“Probably?”
I made a face. “I was worried, OK? The car, the fact that he wasn’t answering when I knocked, the unlocked door… you can’t say there weren’t indications that something was wrong.”
He didn’t. He might have wanted to, but he didn’t. “So you walked in. And found him in the bedroom.”
I nodded. “I checked the living room first. I wouldn’t have gone into his bedroom otherwise. But the living room was empty, and the bedroom door was open. He was in bed, with the blankets pulled up to his chest. Eyes open. Bullet hole?—”
My voice broke, and I had to take a moment to clear my throat. “I called you right away. I didn’t touch anything except the doorknob and the light switch. And I let the cat in by accident—Patches, the same one that…”
I indicated the short white-and-orange hairs decorating the bottoms of Mendoza’s jeans.
“And then you stayed outside while you waited for me to get here?”
I nodded. He gave me a look, and I said, “Yes. I sat on the stoop outside the kitchen door and waited for you.”
Mendoza nodded. “Thank you, Mrs. Kelly.”
He tapped his phone to stop the recording before losing the official tone. “All right. I’ll need you to come down to the station later to sign a written statement once this has been transcribed, but this will work for the moment.”
In the distance, I could hear sirens approaching. The cavalry, as Mendoza had called it.
“I need to inform Jacquie,” I said.
Mendoza’s expression hardened. “Over my dead body.”
I winced. “Don’t say that.” Not with Nick lying stone dead twenty feet away.
He relented. “Fine. But the girlfriend is always a suspect. You know that. You can’t just waltz over there and talk to her. You could be in danger.”
“She wouldn’t—” I started, and then I stopped. Could I really be sure of that? And more to the point, was I really defending the woman who had destroyed my marriage and accused me of murdering my husband?
The sirens were getting louder now. I could see flashing lights at the end of the street.
“At least let me be there when you tell her,” I said. “Please, Detective. She hired me. I owe her that much.”
“You don’t owe her anything.”
“I do. I owe her fifteen hundred dollars’ worth of something. Respect, if nothing else. The belief that she’s innocent until you’ve proven her guilty.”
He didn’t respond to that, so maybe I’d scored a point. “I want to see her reaction,” I added. “If you think she might be guilty, then you’d want to see her reaction, too. Don’t you? We could go together. Sort of officially-unofficially.”
Mendoza studied me for a long moment. “That’s actually not an awful idea.”
“Thank you.”
“I didn’t say yes.”
Maybe not, but he hadn’t said no again, either. For now, I decided to bide my time and keep my mouth shut. At least I wouldn’t wedge my foot in it and destroy what little progress I might have made that way.
Two patrol cars and an unmarked sedan pulled up in front of the duplex. Doors opened, and uniformed officers emerged, along with a woman a few years older than me wearing slacks and a blazer, with brown hair pulled back in a short, no-nonsense tail.
She glanced around before her eyes found Mendoza and me, waiting on the stoop, and she headed our way.
“Jaime.” She stepped onto the grass. “There you are. And not alone.”
Mendoza straightened. He had the grace to look slightly embarrassed. “Lieutenant. This is?—”
“I can guess.” The lieutenant extended her hand. “Mrs. Kelly, I presume?”
