AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Don’t act dense now.” Fletch strides to the back of the office—the entire room spans only twelve feet one way, and twelve feet the other—then he plasters his back to the wall and glares. “You keep watch on New York crime, even from your shitty perch here in a low-budget school. Means you’re watching Copeland, too. Adrianna Alves is all over the news for killing her husband.”
“Not very professional of you.” Smug, Jones bounces his foot on the opposite knee. “To say she murdered someone without formally pressing charges or presenting proof.” He looks at me and grins. “Good to see you guys have really perfected your jobs since I last checked in.”
“You taught Adrianna Alves in your class,” I say. I’m too controlled to bite at his cheap jab. I’ve had bigger, scarier, more important motherfuckers poke at me my whole life. A dude who wears corduroy to work is nothing to me. “She takes your Monday and Wednesday classes and has done so every week since September last year.”
“Does she?” He’s too relaxed. Too fucking happy. It makes my stomach sizzle. “I can’t say I’ve studied the name and history of every student in my lecture hall, Detective.”
“She didn’t turn up to class on Wednesday this week,” I push on. “Did you notice her absence?”
“My class is often half-empty. Not because I lack in what I do, but because my students are typically impoverished, straddling the line between eating and not, and sometimes, often, find themselves unable to come to class in favor of picking up another shift at their underpaying job. I make my course work available via an online portal, where they can download the notes of my latest lecture and catch up on what they missed out on.”
Well, that’s entirely fucking decent. Asswipe.
“Did you notice Adrianna’s absence on Wednesday?” Fletch grits out. “It’s a simple question.”
“I feel as though, perhaps, you’re accustomed to bullying people for information, Detective. But you forget I was once on your side of the line, too. I don’t have to answer your questions. I don’t have to welcome you into my office.” He flashes a wide, rebellious grin. “I don’t have to talk to you at all.” But then he leers at me and raises his brows in question. “I would love to talk to you, though. I’m no longer on the OCS, and you’re a married man now, right? Happily settled down. Your father is dead. Your ties to New York, severed.” He fingers the hem of his pants and smirks. “I would gladly buy you a cup of coffee if you’d give me an hour of your time to talk shop.”
“You want me to discuss my family?” I fold my arms and exhale noisily through my nose. “You want me to nark on the world I was raised in?”
“Just to assuage my own curiosity. I’m not running cases anymore. I don’t report back to anyone at the P.D. I have no bone to pick. But damn, Malone…” He studies me the way we’ve been known to study a guilty asshole in the box going down for murder in the first. “I’m curious as hell. I’ve been curious for a long time.”
“No fuckin way,” Fletch growls. “He’s not gonna?—”
“Talk to us about Adrianna first.” I step between Fletch’s venomous stare and Jones’ smug expectation. “Talk to us about the woman you knew inside your classroom. The battered woman clearly struggling through life. Why would you run a case study on Brenda Magellan, knowing who you had listening to your lecture?”
“And you’ll get coffee with me?” Jones challenges. “Your word?”
“Fine. Now answer my question. Why run that case, knowing you had a victim of domestic violence sitting right in front of you?”
“How’m I supposed to know the personal life of every student in my class?”
“She walked around with a bruised fuckin face!” Fletch explodes. “She was a young woman. A young mom, often late to class because she needed William at home to care for the kids. And she never hung around after class because again, she had to get home to those girls.” Fletch shoves away from the wall and comes around to stand on my left. “You were always an asshole, Jones. Never had a compassionate bone in your body. But why push that shit on a woman already struggling?”
“Brenda Magellan is an integral topic built within my course. I can’t skip entire sections of the curriculum because I’m afraid of hurting someone’s feelings.” He drags his gaze across to me. “You think Alves took inspiration from Monday’s class and whacked her husband?”
“No one says whacked anymore.”
Stupid.
I straighten my spine and roll my head from one side to the other. My neck cracks, but relief comes as I consider my questions.
“Alright.” Exhaling a long sigh, I set my hands on my hips. “You know the drill, Jones. Maybe you were OCS. and not homicide, but we both know they go hand-in-hand. We have a dead body, stabbed to death in his own recliner chair. No forced entry, no signs of struggle besides a few defensive wounds. Wife admits to being in the house, but claims to have been asleep. Twenty-nine stab wounds to his abdomen, neck, and stomach. Multiple defensive wounds on his hands and arms. Eight-inch blade, standard kitchen knife, no serration. Weapon was left at the scene. Perp tried to wash up in the kitchen sink, though they didn’t do a lot.”
“Adrianna was asleep?” he questions. Once a cop, and all that shit.
“Yes.”
“Whoever did it would’ve been soaked to the bone in your vic’s blood.”
“Yes,” I repeat. “Acknowledged.”
“And you’ve searched for your killer’s clothes?”
“Yes. They’re not in the house. Not in the trash. Uni’s are sweeping a ten-block radius in case the perp tossed them in their escape.”
“DNA left behind at the scene?”
“Forensics are working on it, but the place was a mess, and it’s not like Adrianna’s DNA isn’t gonna be all over the house.”
