by K. J. Emrick
“Oui. Except for the catering staff, of course, but they were sent home once dinner was served. There was no reason to keep them here. The woman who took your coats at the door, she went home before all this happened as well.”
“That’s fine,” Lucian said. “Where were you during that time?”
“Alone, I’m afraid. I was wandering through the museum, getting the guided tour ready for later. I have no, as you say, alibi.”
“All right. Well. Let’s set that aside for a minute and concentrate on anyone who had a reason to hurt Sheila.”
“You mean, like me.”
“At this point, let’s talk about other people who might have done it.”
Marcelle motioned for them to sit down in the chairs on the other side of the desk. “You must understand, Lucian, I have not seen Sheila in two weeks, but in that time she has messaged me and left me voicemails and an endless string of e-mails. She wanted to get back with me after I told her never to see me again. It was like that with us. For a time, we were fire itself, hot and running wild. Then, she became so cold. So controlling. I was suffocating with her, mon ami, and I have a very strong need to breathe. I told her she was no good for me. She screamed. She yelled. She threw things that missed my head by just a little bit. Then she left, but she will not stay gone. She keeps coming back, and she will not take no for an answer.”
They sat and listened to him rant on until he was done giving the Cliff Notes version of his failed romance with Sheila Davenport. Addie had a feeling that there was a lot more to it. Relationships were always more involved than people realized.
Lucian nodded, digesting the information with a police officer’s mind. “Okay. So, she doesn’t take no for an answer. Is that what she did today here in the museum? Did she come here looking to have you take her back, and when you told her no, she… what? Went crazy? Threatened to scream her undying devotion to the whole world?”
“Something like that, yes. She said she would make my life a living hell unless I took her home tonight. I said no, of course, and when I did she growled at me. Yes, growled at me! Then with fingernails like claws she scratched me, as I showed you.”
He held out his wrist again, wiggling his manicured fingers for dramatic effect. The lines of the scratches looked even angrier than before.
Lucian nodded. “Yeah, there’s no doubt she attacked you, but there’s also no doubt that you attacked her, too. Your hand was around her neck, Marcelle. Do you hate her that much?”
“What? No, of course not,” he stuttered. “I could never hate her. I do not hate people. Well, her maybe. Just a little.”
Lucian wasn’t taking that as an answer. He pressed harder, “She was stifling you, Marcelle. You said so yourself. She suffocated you. Now she was here tonight and threatening to ruin your life. That didn’t make you angry?”
“Well I just—”
“Did it make you angry, I said.”
“I’m trying to tell you, my friend, I was just—”
“Marcelle, did it make you angry!”
“Câlicede tabarnak,” he swore. He jumped up from his chair and slammed his fist down on the desk. He was breathing hard, his thin frame practically shaking. “Yes, yes it made me angry! I was so angry with her I wanted to—!”
He stopped, but it was too late. There was no way to take it back now. He’d told them that yes, he’d had murder in his heart. It wasn’t a confession, not necessarily, but it was motive.
Addie looked at Marcelle, sizing him up. Could he have beaten Roderick over the head and then killed Sheila? Sure, he’d proven that he was stronger than he looked, and really, what kind of strength did a person need to knock a man unconscious with a frying pan or a baseball bat or whatever had hit Roderick? It took no strength at all to plunge a knife into someone’s back, either.
It just took a killer’s soul.
She reached out with her Essence, invisible tendrils of it stealing across the space between them and caressing lightly over Marcelle’s skin. He wiped at his face as if spiderwebs had fallen there while his lip continued to tremble. She felt him with her magic, inspected his emotions, listened for the smallest intentions of his heart.
What she found was complicated and multifaceted, exactly as anyone’s emotions would be. That was the normal human condition. Hate, fear, love, desire. It was there beneath the surface in every single person on the planet. It was all here with Marcelle, too.
In the middle of all of that, she felt a small spark of hot, fluid vitriol deep within this man. The inclination to commit murder. It was there.
That, too, was the human condition. Good people kept that part of themselves locked away, and never visited the dark places where that desire dwelled. Really good people were never even aware of that darkness laying deep down inside.
Which was Marcelle, she wondered. Good, or bad?
There was other magic she could have used to pull that answer out. She could force him to tell the truth about whether he was Sheila’s killer. The problem with using that level of magic on Marcelle was that it could destroy his mind and leave him a drooling, empty shell. That was too high a price to pay, in Addie’s opinion, especially if it turned out he was innocent.
Besides, witches were always too quick to turn to their magic. There were other ways to get at the truth.
“Marcelle,” she said, gently, “tell us about Sheila. Why would someone want to kill her?”
“You mean, someone autre que moi?”
“Yes, other than you. Was she in debt to anyone, was she rich, did she have any secret admirers, anything that would point toward a motive?”
He laughed, but it was a bitter sound. “You have just described everything that Sheila Davenport was not, in fact. Here. Let me show you.”
Opening up a drawer on his desk he thumbed through several folders before selecting a green one from among the others. He lifted it out with a triumphant “ha,” and slapped it down in front of them.
Lucian looked at it laying there. “What’s this?”
