Cause of Death by Laura Dembowski (ereader iphone .TXT) 📗

“Are you investigating Dave, too, or just me?” I ask, genuinely curious.

“I can’t tell you whether or not your husband is a person of interest.”

“What about me?”

“We got the DNA results back.”

I sit up a little straighter, ready to jump up and scream “I told you so” when she finishes talking. I already know what she’s going to say. It was Dave’s DNA. Maybe that boyfriend’s. Or DNA not yet in the system, and we will have to fight every day to find Lana’s killer.

“Your DNA was under Lana’s nails, and there was a lot of it,” Detective Hutchinson says. “And it didn’t end up there through happenstance,” she adds.

Oh.

“How do you know that?” I ask coyly.

“Training at the academy and years on the job.”

“What are you waiting for? Just get it over with,” I say, dramatically holding my hands out, wrists together, practically begging her to cuff them.

“It doesn’t work like that. I do things by the book.”

“As opposed to your partner,” I say, before I can stop myself.

“What is that supposed to mean?” she asks.

“He killed his girlfriend or his fiancée, whoever she was.”

“He didn’t. And just like I’m going to find the truth in your daughter’s case, I’m going to find it in his, too.”

“If he just would have stayed away from my sister,” I say, nicely recovered from the bombshell that my husband had been prepared to divorce me, and possibly still has the papers squirreled away somewhere in our house.

The detective stares at me. No, she glares at me with the fire of a hundred suns. She wants me to spontaneously combust, but I will do no such thing.

“He’s right, isn’t he? You had his fiancée killed just to get him out of your way.”

I stand up, ready to leave, mentally having checked out of this conversation.

She walks over to me and blocks me from moving anywhere unless I push her, something I have far too much decorum to do.

“My, my, Detective,” I say as calmly as I can, “you are making awfully big accusations there, aren’t you?”

“You thought he was your main adversary, didn’t you?” she says.

She’s in my face; I swear I even felt some of her spit spritz my cheek.

“Boy, were you ever wrong. He’s nothing compared to me. Nothing. You have no idea how hard I’m going to fight for the truth.”

I don’t say a word. We just stare at each other, in a stalemate.

I’m just about ready to shove her gently out of my way when she starts talking again.

“Margaret Moore, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”

Well, I didn’t see that coming.

She pulls cuffs from her pocket and grabs my arms one at a time to cuff them together. I can’t move.

I underestimated girl cop here, but there’s one thing I wasn’t wrong about: Dave.

What a sneaky, lying jerk, thinking he could ever leave me.

He and I need to have a chat. I don’t think it’s going to end very well for either of us.

But first I have to get out on bail.

Chapter 17

Margaret

Jail really wasn’t fun. It was dirty and cold. The people smelled and seemed rather dangerous.

Beth contacted her friend Stanley Harmon for me, the best, most expensive defense attorney in the state. For all I know she traded Ryan for Stanley; if she did, he’s not giving me enough of a discount. He’s emptying my 401(k)—well, our 401(k)—but he did manage to get a hearing for me after only one night in jail. It was the longest night of my life, but now it’s over, so I’m trying not to think about it.

He also got me out on bail. I do have the poor-innocent-victim, mother thing going for me, but still, some people believe I killed my daughter, and there is a fair amount of evidence against me, which Dave must have planted. In any case, after another sizable withdrawal from my 401(k), I am out, and I have a mission.

Dave’s still at work when I get home. That’s where he should be, so I’m not really surprised, although nothing seems to be going as it should be lately, so perhaps I should be surprised. I pour myself a large glass of wine and sit on the sofa, staring at a blank TV screen. It’s as black as my soul.

I’m ready for Dave when he walks in the door. He’s been in a bit of a better mood lately, so he’s chipper the moment he greets me. I don’t know what has lifted the weight of the world from his shoulders, but something has. Maybe he got some good antidepressants from his doctor. Or maybe he got something better from a drug dealer he passed on the way to work. Maybe he’s just happy I’ve been charged with Lana’s murder instead of him. Oh, yes, I’ve been officially charged.

I don’t like Chipper Dave. It makes me think he knows something I don’t, and I like to know what he knows. We run best when we have an equal, open, and honest relationship. Chipper Dave doesn’t agree with that. Chipper Dave wants to shake up the status quo in all the ways I don’t, and none of the ways I do. He wants to be happy and spend the rest of his life remembering Lana and living in her honor. I also want to be happy, who doesn’t, but I want to try to move on from Lana and her actions. I want to move—literally—start over, which I can’t do at the moment, since Detective Bitchy told me I had to stay in town. Plus, Dave doesn’t want any of that. We’re at odds.

I suppose none of it really matters, since everything’s about to change.

“How was your day?” Dave asks cheerfully, as though he’s actually interested.

I find that hard to believe. Does he think I actually had a good day? What does he think I did? Teleported to a vacation in