I had to be careful with this other one.
“Thank you for coming in, Mrs. Benoit-Clayton,” he said, taking a seat opposite me.
“I never changed my surname, but you can call me Maura.”
He nodded. “Sure, thank you, Maura.”
Looking down at his folder, I could see he had a copy of the records I’d allowed to stay out in the world.
“You don’t seem all that surprised that we called you in here,” Tommy said, rather abruptly. “Or sad that your husband was killed.”
I removed my eyes from the older one and looked over at him. “Everyone grieves in their own way, Detective. It would be rude of me to assume you were a little cocky and trigger happy simply because you are young, wouldn’t it? Do not presume to know my sadness simply by looking at me.”
He was infuriated. I could see his fists clenching as he fought not to throw handcuffs on me right here and now.
“Tommy,” the other one said. “Go and get a coffee.”
There was a silent tussle of power between the two before Tommy relented and left the room. A silent victory but I’d never show it.
“I apologize, Detective, but I fear I’ve missed your name.”
“Detective Garrick,” he replied. “But that’s of no consequence here. Let’s get back to your husband. Tell me how you met.”
“At a gala,” I replied quickly. “He was presenting the fundraiser for one of his charities and I was there as a guest.”
“How did you fall in love?”
“That’s rather a personal question, Detective Garrick,” I replied. “Must we dance around with niceties? You brought me in here for a reason, let’s get to it.”
I thought I caught a slight smile on his face, almost as if he were impressed that I could surprise him. I got the feeling he didn’t smile often.
“All right,” he said, closing the manila folder and moving it out of the way. He leant back in his chair and assessed me for a moment. “Let’s talk about the day of the incident.”
“I was home, upstairs in my parlor,” I lied. “I’d been having some midday cocktails, so I had already tired of his tirade of telling me about his business transactions for the day. I was reading a book when I heard a thud. Thinking he’d simply dropped something, I called out for him to be careful. He was awfully clumsy, you see. When I didn’t hear a response, or anything after that, curiosity got the best of me and I came downstairs to find him dead.”
“You didn’t come down because your cocktail was empty?”
“I never said it was empty.”
“No, but the shattered glass had no liquid around it. Meaning, you finished the drink when it was smashed. Could that be the reason you came down the stairs?”
Oh, he was good.
“Perhaps,” I said, being a little more cautious with my answers. “I can’t quite remember.”
“How long from the moment of hearing the thud did you come down the stairs?”
“I would say it was anywhere from the moment it happened to a few minutes.”
He smiled again, just briefly, but enough to have me on edge. “You see, I don’t quite know how that’s possible, Maura. You see, the lab analyzed the poison that was in his stomach, and told me how long it would take for it to register in his system before he started to suffocate. Then comes the sad part, the suffocation lasts for more than a few minutes. If this was the case, and you aren’t lying about how long it took you to check on your husband after you hear a thud, then you watched your husband choke to death and then called 911.”
Shit.
Hewasgood.
Better than I’d ever come across in my time as a serial husband killer.
“Are you accusing me of allowing my husband to die?” I asked him, all pretenses off the table now. I needed to know how serious this was.
