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Then again, I probably shouldn’t have been looking at his mouth.
“Chuck told me he got back to the ranch and went out to check on you a little before midnight. He said you were dead asleep, so he decided not to wake you…he knew you were doing some kind of vigil or something.”
Well, it wasn’t exactly a vigil, more a way to make my petition more powerful. But I wasn’t about to try explaining that to Calvin Standingbear. “See?” I said. “Chuck saw me at the clearing. I wasn’t anywhere near Lilith Black.”
“The M.E.’s initial estimate is that she died sometime after midnight, probably around three or four in the morning,” Calvin replied. “Which means there was plenty of time for you to leave the property after Chuck came by to check on you.”
I crossed my arms and sent him a narrow-eyed glare. “Yes, and my car was parked right next to the house. Don’t you think Chuck would’ve heard me coming and going?”
“Possibly,” Calvin allowed. “Or maybe he’s a heavy sleeper.”
While I supposed that was a possibility, I kind of doubted it. Because Chuck basically managed the ranch by himself, I had a feeling that he didn’t allow himself to slumber too deeply, just in case he had to get out of bed in the middle of the night to look after a sick calf, or take care of whatever other emergencies might pop up at odd hours.
“Maybe you should ask him,” I suggested.
Calvin made another note on his pad. “Maybe I will.”
This was ridiculous. We might have been strangers. Obviously, he’d gotten cold feet when it came to having any kind of a relationship with me, but had he forgotten that only two months earlier, he’d admitted he didn’t think I was capable of murder?
“I didn’t kill Lilith Black,” I said flatly. “I honestly don’t see why you would even think I was a suspect.”
He set down his pen and folded his hands on the desktop. I tried not to look at them, because more than once I’d imagined what it would be like to have those long, strong fingers cupping my face, or caressing my hair, or…
…well, or doing all sorts of other things to me, none of which seemed remotely a possibility at the moment.
“Chuck told me about that mean trick she pulled on you,” he said. “Apparently, she posted something on Instagram to the effect that her bonfire was the only one worth attending and that you didn’t know what you were doing and there was no point attending your ritual. Some people might find that kind of slander sufficient motive.”
So that was what had happened. I released a gust of a laugh, derisive and hard. “Oh, please. That was middle school garbage. You think I’m going to let something like that get under my skin? Anyway,” I went on before he could respond, “if I werereallyout for revenge, I would have put a hex on her — made all her hair fall out, or have YouTube de-monetize her channel, or whatever. I certainly wouldn’tkillher.”
For just a second, Calvin appeared almost amused. “You can really do something like that?”
“Oh, yes. But,” I added, “I choose not to use that kind of magic because it almost always rebounds on the user. It’s really not safe.”
“I’ll take it under advisement.”
The great stone face was back. How could I possibly get through to him? It seemed he was willing to believe the worst, no matter what I said. I didn’t know what could have caused such a change in his attitude toward me. Was it that in this case, the victim was female, and a rival of sorts?
I supposed such a thing was possible, although I didn’t want to acknowledge that he could believe the worst of me. “How was Lilith murdered?”
He didn’t blink. “You know I can’t tell you that.”
My jaw clenched, but I made myself say calmly enough, “You might as well. I doubt you have enough evidence to hold me, and you also know I have plenty of money to post bail.”
“You’re not under arrest, Selena.”
Oh, right. Calvin had driven me to the station, but so far, I hadn’t been formally charged with anything. This little interview was a fact-finding mission and nothing more.
“Still. Anyway, you know that as soon as I’m back in Globe, someone — probably Josie — is going to fill me in on all the gory details. So you might as well spill.”
A pained expression had flitted across his face at the word “gory,” but he only said, “She was stabbed in the back with her ceremonial dagger.”
“An athame,” I corrected him automatically, even as I tried not to wince. As a rule, athames weren’t very sharp. Someone would have had to drive it into Lilith’s back with a great deal of force.
Despite the gruesome mental image Calvin’s description had conjured, I couldn’t help thinking that the manner of her death sounded like a shining example of instant karma. What better end for a back-stabbing fake witch?
“Right,” he said, although his expression didn’t shift. Was he thinking of the time he’d gone with me to my apartment to retrieve my own athame so he could have it tested for traces of Lucien Dumond’s blood? Of course, those forensic tests hadn’t found anything, because in that case — just as in this one — I was totally innocent.
This time, though, Lilith had been stabbed with her own dagger, and so there wouldn’t be any evidence on my athame. “Fingerprints?” I asked, knowing I sounded a little desperate.
