

“I’ll talk to you in a bit,” Skip said. He hung up the phone.

I put my phone back into my pocket, then told Jones the news. “Should I change the direction of the questions? Should I press her more about her whereabouts?”

“For now, let her finish her story and just talk. You’ll definitely want to know where she was in the afternoon, and we’ll have to make sure of her whereabouts all day… or at least until three,” Jones said. “I’ll be happy when this diatribe about their life ends.” We both laughed. He wasn’t the only one who felt like that.

“Do you think she did it?”

“I can’t say with certainty that she didn’t. I’m not sure what to think right now. I never expected her to come to the apartment and act like her husband was a complete stranger,” Jones said. “She must have ice water in her veins.”

When the women exited the restroom, which was just two doors down from our interrogation room, I thanked Delilah, brandishing my toothy grin, and nodded in her way. She rolled her twinkling eyes at me and threw her hand in my direction like she was swatting at a fly, then huffed past me. My eyes followed her while my mind took a brief respite from duty to think about how nice it would be to find myself snuggled between her thighs, licking her like a freaking lollipop. How many licks would it take to make Delilah scream my name? I may never know. But I was willing to keep warming her up so I could hopefully find out.

Jones stood in the doorway and cleared his throat, snapping me out of my musing. “Loverboy, are you ready to get back to work?”

“Uh, yeah, sorry. I was distracted a little.”

“Uh-huh,” Jones scoffed.

I looked down at him and gave him a shot from my squinted eyes, and tried hard to mute my smile. I wasn’t the only man who thought Delilah was a hot little number.

We entered the room and Jones shut the door behind us. Carlotta had resumed her seat and was flipping the cigarette pack over and over on the table.

“We’ll take a break again soon,” I said. I was hoping to get this wrapped up before we had to take yet another break. Either put her in cuffs or let her go. I wasn’t convinced she’d killed this guy, her husband, anymore, but she definitely had no love for him.

“No worries. I can wait about another hour before I begin to climb the walls.” She flashed us both a quick, fake smile, then tossed the pack into the middle of the table.

Against my better judgement, I knew we should continue with the discussion to get through it. Maybe there was something in there that could help this case. Plus, I really wanted to know who this mystery guy was. “You said things had gotten worse before we stopped.”

“Yeah, they did. Much worse. Jonathan followed the two of them, Larissa and the mystery guy, as they drove about thirty minutes to the opposite side of town. She parked in front of a brick building. He said he couldn’t tell if it was an apartment building or a warehouse or what it was, but that’s neither here nor there, right now. They got out of the car and Jonathan said he still couldn’t quite make out the guy, but said something seemed familiar about him.”

“Did he ever get a good look and figure out who was with his girlfriend?”

“Yes, he did. He didn’t tell me who it was for quite a while, though; instead he just said he couldn’t believe it. He let things die down and kind of left things alone. He wasn’t following her anymore or anything like that. But for some strange reason, about a year later, a couple of months after Larissa had the baby, he said he didn’t know why, but he followed her after work. She picked up the baby from day care, then went back to that same building he had followed her to. Evidently, she had moved from her old apartment to this new place, farther from downtown where she had lived while they were dating.”

“So she moved before they broke up and never told him? He didn’t think that was strange?” Jones asked.

“Yep, that she did. Since they were on the outs, she went to his place when she wanted to see him. That helped keep things, including her new mystery man, hidden for those few weeks.” Carlotta took a drink of her water, swallowing three or four gulps. “This time when he followed her, he called me and talked to me from outside of her apartment. I tried to tell him to just leave her be. Let it go because it wasn’t worth the aggravation. But he told me something was nagging at him and he felt compelled to follow her. Then I heard him gasp and utter, ‘motherfucker.’ I tried to get his attention so he’d talk to me, but he hung up the phone. When I called him back, it went directly to his voicemail. He must have turned off the phone on me.”

