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“No, I guess not.” She gave a small laugh. “I sound crazy, don’t I?”
I didn’t answer because she didn’t sound crazy, she soundedguilty. As if she’d expected the police to find someone with Grace. Someone like the man who’d been immobilized by a taser for a few crucial minutes. Mendel had already said he wasn’t certain whether the voice he’d heard had been male or female, which meant it could have been Alice.
In the station, I escorted her to the room Darrel Weich had recently vacated. Since he’d been under police supervision at the time of the stabbing, we knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he wasn’t responsible. I locked her inside, found Patton, and asked him to join me. We sat opposite Alice at the table, and Patton ran through the routine preliminaries. By the time he’d finished, Alice was whiter than a ghost.
“Why all the pomp and circumstance?” she asked.
“It’s protocol.” Patton’s tone was flat. I’d briefly explained my concerns to him on the way to the room.
“When did you first see Grace this morning?” Patton asked.
“When Kennedy dropped her off.” She sat on her hands, and in this position, I was reminded of how small she was. Not the five-foot-eight to six-foot height of the person previously recorded withdrawing money from the ATM with Grace’s card. But then, she liked to wear heels, and a platform wedge or a pair of pumps might put her into the right ballpark.
“What time did you leave to get coffee?” Patton asked.
“A bit before nine, I think.” She chewed on her lip, and her lack of makeup and out-of-character fashion choices nagged at me again. She wouldn’t let herself be seen like this unless she thought she had to. After she’d been sick, she’d still gone to the effort of applying mascara and lip gloss. Perhaps she’d prioritized getting the coffee to make her story seem authentic over redoing her makeup after she’d showered off Grace’s blood.
I chewed the inside of my lip. Why would she want to hurt Grace? Grace was her boss. Her friend.
Patton tapped his pen to his notebook. “What type of coffee?”
Alice frowned. “Why does it matter?”
He gave her a look.
She rolled her eyes. “A vanilla latte for Grace and a mocha for me.”
“Any chance you still have that coffee and are willing to share with a sleep-deprived police officer?” he asked.
She snorted. “Ask your boss. It’s in his car.”
I hid a grin, clearly able to see that Patton’s tactic to relax her had worked.
An instant later, his expression grew serious. “Why the pants? Aren’t you usually a dress or skirt kind of girl?”
“It’s cold today.”
“Are you sure it’s not because you’re hiding a dog bite?”
She rocketed to her feet, stumbling slightly, as if her leg was sore.
Bingo.
“Of course not!” she exclaimed, her voice too high-pitched to be believable.
Patton stood. “You won’t mind if we check, then.”
She stepped backward. “Don’t you dare.” She placed her hand on her hip. “I don’t consent, which means that’s assault.”
Patton held up his hands in a gesture of peace. “Then I won’t touch you now, but we will get a warrant.”
Her eyes narrowed, and in my mind, her next words confirmed her guilt. “I want my lawyer.”
“But—” Patton began to interject.
“Lawyer,” she snapped. “Or I’m not saying another word.”
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