Evidence of Murder

Maybe I’m just ready to think about something besides Paul.

She yanked on the door handle of the closest building, the one where the tech show had been held. It did not open. Apparently Evan did think about security now and then.

Rounding the corner, she saw lights in the windows of the next two buildings farther down the line. A shadow moved behind her, on the sidewalk, but it proved to be a hulking orange tabby that paused to fix her with that look cats have, the one that says plainly, Who exactly do you think you are?

“Good question,” she told it, and walked past. It watched her go.

CHAPTER 14

She approached the door of the second building slowly, her Reebok-clad feet silent on the thin cushion of snow. A small chock of wood maintained a quarter-inch opening between the door and the jamb. Steady but not heated conversation wafted out to her ears. The cat watched from a safe distance.

Was she legally permitted to eavesdrop? Since she was not a sworn officer, she was not bound by Miranda warnings or any other rules of interrogation. She put her face up to the door. Evan and Jerry worked on either side of a central row of machinery. Jerry threaded a bolt through a curved plastic hood as Evan sprayed the underside of a conveyor belt with a can of silicone spray. The machinery span appeared to be only four feet wide but at least forty feet long. Gas tanks lined one side of the building, and two reality spheres sprawled open on the other side.

Evan, unsurprisingly, did most of the talking. He stopped to gesture with the can of silicone.

But could she be considered, as a defense expert had recently charged, an agent for the prosecution? Would her testimony be admissible?

No matter. Eavesdropping might be legally permissible, but she could not feel comfortable with it. Besides, she didn’t feel like standing in the snow for an hour listening to Evan debate the relative merits of letting the vampires use axes instead of crossbows once in the Sanctum of Sacrifices. She pushed the door open and stepped inside.

Both men noticed her instantly and straightened from their work.

“Hello.” She patted her pockets with her fingertips, searching for the pack of cigarettes that hadn’t been there for over ten years, a residual habit she could not break.

“What are you doing here?” Evan asked, sounding considerably less than friendly.

She forced her hands still and moved to the end of the line of machinery. “We’re still trying to complete your wife’s report, Mr. Kovacic. I had a few more questions about Jillian’s habits and state of mind. I also need to speak with Mr. Graham.”

She had hoped Evan would be courteous, wanting to keep up the pretense of a really nice guy who had suffered a tragedy. He did not seem so inclined. “I’ve got nothing to say to you, and neither does Jerry.”

“I know you’re stressed, Mr. Kovacic, but I’m trying to determine exactly how Jillian came to die.”

He dropped the can of silicone on the conveyor belt and came closer. She resisted the urge to back up, but he stopped on the other side of a low workbench fitted with magnifying lamps, exactly like the ones she used at the lab. “Jillian killed herself, and you and your pack of ghouls won’t let her rest in peace.”

She noticed the two wireless cameras mounted at opposite corners of the building. At least if Evan attacked her, she would have it on tape. If the cameras weren’t just dummies, if they recorded as well as monitored, and if she could figure out where the hell the recorder would be and could get to it before Evan. He would be good at that sort of thing, rewriting the story, making every detail fit his vision.

Jerry Graham had not moved. He spoke in a sympathetic tone, saying, “Evan just wants to bury his wife and raise his child, Mrs. MacLean.”

“I understand that, and we’re doing the best we can, but Jillian didn’t leave a lot of clues as to her state of mind.”

Evan knocked one of the lamps aside, so that it seemed to freeze in the air like a wounded crane. “Jillian didn’t have a state of mind! She was blond hair and implants!”

The words hung in the air, unfortunate and infuriating. Theresa had worked hard to maintain some doubt of Evan’s guilt and now watched it crumble into dust. She no longer considered retreat. In fact, she felt ready to rip his head off and spray the silicone down his neck. “That seems like a rather cold way to describe your late wife.”

He did not become more circumspect at this rebuke. “You cut people open and you think I’m cold? You’re trying to take Cara from her home and you have the nerve to look down on me?”

She didn’t bother to explain that she did not perform autopsies, distracted by the latter charge. “What?”

“Drew Fleming has applied for guardianship of Cara,” Jerry Graham told her, and let his mien do the rebuking. “Evan will have to go to court and ask for custody of his own daughter.”

Oh, boy. “He would have had to go to court anyway, but-I mean-that’s got nothing to do with me. This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

Evan moved beyond the magnifying lamps to within two feet of her. Her fingers slipped around the edge of the table, an anchor to keep her traitorous body from giving in to the flight instinct. “Come on. You and I have that little conversation about Cara on Saturday and first thing Monday morning Drew goes to the courthouse? You think I’m stupid?”

“Mr. Kovacic, I have absolutely nothing to do with Drew Fleming’s legal plans. I certainly didn’t advise him to do anything regarding Cara-”

The truth. Technically, and, she hoped, accurately. Even if Drew hadn’t murdered Jillian, he remained an unstable obsessive not to be aimed toward a vulnerable infant. But then you can’t toss a snowball onto a slope, even without thinking, and then deny responsibility for the avalanche.

Apparently Evan agreed. “Yeah, yeah. Get out!”

Jerry Graham moved closer to her as well, but he seemed more of a comfort than a threat. At least until he said, “Evan is very upset about even the idea of losing Cara, Mrs. MacLean. I’m sure you understand, as a mother.”

She looked at his face, smooth with calm, even the expression in his eyes nothing but gentle.

“Perhaps you should leave now,” he added.

Oddly enough, this more subtle deflection made her stubborner than Evan’s leashed violence. “When was the last time you saw Jillian, Mr. Graham?”

“The Saturday before she died,” he answered promptly.

“When you went out to dinner with Shelly and Evan and Jillian.”

“Yes.”

“No.” The color flushing Evan’s pale skin receded only slightly. “You saw her on Sunday when we were putting together the booth for the tech show.”

His partner thought, without any change of expression. “That’s right. She brought out some hot coffee.”

“And then Monday morning, when you picked me up for the downtown meeting.”

“Yeah, you said good-bye to her. But I thought Mrs. MacLean meant the last time we really spoke, and that would have been Saturday night.”

“What did she say?”

“You’re not getting this.” Evan reached her before she could turn her face from Graham. He sank both hands into her forearms, but instead of pulling her closer he pushed her back, cracking a few vertebrae against the edge of the worktable. His breath smelled of curry and beer and, she thought, hate. “We’re through answering your questions. You can hold my wife’s body hostage until she starts to smell, you ghoulish bitch, but I’m still done talking to you. Get out.”

“Evan, calm down.” Jerry Graham came to her side, one hand held out as if trying to restrain his partner by force of will, and gestured to her with motions that shepherded without touching. “Come on, Mrs. MacLean. I’ll walk you out.”

She stepped carefully to the side to remove herself from Evan’s range. His hands shuffled as if they itched to strike her and her feet shuffled as if itching to run. She did not turn her back on him. Her mind might not be