Holly gave him a vaguely incredulous look. “Clearly you’ve never had another man steal someone of yours, Detective. Of course I was upset.”
Jill should have been watching Holly then. Should have been assessing the older woman to determine whether or not by upset she actually meant homicidal.
But instead she found herself watching her partner.
Something on his face just then. When Holly had said he’d never had another man steal someone of his…
Suddenly, Jill wanted to press. Wanted to know what Vincent was thinking right that very second, because it felt important—vital. As well as she knew Vincent (and she supposed she knew him as well as anyone), she had a sense that she was missing something.
“Ms. Adams, where were you the night Lenora Birch was murdered?”
Jill jumped to attention at that, her attention swerving back to Holly at Vincent’s direct question.
She had to admit, it was well played. Vin had a habit of being a bit too hasty with the accusations, and he could sometimes put suspects on edge too soon, but he was right to try to throw Holly Adams off her game.
And he’d succeeded given that the woman clutched at her necklace with white knuckles.
“Why, I—how dare you—”
“Oh, come now, Holly,” Jill said kindly. “You had a very public argument with Ms. Birch just days before she was murdered. Surely you knew two homicide detectives didn’t drive all the way out from New York just to share a meal.”
Holly glared at her, and for the first time, Jill found herself on the receiving end of a suspect’s irritation. Usually she played the good cop, but Holly was starting to rub her the wrong way.
The woman was lonely, true, but she was also petulant and manipulative—two flaws Jill had always found particularly irritating.
“I was here,” Holly Adams said finally, picking up her spoon and determinedly scraping at the last of her chocolate mousse. “I was here like I always am, alone like I always am.”
“So nobody can verify your whereabouts?”
She lifted a shoulder. “My housekeeper, of course. And Martin. He manages security and the occasional odd job around the house.”
Both were employees who could be easily bought, Jill thought.
Still, it was far-fetched. Possible, yes. Possible that Holly Adams could have found her way to the city, visited an old frenemy, and then, in arguing about old times, pushed her in a fit of rage.
But there was no proof. Not even circumstantial evidence.
Holly was sharper than Jill originally gave her credit for, because the older woman seemed to sense Jill’s lack of conviction and played on it.
She reached out a hand, although the table was so enormous it stopped several feet short of Jill before dropping delicately. “I didn’t kill Lenora,” she said. “I don’t even have the energy to dislike her anymore. When you’ll get to my age… you’ll see. You’ll understand. It takes a grievance far worse than a straying lover to carry on that kind of hatred for decades. We had a spat a few weeks ago, true, but it was more for old times’ sake than anything else. There was no real heat to it. I’m sure Lenora would say the same.”
“Except she can’t. Because she’s dead.” Vincent put his napkin down after this sharp deceleration and stood, indicating that the meal was over.
The interview was over as well. Jill knew there was nothing more to get out of Holly at the moment. She had that clammed-up look of a woman who was gearing up for a good sulk.
“May we speak with your housekeeper and this Martin?” Jill asked, standing as well.
Holly sniffed. “Of course. I have nothing to hide.”
As expected, the housekeeper and security guy backed up their employer’s claims that she rarely left the home. Apparently Holly hadn’t been away from the house except to see the show in the city on the night she argued with Lenora, as well as to a friend’s house for cocktails a couple nights earlier.
Jill didn’t see any of the classic warning signs that they were lying, but neither did she get that gut-level instinct that they were completely honest.
Though, that sort of people-reading hunch was more Vincent’s thing. Maybe he’d picked something up.
Vincent and Jill said a chilly good-bye to a thoroughly pissed-off Holly Adams, who had left the dining room and now sat watching reruns of I Love Lucy in a fully decked-out media room.
“You can see yourself out, I trust?” Holly said, not looking away from the screen.
“We’ll manage,” Vin said with a roll of his eyes at Jill.
They barely managed. It took two wrong turns in the massive house before they found their way back to the formal foyer.
“That chandelier is bigger than my entire apartment,” Vin muttered.
“Probably costs as much too,” Jill said, pausing to take one last look at the opulent home. “It’s a little sad, isn’t it? All of this grandness and nobody to share it with?”
“Doesn’t have to be sad. Some people like being alone.”
She glanced at him knowingly. “You’re talking about you, huh?”