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“No—”
“You just wanted to make sure she was okay. You were checking in. But no one answered. She’d already gone to bed. And the girls were asleep, too. William was passed out on the recliner, five beers deep, and he’d worked a long day down at the garage, so he wasn’t waking up to a pesky knock.”
“I didn’t go to her house!”
“You tried the door since that’s just what people do. It’s a natural next step, and shit,” Fletch sits back, lifting his hands to show us his palms, “I guess someone forgot to lock up. Because it swung open on its own. So now you’re standing there with a massive decision sitting on your shoulders. You can see the living room and the kitchen from the front door. That house is tiny, so it’s not like you have to look far to get an idea of the layout. William’s snoring on the couch, and the kitchen is glistening since Adrianna had already scrubbed it clean before bed.”
“No.” Anderson hardens his jaw. “I was nowhere near that house the other night.”
“The knife block is within view,” Fletch continues with his story. Fuck, we have no proof of a single thing he says, but he’s on a roll, and we’re at a standstill in our investigation. Adrianna is still our best guess. “It was right there. And maybe your brain just switched off for a moment. You don’t remember walking in. You just did. The lid on your emotions burst, and before you knew it, you had the knife in your hands and a man’s blood on your clothes.”
“No!” Charleston propels up from his chair, sending the wire structure falling back until it hits the grass with a muffled thud. And though I stand, too, he places his hands on the table and folds to look into Fletch’s honeycomb eyes. “Do I like her, Detective? Yes, I do. But did I kill her husband? No. Do I think she killed her husband? No. I think she’s a remarkably hard worker who perseveres even when her home is a battlefield. I think she continued to live under the thumb of a terrible, horrible dictator, and I think she did it all so she could protect her children. I think she’s incredibly controlled. Her emotions are locked away in a steel vault. I think she knew she was stuck in a bad life, and I think she knew if she left him, she’d have to share them with her abuser, but she wouldn’t be in the home to shield them. And I think she was smart enough to know if she killed him, she’d end up here,” he thrusts a hand in Fletch’s direction, “locked behind bars and at the mercy of a couple of cops desperate to close a case. Again, her children would not be protected by her. She lacked all options and had no way out. I think that’s why she was taking classes. She was creating a future for herself, but a year is not a degree, and her husband dying now, this year, and not three years from now, is bad news for her all around. She doesn’t have the ability to work and care for her girls and study, all at the same time. So your motive,” he drags his focus over to me and stops, “the motive you swear she has, is flimsy at best. And since we’re on the subject, I lack motive, too.”
He stands tall, straightening his spine, and drawing his gaze back to Fletch. “Sure, I wanted her to be safe. And yes, I thought she was beautiful. But I had no desire to slide into what was already an incredibly dysfunctional life, where my presence would only place Adrianna and her daughters into increased conflict and danger. I can think she’s pretty from afar, Detectives. And I can cheer her on, just like I cheer on a sportsperson competing in the Olympics or a musician in their rise to fame. I didn’t kill that woman’s husband, and I don’t believe she killed him either. The risk was far too great, and her only concern is to be with her children.”
“Someone murdered that man,” Fletch slowly rises from his chair. “Someone slid an eight-inch knife inside his body twenty-nine times until he bled to death, soaked in his own urine and alcohol. Then they tossed the murder weapon into Adrianna’s sink, left the home, presumably dumped the clothes somewhere we’ve yet to find, and now they’re in the wind. Unfortunately for Adrianna, whoever killed that man has set her up to take the fall. So tell me, Brainiac, if it wasn’t her, and it wasn’t you, who the hell was it?”
“Have you questioned Professor Jones, yet?” Anderson doesn’t seem to like Fletch, because he looks at me instead and blocks my partner out. “I’ve been inside that school for two years now, and it’s not like we haven’t all heard about his tendency to give better grades for female attention.”
