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Lacey took a seat in one of the winged chairs, placing his plate on a small coffee table, while he opened the wine.
“We should probably let it breathe,” he said with a shrug. It was a good Tasmanian pinot noir—the island was renowned for its cold-climate boutique wines. “But to hell with it.” He poured them both a glassful, then raised his glass and clinked it against the edge of hers, the crystal giving out a pure, clear tinkle.
“This is a little more civilized than eating outside on fold-up chairs,” Lacey admitted, taking a sip and leaning back in her chair.
He didn’t disagree, but he was too busy digging into the delicious pasta to answer.
“How did your afternoon go?” He could hear the compassion in her voice. She understood a little of the stress he was under right now. He hadn’t seen a lot of her after they’d had lunch together. He’d been busy with other witnesses and amassing facts from all the various statements so far. His intention had been to go and find her midafternoon, just to check in and perhaps take her to coffee, but then things had got hectic. Floyd Hamilton had been brought in for an interview earlier than expected, all belligerent and demanding to know what he’d done wrong, and Nico’s good intentions had fallen by the wayside. It bothered him, knowing she was hanging around the station, waiting for him to finish up, and so he should’ve been glad when she organized her own way home tonight, putting him out of his misery. Briefly, he wondered how the drive home had gone with Gabriel.
“I saw Herb and Margie come in this afternoon. Could they offer anything new?” she asked, snapping his mind away from Gabe. Her question was harmless, built on curiosity and nothing more, but he tensed at her words, swallowing hard. Had she guessed something had happened in that interview? Was it written all over his face?
Should he tell her? She was a cop—or had used to be, at any rate—and she’d know to keep anything he said to herself.
“Actually… Yes, they did.” Or specifically, Herb had said some things that had set his whole team abuzz. Nico tried to decide what to tell Lacey. He was already on edge after Gabe’s uncalled for probing. And he wasn’t used to sharing his thoughts with anyone outside the members of his team. But Lacey had once been a cop. And he’d already talked over other details of the investigation with her. In the end, he determined he could trust her. Especially because he’d like her evaluation on what Herb had said. She might be able to offer a different point of view, an altered insight into Herb’s bombshell claims.
He took another mouthful of the delicious pasta—he could get used to Lacey’s cooking; he could’ve sworn he didn’t have the ingredients to whip up something this tasty in his cupboards—to give himself time to phrase his next comment.
“Herb revealed some interesting insights into Rania and Karim’s relationship today.”
“Wow,” Lacey breathed and leaned forward in her chair, causing her hair to tumble forward over her shoulders, reflecting the glow of the flames and shimmering like gold in the firelight, momentarily distracting him from his line of thought. “Like what?” she asked.
He should probably start at the beginning, so he put his fork down. “We talked to the couple separately, of course. Myself and Senior Constable Jackson were doing the interviews. You met him this morning. Tyrell is a good officer.”
Lacey merely nodded, rolling her wineglass between her palms and watching him intently.
“Margie came in first, and she retold the events of that morning with good accuracy. Everything fit with her first statement.” Lacey would understand the significance of that. If a witness started to change their story, they were either unreliable, or lying. Neither of which would stand up in court. But Margie’s account was solid, and Nico believed everything she said.
He snatched another mouthful before he continued. “But by the time Herb came in, he seemed a little…on edge. You know?” Nico wasn’t sure why, but he picked up some sort of vibe coming off Herb that hadn’t been there the other morning. Or perhaps it was all such a mess of local bystanders and cops and paramedics, he just hadn’t been watching for the signs at the time. But now, Herb had had time to stew, sitting in the waiting room while they interviewed his wife. Maybe he was worried about what she might’ve said to the cops.
