The man she was married to had just been killed. But he was doing his job, wasn’t he? He had to eliminate her as a suspect.
She had to be precise, give the detective all the information he could use and suggest things he might do to establish her innocence. If she didn’t do that, whoever killed James would get away with it. And she might be blamed.
She drew in another deep breath and released it carefully, trying to gain a little control over the tremor in her voice. “I took a taxi from the airport and arrived here about ten-thirty, give or take ten minutes. I’m sorry I didn’t look at the clock more closely. You could verify the time with the cab company. Oh, and the plane was delayed for over an hour,” she informed him, remembering that detail suddenly, thinking it might be crucial. “It was Flight 1247, American. Check the passenger list.”
“Good idea. I’ll do that,” he agreed, as if that hadn’t occurred to him before. “So you got here and…” he prompted with an expectant look.
Robin rushed to explain, “James was…was like that when I found him. The door was unlocked, the rooms were wrecked, and he was just lying there. Like that.”
It felt surreal, all of it. James’s death, her second recitation of the events, this detective’s quiet questions in the deep, velvety voice. She looked at him again, puzzled by his unassuming manner. It was as if he did this every night. Did he? This was Nashville, not New York. Did people get killed here so regularly that it didn’t faze him at all?
Robin’s breath felt jerky and shallow as her gaze strayed to the door of the living room, through which she could see James. He lay sprawled facedown on the floor beside the coffee table, a dark pool of blood encircling his head. His eyes were open. A camera flashed.
She closed her own eyes tight. “Could…could they cover him? Please?”
“Sure they will. Don’t you worry,” he said, his words soft with faked compassion. It had to be faked. Why would he care if James lay there so exposed or that she might worry about it? He hadn’t known James and didn’t know her.
He went on. “As soon as they do what they have to do, they’ll cover him up. Why don’t you sit back on the bed a ways, ma’am. Then he won’t be visible to you. It bothers you, doesn’t it,” he asked gently, “seein’ him that way?”
Though he spoke softly, he watched her with an intensity that scraped across her exposed nerves. His words and relaxed attitude didn’t match those keen, narrowed ice-blue eyes that watched her like a hawk. A circling hawk about to dive at its prey.
“Of course it bothers me! He was a good man and he’s dead,” she said, choking on the words. Robin covered her eyes with a trembling hand and shook her head. “Please, Officer Wendall—”
“It’s detective, Detective Winton,” he corrected without a trace of impatience. He nudged her free hand and she looked down to see him offering her a pristine, neatly ironed handkerchief with a blue W embroidered on one corner.
Robin blinked. She didn’t know men did that anymore. Offered their handkerchiefs. Hesitantly she took it, though she had no idea why. She wasn’t even crying. Her throat hurt, her heart ached and she was terrified, but her eyes felt dry as dust.
“Are you going to arrest me?” she asked. It came out a bit more sharply than she intended. Had she sounded guilty?
He smiled. It was a quick little expression of what looked like sympathy. She knew better. “Not right now,” he assured her, then added, “but you do have to come downtown with me and give a written statement.”
“I told you everything.” She inclined her head toward the living room. “The other detective has it on tape and now you have notes.” She looked at the small tablet he’d been scribbling on.
“We’ll need another, more formal statement, ma’am. In more detail, and in writing this time.” He held up a hand when she started to object. “I realize you have other things to do, but I know you want to help us all you can.”
“Of course,” she replied. What else could she say?
“Good. You’ll be able to call his family, yours and anybody else you want to once we get to the precinct, but I’d appreciate it if you don’t touch anything else in here. You know, like the phone over there? I need to look around a little more before we go. You just sit right there for a while longer.”
She knew she had already contaminated the crime scene, even touched the gun. A stupid thing to do. How many times had she seen people do that on television and thought they were absolute idiots? Now she figured it must be a reflex or something. God, she wished she had left it alone.
She had felt James’s neck for a pulse. How could she not have done that? He might have still been alive and she could have helped him. But she couldn’t. He was already cold. The memory of his chilled skin made her fingers twitch.
Then she’d grabbed the phone in the living room to call for help. To make matters worse, she had rushed into the bedroom to get away from the terrible sight of death and wait for the police to arrive.
The covers had been torn off the bed and she was sitting on the bare mattress, so hopefully she hadn’t disturbed much in here. There would be fibers from her clothing, she guessed. She glanced at the satiny surface of the bedding. Could they take fingerprints from this? Why hadn’t she just backed out of the apartment and called from an outside phone?
As many times as she had seen it happen on TV and in movies, watched stupid people walk in after a murder and handle the very things that would incriminate them, it had never once occurred to her that she shouldn’t touch anything until after the fact.
She looked at her hands with the traces of wax residue on both sides. Why had they done that? Had the policeman said why? He had mumbled something about the fingerprinting, she thought.
There was also blood on her hands. James’s blood. On her hands. From the carpet where she had knelt beside him.
Suddenly Robin felt sick, ready to throw up. There was little time to debate whether she would destroy evidence in the bathroom. Better there than in here. She jumped up, rushed for the toilet and heaved until she couldn’t. Since she hadn’t eaten anything after breakfast yesterday, there was nothing in her stomach to lose.
Robin straightened, brushed her hair back behind her ears and turned to wash her face. The sight of James’s bottle of favorite aftershave sitting there on the counter top was the trigger. She saw it, sank to her knees, clutched the detective’s handkerchief to her face and wept uncontrollably for the man she had once thought she loved.
James shouldn’t be dead. He was only thirty-seven, too young to die, only six years older than she. Who would do such a thing to him? To anyone? He wasn’t bad. He didn’t deserve this.
She recovered from her crying jag, washed her face, scrubbed the blood off her hands and sat down on the closed seat of the commode to wait. Her legs felt too unsteady to carry her back into the bedroom just then.
After what seemed an eternity, the detective approached the open door of the bathroom. “Are you okay?”
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “No, I’m not okay.”
He came closer and frowned down at her with what looked like worry, then brushed her bangs off her forehead with the tip of one long
