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“You can. We could speak to you both.” Fletch wanders closer. The kinder, gentler half of our duo with a knack for relaxing those who get nervous around cops. Especially those of the female variety. “But you’re definitely not in trouble. Neither is your boss. We wanted to talk to you about?—”
“Adrianna Alves?”
Instantly, she shuts Fletch up with a snap of his jaw. “Hmm?”
“She’s on the news, Detectives. Miranda London’s been yapping about it every hour, on the hour, since yesterday.” The woman in front of us swallows, her throat bobbing with the movement. “I feel like that reporter has already condemned Adrianna. And I know that’s not how it’s supposed to be.”
“Exactly right.” Fletch perches on the corner of her desk, leans back to read the nameplate sitting askew, then glances up again and grins. “Karla. In this country, it’s innocent until proven guilty, and despite Ms. London’s incessant chatter, Detective Malone and I are yet to make a statement. As the primaries on William Alves’ case, we’re the only people, short of the medical examiner’s office, authorized to speak on the matter.”
“Do you know Adrianna Alves?” I draw Karla’s eyes over to me. “Have you met her personally?”
“Yes. We shared some of the same classes.”
“Oh, you’re a student here too?” Fletch wonders. “You don’t just work the desk?”
“I work here in exchange for discounted course fees.” Her cheeks grow rosy once more. “I can’t afford a lot, Detective. But I have time on my hands, so I barter the second and hope to afford to buy a little more in the future.”
“And Mrs. Alves?” I question. “What did she do around here?”
“She didn’t have a lot of time to barter with. She was a mom. And a wife. She had a home to keep, and her husband worked a lot of hours. They couldn’t afford daycare, and they didn’t have family in the city to help. So the only time she could come to class was when William was at home to care for their daughters.”
“Which was how often?” I ask. “How many classes a week did Adrianna attend?”
“Twice a week. Often, she ran through the doors a few minutes late. And she couldn’t stick around to talk after. She was gone like a shot just as soon as Robert said we were done.”
“Robert?” I take out my notebook and jot down the things I need to remember. “Robert who?”
“Jones.” She clears her throat when I swing my eyes back up to stop on hers. “He’s our professor this semester.”
Slowly, Fletch pushes off the desk and warily glances my way. “Like…” he looks back at Karla, “Robert Jones… former Organized Crime Squad detective?” He bends his back and stares directly into her eyes. “What subject were you and Adrianna studying?”
“S-social science.” Her eyes turn glassy in an instant. Terrified. “Criminology and criminal justice. We studied a case from ninety-eight earlier this week, where a woman m-murdered her husband.”
“Did she stab him?” Frustrated, Fletch shoves away from the desk, shaking his head. “Was she a battered woman?”
Tears well up in her eyes and threaten to plop onto her shirt. Then when she says the one word none of us really wants to hear, my stomach drops.
“Yes.”
“Are we supposed to call you doctor now?” Belligerence drips from Fletch’s every word, his nose wrinkling with disdain as we’re ushered into Robert Jones’ crappy office hidden in the back of the social sciences wing of the school.
Jones is about ten years older than my thirty-two, with sandy-brown hair, a clean-shaven jaw, wire-frame glasses, and the cliché elbow patches he probably dreamed of the whole time he was on the force.
“You have a PhD now, right?” I come to a stop in front of his aged desk and meet my former… well, nemesis is an odd word. But we sure as shit weren’t friends, either. “PhD means doctor?”
“You could just call me Professor,” he smirks. “Or sir.”
“Or Jones,” Fletch grates out. “I wondered where you’d disappeared to after that Hexmar case a few years back. Kinda thought you died in the line of duty, to be honest.”
Jones chuckles, totally at ease as he sits back in his chair and crosses one leg over the other. “Just because you wish it so, does not make it fact.” He glances my way and looks me up and down. “I might be out of the game now, Detective, but that doesn’t mean I’ve turned deaf. Heard old man Timothy Malone bit it earlier this year.” He tips his chin. “Would you like my condolences?”
“I don’t want anything from you. Least of all, a discussion about my dead father.”
“You said something similar ten years back when I was in the OCS. and found out we had a real-life kid of the mafia right there within the Copeland P.D.”
“I ran my ass through the academy like everyone else,” I snarl. “I passed the evals. I got my shield. I owe you nothing more. What do you know about Adrianna and William Alves?”
His eyes widen, playful and animated. “Hm?”