“Jones?” Blood roars in my veins as that motherfucker’s name comes up once more. “You think he might have reason to want William Alves dead?”
“I think it’s possible he wanted William dead, and Adrianna in trouble for it.”
“Why?” Fletch steps around his chair and comes to a stop on my left. “Why would he want Adrianna in trouble? From what we’ve gleaned so far, he seems to care about his students.”
“Care.” Anderson scoffs in the back of his throat. “Sure, he cares. He cares so much that he assumes they all want to fuck him. So when Adrianna called him out for dropping class materials off at her home one time, which led her husband to incorrectly assume she was having an affair, Jones looked like a tool. He would fuck any female that walks through his lecture room door. The fact Adrianna was uninterested was a strike against his ego. Chewing him out for going to her home was strike two.”
And my dislike of him counts for strike three.
“Thank you, Charleston.” I extend my hand and offer it to the twenty-one-year-old who looks to be sixteen. Maybe seventeen at a stretch. But he’s got spine, too. He’s got confidence in what he knows to be right or wrong. “If we have more questions?—”
“You can call in advance,” he shakes my hand and squeezes just tight enough to make me grin, “and check that the timing is convenient for me.”
“Dude took a full one-eighty.” Fletch drives us back toward downtown, his legs splayed wide and only one hand on the steering wheel. “From a weaselly, afraid kid who has a crush on the older woman, to future district attorney Charleston Anderson.”
“He knew we were out of line.” I watch the city build up as we leave suburbia and move closer to the business district. “You were clutching at straws and making up a story. He knew you were talking out your ass.”
“Don’t get cocky on me,” he chuckles. “I was trying to force a mistake and get him to admit to something we hadn’t yet figured out.”
“And how’d that work out for you? Fiction is fun. But a jury isn’t gonna rubber stamp it just because you were on a roll.”
“At least I tried,” he huffs, shrugging as traffic grows thicker. “You sure you’re ready to go home to the wife yet? This might be your last night alive.”
I roll my eyes and settle back into my chair. Pretending to be relaxed. While inside, my heart skips in my chest. “She’s not that bad.”
“She’s terrifying,” he laughs. “Maybe we ought to let her interview Jones. She’s pretty, and she’s female, which basically means she’s exactly his type.”
“She’s not going anywhere near him.” My foot bounces against the car floor, nervous energy thudding in my veins and making me restless. “He’s a predator. Always has been.”
“So? She’s tough. She eats dudes like that for breakfast.”
“Exactly. The vigilante will get a sniff, she’ll get his blood on her hands, and then I’ll have to break her out of prison. I have a honeymoon I’d like to take her on, so no.” I force my leg to stop and my eyes across the car to my best friend. “She’s not meeting Jones.”
“Wanna take a swing at him tonight?” He pulls the car on to the street our precinct is on. And the bar. The apartment I share with Minka, and the apartment I used to live in, which now sits empty, though we’ve told Cato to move in there countless times. “We could have him in an interrogation room within the hour.” Then his eyes light up. “We could go to his home and pick him up. Cuff him. Put him in the back seat and make sure all his neighbors see the show.”
“Tomorrow.” I don’t even consider the alternative. It’s going on dinnertime, Saturday evening. I have a life I’d like to live outside of police work. And Fletch has a little girl to get home to. “He’s not going anywhere. Do you have a problem with releasing Adrianna in the morning?” I glance out the windows and study the familiar buildings as we pass. “We don’t have enough to hold her. And we both know the hell her kids are going through right now without her. It’s not fair, especially if she didn’t do the crime.”
“Yeah.” He drives right past the precinct and continues along our street. Cruising from one block to the next in relative ease. “Even if it turns out she’s our killer, my gut says she’s no threat to anyone else. And her girls deserve to have her home until we can prove otherwise.” He slows near our building and comes to a stop outside the bar. “Do you think she’s still attached to Tim? Or did he release her once we were far enough away?”