“Did he ever call you back?” I asked.

“He came into the office the next day, much to my surprise. Larissa had called in because the baby was sick, so I was extra busy that day. Despite his many efforts to talk to me as I ran around in a frenzy, I finally convinced him we should meet later that evening because I had absolutely no time to talk with him. Begrudgingly, he left. Later that evening, he came to the house. I was alone, again, and we had time to talk. He told me he was going to show me some pictures. I couldn’t help but think it was ridiculous that my dear Jonathan had decided being an undercover detective, or stalker, was his calling.” She seemed unfazed. I was amazed and taken aback at her demeanor. It was like she was telling the story about a co-worker or a distant relative.

I was practically leaning over the table into her space, completely drawn in by this story. “Who were the pictures of?”

She chuckled. “He made me promise I’d remain calm. Calm is normally my middle name. I try every day to not let my emotions show. I’d been taught it can be perceived as weak, so I tend to hide my feelings until I’m alone … which is most of the time when I’m not at work.

“So anyway he pulled out his phone, and once he had a picture to show me he turned the phone in my direction and asked me if I recognized the person in the picture. It was the back of a man. I told my son I didn’t recognize him. He became agitated and scrolled to the next picture, insisting I look closer this time. It was the back of the same man, just a little more zoomed in. That was when he became enraged and screamed at me to open my eyes and look closer at the picture. He kept yelling for me to look at the man’s shoes, look at his hair, look at his shoulders, and look at his watch that was peeking out from the edge of his sleeve. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. My heart sank and I sat back in my chair. He scrolled to the next picture and showed me. I screamed at the top of my lungs, probably waking every neighbor in the building, I’m sure of it. I’m surprised the police weren’t called to the apartment that night.”

“Who was it?” I asked.

“It was Chase. My husband, that’s who! He was standing there with his arms draped over Larissa’s shoulders. The next picture Jonathan showed me was Chase and Larissa lip-locked right there on the street. I had never felt so betrayed and sick to my stomach in all my life.”

She sniffed and lowered her head into her waiting hand. Her fingers rubbed across her closed lids and her head shook. I watched her back and shoulders to see if she was crying, but there was no indication that she was. Just in case, I reached for the box of tissues. Jones and I looked at each other while her gaze was not on us. Jones shrugged his shoulders before springing into action.

He placed his hand on her shoulder, “Can I get you anything?”

She raised her head, slowly turning toward him and said, “A scotch – double and straight up.” She laughed.

She had a creepy laugh, one of those shrill cackles that was almost psychotic-sounding. Doubt was beginning to creep into my mind regarding her innocence, again, just before the sergeant opened the door and signaled for me to step out and talk to him. I excused myself, half feeling sorry for Jones because he had to stay in the room with her, but also relieved that I wasn’t in there.

“What do you think? You’ve been talking to her for hours, right?” Sarge asked.

“Sir, honestly, I don’t think she did it. She definitely had a reason to kill him, but I think if she was going to, she would have done it a few months ago.”

“So we have nothing to keep her here?”

“Nothing. Not even a hunch or a strong gut-feeling anymore.”

“Let her go then. We’ll have to keep an eye on her, just in case we need to talk to her again.”

“A couple of others came up in her conversation that we’ll need to follow up with, so I’ll get them in here.”

“Keep me posted. Oh, and the medical examiner said Effridge was killed sometime on Friday. You’ll love this little tidbit -- the maggots were the key to how long he’d been there,” Sarge said. “Did he tell you?”

I felt the saliva flood my mouth. I felt like I was going to yack. Fucking maggots, jeez! I nodded my head.

His mouth twisted into a sinister grin, then he laughed hard. “Toughen up, kid. Your face is as green as fresh sod.”

I went back in and let Mrs. Dupree know she could go. Once the newly widowed woman left the room, we gathered her water bottle and had it sent to the lab so we could get DNA for future comparisons, if needed.