“It is proof,” Lucian declared as he dropped back into his chair. “That is what it is. Proof that your victim was, how shall we say, not so innocent?”
“But you just said…”
“I said she was not in debt, and she was not in debt, and she had no secret admirers. All of that is true. Also, she was not innocent. S’il te plait. Read what I have put in the folder.”
That certainly caught Addie’s attention. She leaned in as Lucian opened the folder on the desk. There wasn’t much inside. On top were four pages of printouts from different online news sites, all from different dates. Lucian picked one up, and as Addie read along with him she could see why Marcelle had been only too happy to show this to them.
The article was short, and it lacked detail, but it talked about the arrest of a woman in the state of Oregon on charges of fraud. She had schemed to steal money from men, using a sob story about a son she didn’t have who needed bogus cancer treatments. She would date the men for weeks and then ask for the money, and then disappear from their life once she had what she wanted.
She was eventually arrested and spent a year in jail in that state. The arrest photo showed a scowling Sheila Davenport. It was not a flattering picture. Then again, the last time Addie had seen her she’d been dead, so this was sort of an improvement.
The other three articles were about cases in this state of the same nature. Lies. Sob stories. The theft of life savings, in some cases. All of them mentioned Sheila.
Behind the printed news stories were several pages of notes handwritten in cursive. This was almost a lost language in itself since schools had stopped teaching it and parents had stopped using it, but Addie appreciated the looping whorls and slanted letters. It was very meticulous, almost feminine, and she knew just by looking at it that this was Marcelle’s handwriting.
The page was a list of names, and addresses, most of them right here in Birch Hollow or the surrounding towns. She recognized a nam
e from a place called Masonville, and when she did it surprised her.
Bert Tesoro. That could only be her friend, Abierta Tesoro. Sometimes Abierta shortened her name to Bert.
And Abierta had been here tonight…
“What is this?” she asked Marcelle.
“I have kept notes on Sheila since after we broke up,” he said. “These are news reports on things she did before we ever met. I didn’t know, of course. She had me fooled just the same as all these poor people she scammed. A child with cancer? Hmph! She has no child.”
Lucian ran a finger down one of the pages of names. “Do you keep files on all of your ex-lovers, Marcelle?”
“Non, of course not. There would be so many files if I did that, I would need another room just for them!”
Somehow, Addie believed him. “Then why did you do it with Sheila?”
“Leverage,” he said. “If she would not go away, I would expose her. I would have the police stop her and put her back in jail.”
“And how would you do that?”
He reached across the desk and tapped the page of handwritten names. “These are other people she played for the fool. It took some time on my part, and many favors called in, but I know she stole money from each of them. They have not come forward on their own, so I have not pushed the issue, but after tonight I was going to turn all of this over to you, Lucian. The law would take care of her for me. You see? I had no reason to kill her.”
“Maybe,” Lucian said. “Maybe not. Did she scam you in the same way as these others?”
Marcelle adamantly shook his head. “No, she never stole from me. She always told me I was her one true love.” He shrugged. “Perhaps she would have stolen from me as well, one day.”
“Or,” Addie suggested, “maybe she actually did love you.”
“No, no. The way she treated me is not the way you treat a lover. It was how you treat a possession. I was just a thing for her to own, until I broke it off.”
“Some people never learn how to love. They need someone to teach them.”
Marcelle shifted uncomfortably under the weight of that truth. “Yes. Well, she never stole money from me, in any case. These people on my list, however, have given her money. Hundreds of dollars. Thousands, sometimes. Never too much. This is why she is not rich. She would get money, yes, but then spend it. She had to keep stealing to make more money when it was gone.”
A continuing list of victims. Addie tried to wrap her mind around that. How could anyone live with themselves, if this was how they lived? She scanned the list until she found Abierta Tesoro’s name again. Abierta had money to spare, and she had a big heart. She was just the type of person who would help someone in need without a second thought.
Even if she wasn’t actually a person. Not a human one, anyway. Abierta’s kind did not take well to being toyed with. That sort of killer instinct could have lent itself to a murderous outburst if she was one of Sheila’s victims, especially if she’d seen Sheila just show up at the museum tonight. At dinner, Addie had noticed how Abierta had hardly touched her food. That was because her kind preferred their meat, um, raw.
All of which meant one very uncomfortable fact. Abierta was a strong suspect.
For now, they had learned all they could from Marcelle. There was no reason to keep going over the same information. He had no alibi, and he did have a reason to want to hurt Sheila. More than that, as curator of the museum he would have access to the security office where Roderick was holding Sheila. Those number pad locks on the doors couldn’t be opened by just anyone. It was unlikely that Roderick had let his attacker in. He’d been hit in the back of the head and taken by surprise.
The killer they were looking for might be sitting right in front of them, or it might be one of Addie’s oldest friends, but they wouldn’t know for sure until they did some more investigating.
“Marcelle,” Lucian said, “I want you to go back to the multipurpose room and wait there with the guests and my officers. Understand? Do not leave this building.”
“Why would I?” he sniffed, looking hurt at the question.
“If you’re innocent, you won’t. If you try to run, well, then that’s going to be a very different conversation.”
