Faithless in Death (In Death, #52)(23)



“But you were in her apartment between approximately six-forty-four to nine-forty-six last night. The second cab picked you up right outside her building, dropped you off half a block from your apartment.”

Eve offered a smug smile of her own.

“Paying cash doesn’t mean we can’t track you.”

“I never said I was in her apartment, and you’re implying we had intimate relations. I’m engaged to be married, and I don’t have intimate relations with other women. You can’t claim I was or did, as you don’t have my prints or DNA.”

At the knock on the door, Peabody popped up. “They were set to rush it, but wow.” She went to the door, took the file.

Sitting again, she opened it, grinned, then slid it to Eve.

“We do now. The prints you left on the tube of water match the prints on the wineglass—left side of the bed—the wine bottle, various other areas in the victim’s apartment, and her attached studio. The DNA you left on the bed matches the DNA you left in the water bottle.

“Spit back happens to everybody.”

“That’s illegally obtained.” Fear now, the first traces, ran over Gwen’s face. “That’s illegal.”

“Nope, not even a little bit.”

Eve rolled her eyes, kicked back in her chair when Gwen began to weep. “Oh, knock it off.”

“I don’t want to be here. I don’t have to be here. I came in voluntarily, and I’m leaving!”

“Get out of that chair, and I charge you.”

“With what? I didn’t do anything!”

“We can start with lying to police officers, on the record, during a murder investigation, we can add fleeing a crime scene, and top it all off with murder.”

“I didn’t kill Ariel! I didn’t.”

“Who did?”

“I don’t know! How would I know?”

“You were there, in her apartment. You had a sexual relationship with her, and had one for months.”

“No, no! It was just the one time. I had too much to drink. I’m not even sure what—”

“Did you have too much to drink on May second?” Eve flipped open her file, read dates off the calendar. “Too much to drink on April twenty-eighth, on April twenty-first?” She looked up at Gwen’s shocked face. “I can go on, all the way back to last fall. She kept a calendar.”

“Gwen.” Voice soft, eyes all sympathy, Peabody leaned in. “We’re not going to be able to help you if you keep lying. We’re not judging you for having an affair. Planning a wedding, a marriage, is stressful. You needed an outlet, a friend. But we can’t help you if you don’t tell us the truth.”

Gwen turned to Peabody like salvation. “You don’t understand, you just don’t understand. You’ll ruin my life. I didn’t kill Ariel. What does the rest matter to anyone but me? It’s my private business.”

“Ariel’s dead, Gwen. It all matters. We need to know what happened,” Peabody continued, gentle as a patient mother. “For Ariel.”

“What does it matter to her? She’s dead. It’s my life now. And you’ll destroy it by saying these things. If Merit finds out, if my parents find out, I’ll lose everything. I didn’t kill her, so that should be enough.”

“It’s not,” Eve said flatly. “You gave a false report, you were in the victim’s apartment on the night of her murder. You returned to the scene of the crime, then fled it. Cough up the truth now, or we charge you.”

“You can’t charge me with her murder. I was in my apartment. You know that.”

Letting her disgust show, Eve leaned back. “Here’s what I know. I know the chances of you stalking out of her place after an argument and someone completely unconnected going in and beating her skull in with a hammer about an hour later are zip.”

“But that’s what happened!”

“If it is, you shouldn’t have any problem telling the fucking truth, starting now. Last chance, Gwen, or we charge you and let the lawyers hash it out.”

“You have to respect my privacy.” When she crossed her hands over her heart, her engagement ring shot light. “You have to keep what I tell you private. You have to promise me.”

“I don’t have to promise you squat.”

Both hands flew up—dramatically—to cup her own face. “How can you be so cruel!”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because I just spoke with the widowed mother of the woman currently on a slab in the morgue. I’m done with you. Gwendolyn Huffman, you’re under arrest for—”

“Wait, wait, wait!” Gwen covered her face with her hands. “All right. I was there, yes. I lied because I was afraid, and I was shocked, and I didn’t know what else to do. But she was alive when I left. You know that.”

“You’d been seeing each other romantically, sexually, for several months.”

“It didn’t start out that way. It was what I told you. I admired her work, and we became friends. She—she was so open, and free, so different from anyone I knew. She seduced me. I don’t have much experience, and I’d never been with a woman. I got caught up, I admit it. I convinced myself it wasn’t hurting anyone. It was just a fling, just a kind of interlude before I got married.

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