Echoes in Death (In Death #44)(115)

“Quiet. Daphne Strazza, you have the right to remain silent.”

Eve read out the Revised Miranda, took a breath.

“I’m putting this on record, I’ve read you your rights because this is going to protect you. Do you understand your rights and obligations?”

“Yes, but—”

“Don’t lie. This will be harder for you, and for your family, if you lie. Remember, too, we have Knightly’s recordings. Did Anthony Strazza ever strike you?”

“Please don’t—”

“Did Anthony Strazza ever strike you?”

“Yes, yes, yes.” When she lowered her head, her long dark hair fell around her face like a curtain. “I would do stupid things or say the wrong things or—”

“Don’t be stupid now. Did he threaten you with physical harm?”

“Yes.” Daphne covered her face with a hand. “But—”

“Did he threaten to harm your sister, your parents?”

She dropped her hand as tears fell. “Not at first. Not at first, don’t you understand? He was so kind, so attentive, so romantic. He made me feel so special, he told me I was … I was perfection. Then I’d do something to upset him. He was sorry he struck out at me, he’d be so sorry.”

“Until he did it again.”

“Yes. He said my family wasn’t my family. He was all I needed. And they weren’t mine in any case. Just substitutes, just obligated to house and clothe me. I knew that was wrong, but he’d get so angry. Once, just once, I was so angry, too. Not shocked and afraid, but very angry. I slapped him and I tried to run. I shouted I was going to my family. And he … hurt me. More than he ever had before. He kept hitting me, and he broke my wrist, and he said if I ever tried to leave him he’d kill them. That he knew how so no one would know, and he’d kill them, and it would be my fault.”

“So you didn’t leave him.”

Daphne shook her head. “If I did what he wanted, he hardly ever got angry. If I wore the right dress, said the right thing, he could be very pleased with me. He could be kind, even gentle when he was pleased with me. I tried to make him pleased with me.”

“But sometimes he hurt you anyway.”

“It would be my fault if a man looked at me too long or said something my husband didn’t like. It was an insult to him, and I’d instigated it. I had to be punished, be reminded how to behave properly. If I begged him to stop or tried to crawl away, he’d hit me harder, longer. He would choke me until I passed out, and later I’d wake up.”

“There was a white silk cord and a white silk blindfold in his bedside drawer.”

Daphne’s face flushed; her breath released on choppy hitches. “He’d use the cord to tie me, and the blindfold. He’d rape me, and hurt me. But it wasn’t rape because I belonged to him. He said it wasn’t rape, but I knew it was. I knew, but I stayed. I didn’t know what to do. He was important, and everyone would believe him. He had the droids watch me. He knew everything I did. If I left the house, he knew. I couldn’t leave unless he said I could.”

“How long did this go on?”

“He hit me the first time on our honeymoon. He was very sorry, but I’d insulted him, upset him by flaunting myself on the beach. And men had been ogling me.”

“So the abuse started at the beginning of your marriage and continued. Escalated.”

“Yes. It doesn’t matter now. It’s over now, isn’t it? I just want to forget.”

“You’re not going to.” Eve said it flatly. “On the night you were attacked. You came upstairs with Strazza. Was he pleased with you?”

“No.” She brushed away a tear. “No, he wasn’t. People had stayed too long, and I had failed to be a good hostess. A good hostess knows how to end an evening. He gripped my arm so hard, and I knew he would hurt me, but the devil was in the room.

“Please don’t make me say all that again.”

“Kyle Knightly, disguised as a devil, struck Strazza, assaulted you. Is this correct?”

“I don’t know who it was. But if you say that’s who it was … Yes. Please. I don’t want to think about it.”

“You remember more than you did. You lied to me when I asked you yesterday. If you lie it’s going to eat at you and eat at you. You won’t forget, and you won’t have a prayer of moving on. Knightly restrained you, then your husband. Is this correct?”

“Yes, but he let me go again when my husband was tied up, after he struck him in the face. He let me go, he held a knife—no, it’s not a knife, it’s smaller and silver and sharp—to my husband’s throat and told me he’d slit it unless I took off my clothes. Slow, he said. Take them off slow. I didn’t want to. I wanted to run, but Anthony said: ‘You stupid bitch.’ And I did. I took off my clothes, and I laid back in bed because the devil said to. He tied me again, and he slapped me, hard, hard, and he raped me. The lights were red, and there was smoke. I think.

“He said it was hell. Fire and brimstone, sulfur and smoke. He cut me and he hit me, and he raped me, and he laughed. He left us after he hurt my husband again, after Anthony told him the combinations to the safes.”

“What happened when he was gone? When it was just you and Strazza.”