Slowly, Marcelle nodded his head. He understood.
They walked with him back to the foyer, where Roderick was still under guard, and then back to the multipurpose room. Through the door, in the crowd, Addie looked for two people. She didn’t see Belladonna Nightshade anywhere, which still had her worried.
On the other hand, she found Abierta easily enough. When their eyes met, Addie waved. Her friend waved back but in a distracted sort of way, like she was thinking about something else. If there weren’t so many people around, and if there weren’t other things to do first, she would have found a quiet corner where they could talk
She needed to know for sure that Abierta wasn’t the killer. Her friend had lived such a hard life. Fitting in had always been a challenge for her, and often it meant trying to forget who she really was underneath. Did she maybe slip, and revert back to her base instincts?
The man sitting next to her reached out and put his hand over her wrist. Abierta smiled at him, leaning her shoulder against his, laughing at some whispered thing the guy had said. Addie didn’t know the man but the way he looked at Abierta left no doubt that the two of them were in love. It made it even harder to picture her as a murderer.
Addie’s heart grieved to be thinking these thoughts. More than ever, she wanted to rush right over to her friend and ask all these questions that were bursting in her mind. It would have to wait, however, and that’s just the way it was. Abierta wasn’t going anywhere, and right now she and Lucian needed to get Roderick’s side of the story.
She bit her lip, knowing she should tell Lucian who Abierta Tesoro was. Not just who, but what. It could wait, she told herself again. Lucian had given Marcelle the benefit of the doubt. Her old friend deserved the same consideration.
Hopefully.
Before they could leave, Officer Alex Candor came over to them. The stress of the situation he had found himself in showed around his eyes. When he stood side by side with Lucian, he came all the way up to his shoulders. “Sorry, guys. I know you’re busy…”
“You could say that,” Lucian replied with an easy smile. “How’s it going in here?”
“That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about. How long before we have some other officers get here? Chuck Burson’s helping me and he’s doing his best, but this is a lot of people to go through.”
“What, you’ve got someplace better to be?”
“Ha, ha,” Alex fake laughed. “Actually, I had a date lined up for after this, but I wanted to come and see you get your award. Uh… any chance I could sneak out now?”
“No, I’m afraid not, Alex. We need you here. I have no idea when the Chief is going to send us more guys and we need to get this done before people start getting antsy and trying to sneak away.”
“Believe me, boss,” Alex told him, “they’re already at that point. All right. I’ll man the fort until you tell me I can go. Just make sure it’s soon, okay?”
“Thanks. I owe you one.”
Alex went back to the table where he’d been conducting interviews. He wasn’t wrong, Addie noticed. People were getting restless in their seats and the hushed conversations had a dark undertone to them. It wouldn’t be long before things got out of hand.
Sheila Davenport was dead, Addie reminded herself. Things had already gotten out of hand.
CHAPTER 5
Halfway down the hallway, Addie whispered to Lucian, “Are you sure your friend didn’t do this? I know you like him, but…”
“I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I’m very close to it.”
“Really? Why?”
“Did you see what I saw when Marcelle showed us the cuts on his wrist?” he asked.
She didn’t understand what he meant. She thought back to that moment, p
icturing Marcelle’s hands and those red scratches on his skin. “Uh, yeah. Sheila definitely hurt him, but that’s not an excuse for murder. Other than that? I mean, he obviously likes to get manicures, and I think he was wearing a clear glossy polish over his nails, but hey to each his own.”
“Exactly. His hands are immaculate. Clean and buffed. Not a trace of dirt anywhere, let alone any traces of blood.”
She finally caught on. It would have been hard not to get any blood at all on his hands while stabbing Sheila in the back. “He could have worn gloves,” she suggested.
“Unfortunately, that’s true, and that’s where my one percent of doubt comes in. At the same time, there should have been blood on his tuxedo even if he wore gloves. That tux he has on now is the same one he had on when we first got here, isn’t it?”
Addie shrugged. “To be honest with you, all tuxedos kind of look alike to me. It’s the man wearing them that makes the difference.”
Lucian stood a little straighter, like he thought that compliment was for him specifically. In a way, she supposed it was.
“Have I told you how beautiful that dress is?” he asked her.
She shook her head, letting her braid bob against her shoulders. “Not yet, you haven’t.”
“See, I think the dress can make the woman more beautiful than she usually is.”
For a moment, she was lost in his eyes. She so very much wanted to kiss him right now, deeply and passionately, even in the middle of a murder investigation. Even with her mortal enemy out there, lurking somewhere. She still wanted to be as close as skin with this man.
Too bad she had to be practical. Find the killer now, fall into her boyfriend’s arms later.
She sighed. “Right. Well. We have a suspect list that keeps growing and shrinking then, don’t we?”
“Uh, yeah.” He’d been just as lost in his thoughts of the two of them as she was, judging by that goofy grin of his. “Well. I don’t think Marcelle is our guy. I could be wrong, but his hands were clean, his clothes were clean, and unless we find a bloody shirt discarded in the museum somewhere I don’t think we can say he changed his clothes after the murder. The facts are pointing to someone else.”
