“Of all the—” Joy broke off when Eve shot her a single, hard warning look.
“I apologize for the dress.” Eve addressed it to Aileen. “I was at an event.”
“It’s a lovely dress. You look lovely.” Aileen glanced up as the cook, with a wavering smile and teary green eyes, brought the tea and coffee on a tray.
“Excuse me,” she said to Eve, and handed Eve her coffee. “Now, you drink some of this tea this time, missus. You, too, Ms. Barrister. Won’t you let me clean her up?” she asked Eve.
“No.” Aileen hugged herself. “No. It’s Nate’s. It’s Nate’s blood. I couldn’t stop the bleeding. I couldn’t wake him up.”
“Do you know why he was in his office?”
Aileen turned, finally focused on Eve. “Are you a policewoman?”
“I’m Lieutenant Dallas, yes. I’m in charge of finding out what happened to your husband.”
“He wasn’t feeling well. A headache, a little wheezy, a little cough. He had a fever, too. Just ninety-nine-point-one, but he didn’t feel well. He said he’d sleep in one of the guest rooms, go to bed early, but I said no, he should sleep in our room, in our bed. You always feel better in your own. I’d take a guest room.”
She rubbed bloody fingers on her temple. “We always go around like that when one of us isn’t feeling well.”
“Can you tell me what time he went to bed?”
“It was not long after eight. Divine made him chicken soup for dinner, and tea for bedtime. He took some cold medicine, and I told him if he wasn’t feeling better, I’d call our doctor tomorrow and cancel my trip.”
“Your trip?”
Once again, she looked around with eyes dazed and blank.
“Oh. I was going for the weekend with some friends to a spa resort in, ah.” She rubbed fingers on her temple again.
“Rhode Island,” Joy said, gently now.
“Yes, that’s right.” She smiled. “Nate said not to worry. Divine’s chicken soup would do the trick. I took the guest room. I had a new book, so I read awhile. There was a show I wanted to see, so I watched… I can’t remember.”
She put a hand to her brow, then brushed it through her hair. “Funny, I wanted to see it… I checked on Nate a couple of times. He sounded a little raspy, but he was sound asleep. Then… I’m not sure what time it was. I’d gone back to my book, but I couldn’t read any more. It was late, I think. Late. I got up to check on Nate one more time before I went to sleep, but he wasn’t in bed. The bathroom door was open, and he wasn’t in there.”
When she seemed to go blank again, Eve picked up the tea, handed it to her.
“Oh, thank you.”
“What did you do then?”
“Then? Oh, I thought he may have gone downstairs to the kitchen for more tea, or fresh water, or… something. I thought I heard something. Um, I thought I heard something as I came downstairs.”
“Something like?”
“Like something had fallen, and I thought, oh, for God’s sake, that’s Nate walking around in the dark when he’s not feeling well, bumping into things, knocking something over. I thought that, and I called out to him, but he didn’t answer me.”
She set the tea down, let out a long breath. “He didn’t answer when I called out to him. I went back to the kitchen, and turned on the lights, but he wasn’t there. I called out again, and walked to his office. It would be like him to wake up and think of work.
“I saw him. I saw him, and he was on the floor. Blood, and he was lying there, in the blood.”
She looked at her hands.
“I was screaming. I can hear myself screaming as I ran over to him. I tried to stop the bleeding, to wake him up, but I couldn’t stop screaming. And—and Joy came.”
“She had his head in her lap, if you want to know.” Joy swiped a tear off her cheek. “I could see—I called nine-one-one, for an ambulance, for the police. When Uma rushed in, I told her to let them in the gate, in the house. I couldn’t help Nate. I tried to pull Aileen away, but she wouldn’t—” Her voice cracked, and she pressed her lips together.
“Where were you, Ms. Barrister, before you entered the office?”
