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Desperate.
William was a heavy drinker, and six nights out of seven, he was shouting at his family and slamming his fist into the walls.
“I would’ve killed him,” the Alves’ little old lady neighbor whispers, leaning closer, though we sit in her living room with eight feet separating us. Her home is just as old as the Alves’, just as worn down. But Mrs. Strictler covers the cracks in her walls with pictures, and the marks on her furniture with dusty doilies.
The woman is closer to eighty than she is to seventy, and as she leans in my direction, telling her secrets, lines wrinkle around her lips where I could easily guess formed over half-a-century or more of sucking on a cigarette. “He was a deadbeat,” she mutters. “Total asshole.”
I clamp my lips shut and school the expression on my face that might show surprise at a little old bitty spitting out cuss words.
“He was always making noise,” she continues. “Up at five in the morning for work. Banging dishes around. Shouting at Adrianna to come fetch him his lunch or whatever.” She sits back in a doily-esque dress and crosses wrinkled legs, one over the other. “That poor girl was to wait on him hand and foot, and if she didn’t come when he wanted her to, he’d shout the whole street down.”
“Did you ever see William Alves hit Adrianna Alves?” Fletch asks from his chair, his ass perched on the very edge so he touches as little of the suede as he can manage. “With your own eyes, did you see him get physical with his wife?”
“Punch her in the face?” She shakes her head before her sentence is complete. “No, I never saw that. I mean, we know it happened. Pretty regularly, too. Since she was always getting around with a new facial accessory. But he was never so arrogant as to swing out and smack her in front of anyone else.”
Nodding, Fletch glances down at his notebook, old-school note-making, though we know we have the audio to lean on when we get back to the station. “Did you ever?—”
“He was handsy with her though,” Strictler cuts in. “She was planning a Fourth of July thing here for next week. Catching up with the neighbors and getting all the kids together for an hour of fun before bed. Just two nights ago, when she was outside talking to one of our other neighbors, Cassidy, he grabbed Adrianna by the arm and dragged her back to their place. Guess it was dinnertime,” she spits out, “or so he decided. And he wanted her inside to cook for him.”
“When you say he dragged her to the house…” I ponder. “Do you mean?—”
“I don’t mean he had her by the hair and her heels were scraping the road. But his meaty hand wrapped around her tiny arm and his fingers bruised her skin. He was screaming about dinner, and how the girls needed to be put to bed.”
“And Mrs. Alves?” I ask. “What did she do? What did she say?”
“She apologized.” Strictler reaches into the gap between her couch cushion and the frame, tugging out a packet of crumpled cigarettes with an exhale of victory. She takes one out and plops it between her lips. “Adrianna was saying something about losing track of the time. And she was sorry. She begged him to stop shouting because those sweet baby girls were crying. She just…” She flicks her lighter to life and sets the tip of her cigarette alight. “She wanted peace, Detectives. I don’t think she killed that man. But hell,” she draws a long drag of her cigarette. “I would’ve.”
We excuse ourselves from the murderous Mrs. Strictler’s home after an hour, with a bunch of opinion on record and a first-hand witness account proving William abused his wife. But opinions don’t count in a court of law, and the fact he hurt her only lends to the idea Adrianna Alves may have simply had enough.
“Put the kids to bed,” I wonder, walking the street as we make our way toward Cassidy Nunes’ townhouse. “He’s a drinker, so she knows he’ll be out by nine, laying back in the recliner and with the television on. That murder wasn’t quiet, Fletch. And it was messy as hell.”
“Whoever did it will have been drenched in blood,” he agrees. “Head to toe. Our perp probably left DNA behind, too. Their sweat. Nails. Hair. Something.”
“CSIs are running the scene, then the lab will have to work through everything they find.” I drop my hands to my hips and frown beneath the furious heat of the sun as it heads toward midday. “Adrianna’s DNA is gonna be all over that house. Hell, it’ll be all over William. His couch. His carpet. Even his clothes.”
“Why didn’t she wake up?” he sighs. We’re not total assholes. And we’re not so incompetent as to assume she hacked her husband up just because she had the opportunity and he pissed her off. But shit, the evidence will point her way. The DA will have a field day with this case unless we find evidence to the contrary. “The killer would have been, at the very least, breathing heavily. Panting. Grunting.” He comes to a stop outside forty-three-thirteen and turns to study me with eyes wrinkled under the glare of the sun. “William has defensive wounds, so we know he tried to fight back, at least a little.”
“Beer bottle was knocked to the floor.” I glance along the street to where Adrianna remains beside a cruiser. She wears her husband’s blood like an artist wears paint. On her hands. Her arms. Her face and neck. “The carpet was so thin in that living room, the bottle hitting the floor would have been an audible thunk, Fletch. And nothing? She claims she heard nothing? Didn’t wake up? Didn’t get up to pee during the night and notice he wasn’t in bed?”
“Maybe she’s a deep sleeper?” He lifts his muscular shoulders, the leather of his gun holster stretching around the movement. “If the marriage is bad already and he’s used to sleeping in the recliner, then she isn’t likely to get up and come looking for him.”
“Detectives?”
I lean to the left and glance around my partner to find a female officer waiting by Cassidy’s front door. We have a list of who we need to speak to today, and every person on that list has a police escort already minding their door, ensuring they stay where we need them.
“Ms. Nunes is ready for you both. She’s visibly and audibly upset.”
“Crying?” I ask. “Has she said anything about William or the case?”
“Only that she needs to see Adrianna Alves, Detective.” Lowering her voice, she wanders down the two steps each townhouse boasts and comes to a stop in front of us. “She wants to support Adrianna. Says how Adrianna needs her right now, and how she—the wife—didn’t hurt William. She wants to know that the kids are being cared for. Things like that.”
“Typical ride or die shit,” Fletch grumbles. Bringing a hand up, he rolls his bottom lip between his fingers in thought. “Mrs. Strictler said Adrianna and Cassidy were pals. Nunes wouldn’t be the first to cover for a friend, even if she knew that friend committed a crime and whacked her husband.”
“Let’s go speak to her.” We’ve been on the scene of our newest homicide for, what? Three hours? Nearly four. And already, it’s shrouded in everyone else’s speculation. I have a battered woman who may or may not have wanted out of a bad life, a wager on my honeymoon, and a circle of unconventional girlfriends who might have plotted to kill a man in his sleep…
How has it already gotten so messy?
Why does it already feel so muddy?
