Death by Devotion (Caribbean Murder #9)

“Do you think Andrea did it?” she asked.

Mattheus stared at her with a hollow look in his eyes. “I don’t know,” he finally admitted “I doubt it, but I don’t know. Cain’s neck was slashed, he was a big guy, she wasn’t strong enough to do it alone. They found the knife at the scene. Her fingerprints were on the knife because she said she’d picked it up. And Cain’s blood was on her because she said she bent down over him to save him. She tried seeing if he was still alive, if his heart was beating.”

Cindy shook her head. She hadn’t yet heard these details, it was quite a story. She wondered why Sean hadn’t mentioned this to her. Her conversation with Sean had turned too personal, too quickly and Cindy regretted it now.

“They police have the knife?” Cindy asked carefully.

“Yes, they do,” said Mattheus and they have evidence of Cain’s blood on Andrea.

“What does Andrea have in her defense?” asked Cindy.

“Andrea mentioned to me that she spent most of the day with her friends,” Mattheus continued, “she said lots of people saw her that day. So, what we’re waiting for is the medical examiner to determine the time of death. It’s possible to prove she was somewhere else then.”

Cindy paused. This was also something important that Sean hadn’t mentioned. Again, Cindy wondered why. “Has Andrea told the police about this?” asked Cindy.

“Yes, but she said the police aren’t paying any attention to it. No one’s interviewed any of her friends.”

“That’s where we’ll start,” said Cindy, upset. Andrea could look guilty as hell, but a messy, biased investigation was something Cindy couldn’t tolerate.

“I told Andrea I wanted to talk to her friends,” Mattheus seemed more agitated. “She wouldn’t have any part of it or tell me who they were. She said it was her private life, none of my business.”

“Could be she’s hiding something,” Cindy murmured.

“Or maybe she just hates me?” Mattheus quipped.

“Probably both,” said Cindy.

Mattheus looked at Cindy sorrowfully then. “Why?” he uttered. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Too little, too late,” said Cindy. “She’s had years to build up a terrible story about you.”

“Is that why she’s pointing the finger at me?” Mattheus asked in a hollow tone.

“Andrea’s pointing the finger at you?” Cindy was outraged.

“Yeah, she said I came down here, gave her false hope and encouraged her. She said I told her we’d definitely do something to get her and her mother out of this,” Mattheus repeated.

Cindy felt her head swimming. “Did you, Mattheus? What did you say?”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” Mattheus suddenly wailed. “Yeah, I told her not to give up hope and that there was definitely something we could do to help her.”

“Did she take it as encouragement to kill the guy?” Cindy was aghast. “She could have. You don’t know who she is, or how she thinks, really.”

“No, I don’t, I don’t,” Mattheus was quickly becoming more and more devastated.

Cindy went over to him and put her hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, calm down,” she said quietly. “We’ll find out more about her. I’ll get Sean to give me the names of her friends.”

Mattheus’s neck snapped up. “Sean give them to you? Why him?”

“Because he’s our connection with the police,” said Cindy, matter of factly. “They have to have that information.”

Mattheus jumped up from the sofa then. “Sean is your connection with the police, not

mine. He wouldn’t give me even one piece of information. I saw Petra walking into see Andrea with a strange guy at her side. I wanted to know who the guy was and Sean wouldn’t tell me.”

“Because you could be a suspect, Mattheus,” Cindy said slowly. “Maybe the police think you pushed Andrea to get rid of her stepfather; that she was doing your bidding.”

“Ridiculous,” Mattheus yelped.

“It could look that way from a certain angle,” said Cindy.

“Anything could look anyway at all,” Mattheus retorted. “But what would be in it for me? It doesn’t make sense.”

“What do you imagine they think could be in it for you, Mattheus?” Cindy kept after it.

Mattheus took a long, slow breath, paused and considered. “Sean asked me if I’d had fantasies about reuniting with Petra,” he said after a few moments.

Cindy bristled. “Did you?”

Mattheus looked at her askance. “Absolutely not, never, not once.”

“Do they believe that?”

“They’re fishing for something to close the case fast,” Mattheus uttered.

“Could be true,” Cindy quickly agreed, letting her apprehension about Petra subside. “When I spoke with Sean about it, he told me that Cain was intimately connected with the underworld here. He did a lot of their bidding, even from jail. Plenty of people could have wanted him out of the picture. The underworld could want a lid on this case.”