“Just got my GED four months ago, in June. I’m working on a transfer associate degree right now.”
“You’re twenty-five and still going to school?”
“My mom got sick and there was only me to take care of her, so I had to drop out of high school.”
“What about your father?”
“Died in an automobile accident when I was eight.”
“No other family?”
“My mom was an only child and her parents died a while back. I don’t know about my dad’s family. My mom never talked about them and we never heard from them, even when he was killed. It was always just the three of us.”
“Three?” Christianson asked.
“My mom, me, and my younger sister, Barbara.”
“Where is Barbara now?”
Sarah set the coffee cup aside and studied the fingers of both hands as she wove them together. “She’s gone, too. About a month after my mom died, we found out Barbara had leukemia.”
“Lot of bad luck in your life,” Christianson said.
She looked up, confused by his tone. Sympathy or suspicion? His expression didn’t help her decide. The frost still chilled his light blue eyes.
She shrugged, fighting the searing pain cutting into her chest. “And now Vince. It’s not a good idea to get close to me.” She sat up straighter. “Damn. Self-pity alert. I really try not to go there.”
Hennesy said, “You’ve got some reason for self-pity, but you’re right. It’s better not to indulge it.” Oddly, he threw a hard glance at his partner.
Did Christianson have something to pity himself for, too?
“That’s what the therapist said.” she agreed.
The younger detective narrowed his eyes at his partner, but his expression smoothed out again when he turned back to her. “To the matter at hand. How did you meet Vince Capelli?”
No mistaking the coolness of the tone when he asked the question or the slight edge of…disapproval? He had an interesting face. It would be appealing if he weren’t so cold and judgmental. She shook her head and dragged her attention back to the question.
“About six years ago I started doing some modeling on the side…to make a little extra money. I’m not tall enough to really do it professionally, but a couple of local agencies sometimes needed help. I could do it in the evenings when my mom and Barbara were asleep. I can’t remember exactly what it was, but I was doing a charity fashion show, and Vince was there. We got to talking, and he was, well, nice. Pleasant and easy to talk to, and understanding when I told him about my family problems. He said that sometimes he needed an escort to go with him to some social things he had to attend for business. He was divorced, and it would give him some status to be seen with a…a pretty young woman. He’d pay me for it. He had lots of money, but he was kind of lonely. He didn’t actually say that, but I figured it out.”
She couldn’t bear to see their reactions, especially not Christianson’s. She picked up the coffee cup again and swirled the liquid, staring down into the small vortex. “People won’t believe it, but I…I liked him. I wasn’t in love with him or anything, but he was nice to me, and he really was lonely. We went out together for a while. Then my mother died and Barbara got sick, and eventually I’d used up all the money we had for my mom’s medical stuff. Some of the doctors and clinics wouldn’t even see Barbara because I still owed them money for my mom. What could I do?” She looked up at them. “What would you do? I couldn’t let my sister suffer if there was anything I could do.”
“So you asked Capelli for help?” Hennesy said.
A lump formed in her throat. “I didn’t ask. He offered. If I became his…lover, he’d pay all the medical expenses and give me an allowance. It meant Barbara could get the best medical treatments. When those failed, I could at least keep her in comfort to the end. Vince was wonderful.” The obstruction thickened, and she looked at her coffee again. “He did more than just pay the bills. He helped me. He was a friend when I had no one else. It was a terrible time after she died. I’d lost everyone. I don’t know how I would’ve survived it without him.”
She sniffed and fought against the incipient tears before she dared look at them again.
Hennesy’s expression was kind. Christianson’s showed only a cool slice of suspicion. Fear lanced through the pain of her memories. Detective Christianson doubted everything. He probably thought she’d made up the three men and that she’d actually killed Vince. She might be arrested, go to trial, and go to prison. Or worse. Murder could get the death penalty. What could she do? How to convince them? She missed Vince with almost unbearable intensity already. She could’ve talked to him about it.
The truth. Just keep telling them the truth. It was all she had. That and herself. It had been enough, just barely. She brushed away the tears and straightened. “I’m sorry. Drifting into self-pity again.”
“Self pity? Or just grief?” Hennesy asked gently.
His kindness almost broke her control. Her eyes burned, but she forced a smile. “Probably both.”
Silence ensued for a moment before Christianson broke it. “Tell us again what happened tonight.”
She went through it again. The images remained so vivid, they might have been branded on her mind. She remembered going into the room, Vince standing on the far side, flanked by the two men, the other one coming to her and shoving the gun at her. The kick after each shot. If the man in the mask hadn’t held her steady, it might have knocked her over. The noise… Her ears still rang with echoes from the gunshots. The blood, all the blood, everywhere. With an effort, she pulled herself back together and finished the story.
When she stopped talking, both men stared at her. Doubt rolled off the pair so strongly she could almost see it. Then their questions came fast.
“The sound that first woke you. Can you describe it?” Christianson picked up his coffee cup and grimaced when he took a sip.
“A thump or a crash.”
“Like a body hitting the floor?”
“Maybe. Or a chair tipping over. Or…now that I think about it, a desk drawer being dropped on the floor. But I don’t know for sure. I couldn’t tell.”
“But you’re sure of the time.”
“I looked at the clock when I woke up.”
They went through every single detail of her story, questioning, asking her to repeat things or explain or digging for more information.
Hennesy consulted his notes. “The two men with Vince when you entered the room. Did you recognize them?”
“They had masks on. No.”
“Full masks? Were you able to see any parts of their faces? Their hair?”
“No. They were more like hoods. You know those things you pull down over your whole head.”
“Ski masks?” Hennesy asked.
“I guess.” She described the builds of the two men, the color of their eyes, shape of hands, the black sweatshirts and pants they wore with the hoods. Every detail of the room, the intruders, even what Vince said and did were taken apart, examined, and mined for anything that might shed some light on what had happened.
Vince’s last words to her, that she had the key, particularly interested the detectives, though she had no idea what he’d been talking about or what it meant. They made her go through everything she could associate with “keys,” try to remember anything Vince might have said before about them, even speculate about what he might have been hinting at, but none of it helped her understand. She couldn’t