Detective Campos snorts. It’s not a guffaw, but it’s better than nothing. He closes the open cabinets and goes for one above the range. “You give any more thought to my recommendation of getting your own lawyer?”
My back stiffens. The detective would like nothing better than for me to get an attorney and relinquish spousal privilege, to spill my marital secrets. But I won’t. David is my husband. He proposed by a driftwood fire in the freezing cold because my best friend told him that I’d always wanted to see the Montauk lighthouse at night. He told my mother over and over how beautiful she was when the chemo had made her bald and bloated and she couldn’t stomach her own reflection. He held me when she’d died. He supported my failing writing career, paying all the bills while I penned novel after novel that barely moved the financial needle. Someday, I pray, he’ll be the father of my child. Whatever David did to Nick, I will not turn on him.
“David would never hurt Nick.” I say it with as much conviction as I’ve ever said anything in my life. “He loved him like a brother. So while I appreciate you trying to figure out who did this, being here is a waste of time.”
“You write crime novels?” Campos’s head is behind a cabinet door. His voice rises at the end, though, so I can tell he’s asking a question.
“Romantic suspense.”
He’s rummaging through my cheese boards and serving platters. Wood is knocking against ceramic. He’d better not chip any of my good bowls. “But you went to the police academy writer’s workshop, right? So you know how warrants work.”
Clearly, my sergeant friend has shared details about me with the detective. But why? To explain how he knew me? Idle conversation?
My stomach twists. Maybe there’d never been a woman asking about Nick at that bar. Perhaps the sergeant fed me that information to see how I would react.
But that would mean I was the suspect. Not David.
Run. The command comes in Beth’s voice. Get what you need and get out of here. It was what I was going to have her do in the next chapter.
“I’ll spell it out.” The detective speaks while slowly removing and examining each knife from the wooden cutlery block on the adjacent counter. “To get a warrant for your gun, I have to prove to a judge that there’s probable cause that the firearm was used in the commission of a crime. So the fact that we’re here means that both I and a judge believe this search is probably not a waste of time.”
The detective’s sarcasm leaves little doubt that I am on the potential perpetrator list. Beth is repeating that I must leave. Run. But walking out the front door in the midst of a police investigation would only lend credence to Officer Campos’s ridiculous suspicions. I didn’t have any reason to hurt Nick. He resented me for taking away his best friend, and I disliked being resented. So what? That’s something to complain to my girlfriends about. It’s not a motive for murder.
Though I can’t flee the apartment, I don’t have to stay in front of the detective as he tries to push my buttons either. I leave the room for the living area. The air suddenly feels jungled. The headache is giving me a hot flash—or maybe it’s the hormones. I fling open the French doors and step onto the Juliet balcony. The sun has nearly set, leaving an eggplant sky in its wake and a string of brake lights below. It’s cooler out here. I can smell water. I place my hands on the railing and look east, toward the river.
My head swims. I jump back toward the safety of the open patio door, afraid that I could tumble to the street below. Once in the doorway, I put my hands on my knees and take in air in short gasps.
The scare works like electrodes, shocking away the rest of my migraine. My breathing normalizes and the pressure in my head begins to drain. Before it’s fully gone, I hear one of the officers call me. “Ma’am, would you come back inside?”
“I have a headache. Fresh air helps me feel better.”
“We’d appreciate if you were inside while we search.” I look over my shoulder to see a younger officer with a pale-blond buzz cut, a grimace twisting his small mouth. He steps toward me, arms out, hands open in an imploring fashion. “Please.”
Reluctantly, I retreat into the living area. Heavy footsteps sound in the hallway. David enters the room, followed by one of the uniformed officers. The glow from the balcony doors makes his skin look jaundiced. His eyes appear glazed with confusion.
“Liza, the lockbox is empty. The officers tore apart the closet and couldn’t find your gun.”
Years of criminal defense keep David from stating anything more than the facts. He doesn’t ask me whether I know the location of the weapon because he knows that my suggestions will provide grounds for another search warrant. Still, his eyes seem to beg me for an answer. Does he really not remember taking it?
“Do you know where your gun is, Ms. Cole?” Detective Campos emerges from the kitchen. He is no longer hiding his distrust.
I snap my fingers as though a thought has only now occurred to me. “I used it recently at the police academy range. Sergeant Perez has let me in a few times to practice when I’m working on scenes with guns. I’m sorry for not saying so earlier. I forgot. I’m on fertility hormones, and they mimic the first trimester of pregnancy. I’ve got mommy brain without the baby.”
The detective gives me a wan smile.
“There are lockers at the academy where I could have left it.”
“Anyplace else?” Though the detective asks, I can see from David’s face that he fears what I might say.
I look at my husband, signaling with my sustained eye contact that I won’t help the cops get to him. “That’s all I can think of now. Again, I’m sorry for misplacing it. These hormones would make me lose my head if it weren’t attached to my body. But I’ll look around for it, definitely.”
“And we’ll continue to look here.” I swear I catch the detective scrunch his nose so that he nearly winks at me. David seems to notice too. Something changes in his eyes.
Get out. Get your things and go. It might be that the migraine is over, but Beth’s voice sounds stronger. My purse is in the foyer with my laptop inside. I walk over to it and slip my arm into the handles.
“I have an editorial meeting that I really need to get to,” I say. It’s a lie, but a plausible one. Better than saying that I need to get back to writing. A chapter can always be put off for a few hours. Editorial meetings, on the other hand, are on Trevor’s schedule and involve multiple people. I can’t change them as I see fit. David knows this.
I grab the door handle and tell David that I will call him later. Detective Campos asks me to wait a minute and approaches the exit. He removes a pencil from a belt pouch and uses it to press back the lining of my shoulder bag so that he can peer inside. Satisfied that all I have is my computer, he tells me that I am “free to leave.”
I am sure that this last act was to antagonize me for David’s benefit. My spouse stares at me, jaw open, dumbfounded that the police could think I had something to do with Nick’s death. “You’re really not going to find anything,” I say, directing my words at David. “No one here had any reason to hurt Nick.”
The detective smiles, a cat-got-the-canary grin. “You might be surprised.”
The streetlamps are coming on as I exit the building. It’s doubtful that many people will be in my publishing house at 7:00 PM on a Monday, but I decide to head there anyway. The police could be following me. If I’m pulled into an interrogation room in the next week, I want to be able to claim that I had mixed up a meeting time and was surprised to find my editor gone for the evening.