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Liliana smiled wistfully at the toes of his big combat boots. “I used to love to go dancing. I never liked the crowds, but the music was so beautiful. I would dance outside on the porches and balconies, and in the grass.”
Their was so much music in her youth. People played instruments and swirled brightly colored skirts. Everyone danced in the evening after dinner for someone’s wedding or birthday or just for the sheer joy of being alive. It had been so long since Liliana danced, she’d almost forgotten to miss it.
Peter Teague’s brow wrinkled. “So, does that mean you went dancing or not?”
“There aren’t any places to dance in the grass away from the crowds in Fayetteville. There’s always too much noise and too many people, and the music is too loud. I don’t go dancing anymore.” It had been decades at least. She hadn’t gone dancing in decades.
“Did you go to the Wolverines basketball game Friday night?” Peter Teague’s voice had gained a more intense edge, but she didn’t know why this scientist was so interested in what she did for fun.
“Go Wolverines,” she muttered dutifully. It was socially required in Fayetteville to say those words whenever the local high school was mentioned. “I don’t like basketball games at all. So many people screaming and shouting for nothing important.” She shrugged. “And I always know who will win anyway. I never go to basketball games.”
“Do you mind telling us where you were Friday night?” Detective Jackson asked.
“I was here. I have been rereading Gulliver’s Travels.” Liliana waved the scarf at the closed door beside her that led into the rest of her house.
“Is there anyone who could verify that?” Peter Teague asked. “Was someone with you?”
She shook her head. “Clients stay in the business space unless they have to go to the bathroom.”
Liliana tilted her head to one side, puzzled by the seemingly random conversation. “Usually, when men ask about things like dancing and basketball games and my house, they want to have sex with me.”
Doctor Peter Teague was attractive on the outside. If he was a nice person on the inside, she might enjoy having sex with him. She hadn’t looked into him, though, so she didn’t know if he was a good person, or even if he was human like the two women, or some kind of Other.
“Do you want to have sex with me, Doctor Teague?”
Doctor Teague cleared his throat and took a step back. “Uh, that’s not um, I mean…uh, not that you’re not pretty, but…”
Detective Jackson snorted.
Sergeant Giovanni laughed outright. “Give it up, Pete. There’s no good answer to that one.”
Liliana’s ears flushed hot. When people laughed at her, it usually meant Liliana had missed something obvious to everyone else.
She replayed the conversation in her mind, trying to spot where her understanding had gone wrong.
Oh. Their questions weren’t about Liliana. They were about murders. “Did the murders happen last night and last Friday night?”
“Ma’am, we’re sorry we bothered you.” Detective Jackson stood up. “We’ll be going now.”
“Okay,” Liliana said, still confused. Why did the detective not answer my question?
“Not just yet,” Doctor Teague said.
Detective Jackson’s full lips tightened, and her eyes narrowed, making her look very fierce. “May I remind you this is my investigation?” She stood up and pointed at the sergeant and the scientist. “You two are only here in an advisory capacity, and so far your advice has led us on a big fat snipe hunt.”
“I just have one more question,” the red-haired man insisted, holding up a single finger.
Detective Jackson sighed and crossed her arms. “Fine.” That looked like more annoyance, but definitely not at Liliana this time. “Ask. Then we leave this nice lady in peace.”
Peter Teague turned back to the spider-kin. “Have you ever seen people killed by having their insides dissolved by acid and sucked out through two big holes in their throats?”
“Pete!” Sergeant Giovanni stood up and grabbed the man’s arm, pulling him back from Liliana. “The lady is clearly...” She circled a finger around her ear. “…busy.”
Liliana continued to look down at the scarf in her hand, so the soldier probably thought the spider-kin couldn’t see, but Liliana always saw. “I am not crazy, Sergeant Giovanni. The word people sometimes use to describe me is ‘autistic.’ It’s not really right either, but it’s a better word than ‘crazy.’ I’m not crazy.”
She forced herself to look at the soldier and the man directly for a second before her gaze dropped again. “Yes, I have heard of people killed in that way, Doctor Teague.”
The two women stopped glaring at the man, and Sergeant Giovanni stopped trying to drag him out.