“Anyway, when I asked him what he knew about Rania’s relationship with Karim, he clammed up. I was just asking if he thought they were happy together, normal procedural question, you know what I mean? But he went all weird and wouldn’t look at me, saying he didn’t know. Then, I pushed harder. After your conversation with Margie, I was hoping he might admit to being awake that night. Admit to his insomnia. Perhaps let on that he had seen something, so I didn’t have to initiate the conversation. Instead, he said Karim wasn’t the saint everyone said he was.”
“What does that mean?” Lacey asked.
“He finally revealed that Rania had broken down one evening and told him everything. He’d found her walking up and down their street late at night, crying. Margie was still in bed, so he’d taken Rania back to her house and they’d sat on the front steps. And that’s when she’d told him she didn’t know what to do anymore. That Karim was using drugs—she thinks it was cocaine—to get him through the early starts and long hours at the bakery. They’d had a huge argument about it, and Karim had taken off. But it didn’t sound like this was their first argument. Herb had heard raised voices a few times before, when he’d been up because he couldn’t sleep.” He took a breath and shoveled some more food into his mouth, giving Lacey time to digest his news.
The fact Karim might be a cocaine addict was a big one, and of course he’d be investigating that right away. If he’d been on a bender, or in a drug-fueled rage, and they’d had an argument, it could easily have driven him to stab Rania in a fit of violence. But Nico wasn’t about to start jumping to conclusions. They’d bring Karim in first thing tomorrow to question him. But until then, he could only speculate.
And the mystery only got deeper. “Rania begged Herb not to tell Margie because the old woman adores Karim, and she didn’t want her to think less of them as a couple,” he added, watching for Lacey’s reaction.
“And Herb agreed to that?”
“Sadly, yes.”
“So, there’s no one to back up his claims?”
“Not at the moment, no.”
Lacey didn’t say it, but he knew by her wrinkled forehead that she was thinking much the same as him. He liked the way she picked things up so quickly. Liked her sharp mind and her logical thinking. It was no wonder she’d decided to become a cop. He looked up to see her intelligent amber gaze regarding him with interest. Their eyes locked for a few seconds longer than was strictly necessary, and Nico felt a surge of heat through his groin. Although she was sitting in the armchair and he was on the couch, she’d shuffled forward as her interest took hold, and now their knees were almost touching, her hair hanging like a silken sheet within reach if he let his fingers do what they wanted. He could almost smell the shampoo she’d used to wash her hair this morning.Look away, Nico, before you embarrass yourself.He cleared his throat and took a sip of wine, breaking their contact as he did so.
There was more to his story, so he concentrated on that instead. “The most important part is that he also revealed he had some of Rania’s stuff stored in his shed. Said she’d asked him to look after it for her, because she didn’t trust Karim.”
“Oh, no.” Lacey clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide. She understood the second that he said the words how much it changed everything. For Karim. For the investigation. And for Herb. There could be vital evidence in whatever was in Herb’s shed. Herb might not realize it yet, but this wasn’t good for him. So far, Nico didn’t think Herb had a motive to kill Rania, but he certainly had the opportunity. Perhaps there was something else going on between the old man and the young woman no one knew about yet. And perhaps that stuff might hold the evidence. “So you think Herb is trying to implicate Karim?” she said, almost in a whisper.
“I’m not sure,” Nico replied with an unhappy grimace. If anything, this news complicated things even further. “It really seemed as if he didn’t want to tell us any of this at first. As if he really was trying to protect the boyfriend. And Rania’s privacy. As if he didn’t believe the guy was capable of murdering his lover. It wasn’t until I suggested I’d be prepared to issue a search warrant for his house and shed, that his face kind of crumpled and he blurted out the whole truth.” Herb might be old, but he wasn’t stupid. He would’ve known it was better to tell the police what he knew now, rather than let them uncover it later, which would make him look guilty as hell.
“He said he’s got three boxes of Rania’s stuff in total, but he says he doesn’t know what’s in them. That he would never pry into her private business.”
Lacey raised a skeptical eyebrow at that, but Nico thought Herb might’ve been telling the truth on that count. He was an old-fashioned man with old-fashioned values.
