“If you’ll take a seat, my secretary, Molly, can take notes here. We wouldn’t want to drag the Ivanovs into the back of the station.” He pulled out a chair for Belinda’s mother, then took one for himself next to her, across the table from Baba. Molly clutched her pad and pen as if they were an all-expense paid ticket to the best show in town and sat down next to him.
Baba plastered a serious look on her face. “So, Sheriff, I gather you have some questions for me? Something about a crime I’m supposed to have committed?”
He nodded, then pushed his hair back out of his face. “Can you tell me where you were at approximately five fifty last night?”
Molly’s pen hovered over her paper like a bird about ready to take flight.
“Of course,” Baba said. “I was at the Ivanovs’ house. They very kindly invited me to dinner last night, along with their daughter. I got there around five, and didn’t leave until, oh, sometime after nine, I think.”
The pen scribbled down the pertinent facts as mouths dropped open around the room.
“Ah,” Liam said, a dimple she’d never noticed flitting in and out of view at the corner of his mouth. “So at five fifty, you were with Deputy Shields and her parents?”
“We had a lovely roast chicken with potatoes and beets,” Mariska said, beaming. “And then we talked about the Old Country for hours. The professor spent her childhood there you know, before moving to the United States with her adoptive mother.” She patted Baba’s hand. “It was so nice to be able to chat with someone who had been to Russia, no matter how long ago.”
Baba smiled back at her. “It was my pleasure. And that chicken was sublime.”
Liam nodded at Belinda. “And you can back this up?”
“Absolutely,” she said without missing a beat. “The chicken was definitely sublime.”
The front door of the station slammed open with a bang that had half the officers reaching for their weapons before they realized where the noise had come from. One of the air conditioning units wheezed to a stop, belching a puff of gray smoke into the already dense air.
Clive Matthews stormed up to the front desk and gestured for the officer on duty to open the gate, his plump face glistening with sweat. On his heels, Peter Callahan lent a gallant arm to a pale but upright Maya, limping across the floor with her Technicolor bruises standing out in stark contrast to her lacy blouse and upswept hair.
“What the hell is going on here?” Matthews demanded. One pudgy hand pointed at Baba. “Why isn’t that woman in cuffs?”
Baba could see Liam’s glance dart to the clock on the wall and saw him come to the inevitable conclusion that the only way that Matthews could have gotten there so fast was if someone at the department had called him. A clenched jaw was the only sign of his distress at this act of betrayal, and when he rose to greet the board president, his expression was a picture of artless confusion.
“Did we have a meeting scheduled that I forgot about?” He turned to Maya. “Goodness, Ms. Freeman, should you be out of the hospital? You look terrible.” Liam bounded around the table and pulled out a chair for the blond woman, thankfully one that placed the Ivanovs between her and Baba. Baba wasn’t sure she could sit next to the little monster without strangling the bitch with her bare hands. As it was, she had to settle for watching Maya wince as Liam politely insulted her.
Maya’s face was a study in purple and green and barely concealed displeasure. “Thankfully, there were no internal injuries,” she said, wafting gracefully into the seat. “And they tell me that the pain will subside in a few days. Or maybe a week.” She batted her eyelashes at Peter Callahan, clearly not realizing that having one eye swollen half shut rendered the gesture more grotesque than appealing.
“See here,” Callahan said, recognizing a cue when he saw one. “Why isn’t this woman under arrest? Miss Freeman told you that she was attacked by this so-called professor. Shouldn’t she be locked up in a cell?”
Liam settled one hip on the edge of the table and crossed his arms. “That’s right; Miss Freeman did say that Dr. Yager was the one who injured her, didn’t she?” He gazed at Maya thoughtfully. “That is very interesting, considering that we have three witnesses who will swear to the fact that she was with them at the time of the beating.”
Clive Matthews sputtered a protest. “That’s impossible! The witnesses must be lying. She paid them off. Or put them under a spell. Or something.”
Molly made a tiny choking noise and scribbled faster. Around the room, you could have heard a pin drop, even over the laboring sound of the ancient cooling system.