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“I just gave you the best lead you have on this case! I only want to listen to what Karla has to say.”
“For what reason?” I glance over at Fletch. At the door. Though he holds the handle and keeps our room secure. “Why do you wanna listen to a woman you don’t know make a statement?”
“Because she’s a woman,” she shrugs. “A criminology student you’ve deemed important enough to interview. Our killer butchered a man in cold blood, slit him open, and stabbed him twenty-nine times. What can I say,” she grins, “I’m curious.”
“You’re insane,” Fletch groans. “What the fuck is this? Peer review research?”
“That’s basically what I said last night.” I grit my teeth and hold her stare. “Insane. You’re not going in there to compare notes, Mayet.”
“I don’t intend to speak at all. I won’t ask questions. I won’t interfere.” She lifts her hands in surrender when I open my mouth to argue. “I swear. It’s Saturday. I have nowhere else to be. Felix keeps calling my phone because he, too, is a man obsessed, and he says he has a secret to tell us, but won’t leave a message. And Cato may end up with a few of his own puncture wounds if he doesn’t leave me alone.” She pleads with me, using her eyes only. “Please, Archer? I just want to listen.”
She could have anything from me. Any time. Any day. Anywhere. No matter the consequences. She needn’t bat her lashes or say please, because I’m a fuckin simp for her.
But this isn’t only my case, and Fletch and I are already on thin ice with the captain. So I look at my partner and lift a brow in question.
“I don’t care.” He throws a hand up in frustration. “I’ve been in an interview room with her before. She held her own just fine. But,” he adds, glaring across the room at my wife, “she said something about shutting her mouth back then, too. That she wouldn’t interfere.”
I bring my focus back around Minka, who only snickers.
“I promise to try not to speak. Sometimes you people aren’t asking the correct questions.”
“And of course, you’re always right.” I roll my eyes to the sky again and breathe out in frustration. “Fine. Lips shut, Chief. This will be on record, so if you can’t get your shit under control…”
“It’s under control,” she declares quickly. “Swear.”
MINKA
“Detective Archer Malone entering Interview Room Three.” Archer heads in just a foot in front of me. And though I know he wants to reach back and take my hand, to keep me close and safe, he settles on only balling his fists. On tightening his fingers and refusing himself the luxury of looking anything but professional in an interview room. “Accompanied by Detective Charlie Fletcher and Chief Medical Examiner, Minka Mayet.”
He stops behind one of two spare chairs tucked against the table, on the opposite side of where a young woman sits.
She reminds me of Aubs, a little bit. Not physically, not really. But her youthful playfulness. Her dancing eyes as she looks straight past the cops and stops on me. She’s not nervous about being inside this room, the way I assume most others would be. She didn’t kill anyone this week. But she studies crime in her evenings, and now she gets a leading role in one of the worst homicides available.
“Thank you for coming down to speak to us today,” Fletch adds, trying, but failing, to take her attention off me. “Ms. Darling?”
Archer drags the chair closest to him out, but he gives me a look that commands me to sit down. Front row. Full spotlight. But I’m not sure he considers himself a man with another choice. There are three chairs inside this room and four people who need to be situated.
He won’t take a seat and oust Fletch, and Fletch won’t sit until everyone else has made their moves.
Knowing this interview won’t move forward until I sit my ass down, I accept Archer’s offer and meet Karla’s stare front on. “Ms. Darling.”
Archer growls.
Already, I’ve broken my promise not to speak.
“It’s rare the Chief M.E. comes into these types of meetings, right?” Karla sits back and grins. Her lips glisten beneath lip gloss and fluorescent lights, and her long, tawny hair sways from a bright pink scrunchie. “I don’t pretend to be an expert on the matter,” she adds when I clamp my lips shut. “But I pride myself on my academics. Maybe I’m money-poor, time-poor, and well, just poor-poor, but Professor Jones always ensures we get our class materials. And he doesn’t make us pay for textbooks. I work hard to attain the knowledge given to me so far.”
“Chief Mayet is interested in observing our discussion,” Fletch fills in, tugging out the seat beside mine, since Arch doesn’t sit, and lowering until his elbow touches mine. “If you’re not comfortable with her presence?—”
“You’ll make her leave?” Karla taunts. “She’s the Detective’s wife. Everyone knows it.”
“You’re not a suspect,” Archer inserts. “You’re not in trouble, and we appreciate the fact that you volunteered your valuable time to us today. If you’d like to end this interview, you can do so at any point. If you’d feel more comfortable without one of us here, we can have that person leave, and it won’t be an issue.”
“What if I asked you to leave?” she challenges Archer. Then Fletch. “And you, too.” Finally, she hooks a thumb my way. “But she can stay.”
“She’s not a police officer,” Archer grits out. He has to know she’s playing with him. Testing how much she can get away with before he turns from ‘thank you for your time’ to ‘you’re pissing me off’. “Unfortunately, that can’t happen.”
Karla only sniggers, shaking her head as she crosses her legs. “I was kidding. The M.E. can stay, on the condition that I can ask questions later.”
