“It means she lied. There are a lot of reasons she could have lied about her alibi.”
“Yeah, like killing her husband.”
“Give me a break. Portia’s fingerprints were on the murder weapon. It doesn’t get more cut-and-dried than that.” He stopped in front of a row of file cabinets and yanked open a drawer. “Listen, I’m incredibly busy. I don’t have time for this.”
I practically screamed in frustration. Why was he being so pig-headed? “At least check it out. Find out what her real alibi is. If she even has one.”
He sighed. “Of course I will. I told you I would. I do know how to do my job.”
“What about the photo?”
“Email it to me along with the link. Let me look into this.”
“Yeah, because you’ve done a stellar job so far,” I muttered under my breath.
“Excuse me?” He raised an eyebrow.
“Nothing. Have a lovely day, Detective. I’ll send that photo right away.” And with that, I swanned out of the police station in high drama.
I was beyond annoyed. Bat wasn’t taking this seriously. He was so convinced Portia was guilty he refused to listen to reason. Well, if he wouldn’t confront Mary Nixon about her lies, I would.
Better yet...
I had an idea. I tapped out a text and looked it over:
I’ve found proof of who killed your husband. Meet me tonight. 8pm at the museum.
Perfect. I pressed “send,” and the text winged its way to Mary Nixon. I imagined Mary reading the text, and I grinned to myself as I walked down the street to my car.
Time to catch a killer.
Chapter 23
“WAIT,” I SAID, STARING at the intruder. I was standing in the study right next to the fireplace where Portia had found August Nixon’s body. “You’re not Mary.” It was definitely not a woman standing in the dark. A shiver went through me. The dark figure moved into the light, and I recognized him immediately. “Roger? What are you doing here?”
“You thought Mary killed August?” He snorted in derision. “She would never lower herself to such a thing.”
I frowned. This wasn’t what I’d expected. “So she got you to do it instead?” I didn’t see how that was possible, since he had an alibi. One I’d confirmed myself.
“She had nothing to do with it.” He sounded affronted. As if I’d majorly insulted him. Weird.
“Um, okay. But everything points to her.”
He sighed. “I know. Lack of alibi. You were clever to discover that.”
“That’s me. Very clever.” I gave a nervous laugh. Would you just shut up?
“It was nothing, really. All innocent and aboveboard. She was having a little Botox. Nothing extravagant, but she’s a vain woman, as most of you are.”
“Excuse me?”
He ignored my outrage. “She didn’t want anyone to know about her little procedure. So silly. She got her friends to lie for her. Ridiculous. If she’d just told the truth, we could have avoided all of this nonsense.”
“You killed August? But you have an alibi,” I blurted. “I confirmed it with Mariposa. So did the police.”
“Alibis. You know, they are so very easy to manufacture. It was easy enough to drop a little something in her drink. She literally never realized.” He chuckled to himself.
“So, you slipped away, killed August, and slipped back. No one the wiser.”
“Pretty much it, in a nutshell.” He seemed proud, like he’d done something heroic.
“You killed August because he was going to frame you for the thefts.”
“One of so many reasons,” he said. “The man was a louse.”
“So I’ve heard,” I said dryly. “But what about Annabelle? Why did you kill her?”
He heaved a sigh. “I didn’t want to. She was a sweet girl with a sick little boy, but what could I do once she started blackmailing me?”
“She saw you kill August.”
“Apparently. She demanded money. It was to help her boy, of course, but I couldn’t have it. I just couldn’t.”
My armpits were damp, and I could feel my heart thumping in my chest like a bass drum. “Why are you admitting this to me? Why aren’t you telling this to the police?”
“Because I have no intention of turning myself in.” As he spoke, he moved a little closer, and I realized he was gripping something in his right hand. It was an extremely sharp, extremely large knife. He’d apparently graduated from blunt objects. “You can’t prove any of this. The police already put Portia away. They’re not looking for anyone else.”
I didn’t bother pointing out that they were definitely looking for Annabelle’s killer and Portia couldn’t have done it. “You’re just going to let her rot in prison for something you did?”
“I have no choice. Mary and I are about to start our lives together. I can’t let anything get in the way of that.”
“But she broke up with you. You said so yourself.”
“What can I say? I lied. I needed to protect her. Silly woman thought being truthful was the way to go. I understand, of course, but she doesn’t realize the lengths I would go to protect her.”
“You mean August.”
“He didn’t just want to frame me, he wanted to destroy her, too. He learned about the affair, you see. Can you imagine what a man like that could do to a woman who’d betrayed him?”
I could. Everything up to and including murder. “I get it. I do. Still, you killed him in cold blood.”
“It wasn’t something I wanted to do, but I had no choice. And, like I said, you can blab all you want, but you can’t prove it. I have an alibi, remember? And Portia’s fingerprints are all over the murder weapon.”
“How did you manage that, by the way?” I couldn’t believe I’d gotten this far in the conversation, that he was actually answering me. Then again, he was crazy. Obviously crazy.
He laughed. “That was easy. I wiped it down. When she found the body, the idiot picked up the weapon. Stupid girl. Doesn’t she watch TV?”
So that hadn’t been part of his master plan. Just a stroke of
