J. Robb - Immortal in Death

Mavis's big, tired eyes registered puzzlement first, then hurt. "Why are you saying that? You know it's not true."

Eyes flat, Eve leaned forward. "She was making your life hell, threatening the man you love. She hurt you, physically. She was stronger than you. When she saw you come into Leonardo's she went for you again. She knocked you down, you hit your head. Then you were afraid, you grabbed the closest thing at hand. To protect yourself. You hit her with it, to protect yourself. Maybe she kept coming at you, so you hit her again. To protect yourself. Then you lost control, and kept hitting her, and kept hitting her, until you realized she was dead."

Mavis's breath sobbed through her lips. She shook her head, kept shaking it while her body trembled violently. "I didn't. I didn't kill her. She was already dead. For God's sake, Dallas, how can you think I could do that to anybody?"

"Maybe you didn't." Push, Eve ordered herself as her heart bled. Push hard, for the record. "Maybe Leonardo did, and you're protecting him. Did you see him lose control, Mavis? Did he pick up the walking stick and hit her?"

"No, no, no!"

"Or did you get there after he had done it, after he was standing over her body. Panicked. You wanted to help him cover it up, so you got him out; called it in."

"No. It wasn't like that." She lunged up from her chair, cheeks white, eyes wild. "He wasn't even there. I didn't see anyone. He could never do that. Why aren't you listening to me?"

"I am listening to you, Mavis. Sit down. Sit down," Eve repeated more gently. "We're almost done here. Is there anything you wish to add to your statement, or any change you wish to make in its content at this time?"

"No," Mavis murmured and stared blindly over Eve's shoulder.

"This concludes Interview One, Mavis Freestone, Homicide file, Pandora. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve." She noted the date and time, disengaged the recorder, took a leveling breath. "I'm sorry, Mavis. I'm so sorry."

"How could you do that? How could you say those things to me?"

"I have to say those things to you. I have to ask those questions, and you have to answer them." She put a firm hand over Mavis's. "I may have to ask them again, and you'll have to answer them again. Look at me, Mavis." She waited until Mavis shifted her gaze. "I don't know what the sweepers will pull in, what the lab reports will say. But if we don't get real lucky, you're going to need a lawyer."

The color faded from Mavis's face, even her lips, until she resembled a corpse with hurting eyes. "You're going to arrest me?"

"I don't know if it's going to come to that, but I want you to be prepared. Now, I want you to go home with Roarke, and get some sleep. I want you to try hard, real hard, to remember times and places and people. If you remember anything, you're going to record it for me."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to do my job. I'm damn good at my job, Mavis. You remember that, too, and trust me to clear this up."

"Clear this up," Mavis repeated, bitterness in her voice. "Clear me, you mean. I thought it was 'innocent until proven guilty.'"

"That's just one of the bigger lies we live by." Standing, Eve ushered Mavis into the corridor. "I'll do my best to close the case quickly. That's all I can tell you."

"You could tell me you believe me."

"I can tell you that, too." She just couldn't let it get in the way.

There was always paperwork and procedure. Within an hour she had Mavis signed out and under voluntary holding at Roarke's. Officially, Mavis Freestone was listed as a witness. Unofficially, Eve knew, she was the prime suspect. Intending to begin amending that immediately, she walked into her office.

"Okay, what's this shit about Mavis whacking some fancy-faced model?"

"Feeney." Eve could have kissed every rumpled inch of him. He sat at her desk, his ubiquitous bag of sugared nuts in his lap, and a scowl on his wrinkled face. "Word travels."

"It was the first thing I heard when I made my stop at the eatery. One of our top cop's pals gets collared, it makes a buzz."

"She hasn't been collared. She's a witness. For now."

"Media's picked it up already. They don't have Mavis's name yet, but they've got the victim's face splashed all over the screen. The wife dragged me out of the shower to hear about it. Pandora was a BFD."

"Big fucking deal, alive or dead." Weary, Eve eased a hip onto the corner of her desk. "Want a rundown of Mavis's statement?"

"What do you think I'm here for, the ambience?"

She gave it to him in the cop shorthand they both understood, and left him frowning. "Damn, Dallas, it doesn't look good for her. You saw them going at it yourself."

"Alive and in person. Why the hell she got it into her mind to confront Pandora again…" Rising, she paced the room. "It makes it worse. I'm hoping the lab comes back with something, anything. But I can't count on it. What's your caseload like, Feeney?"

"Don't ask." He waved that away. "What do you need?"

"I need a run on her credit account. The first place she remembers going into is ZigZag. If we can place her there, or at one of the other joints at time of death, she's clear."

"I can handle that for you, but… We got somebody hanging around the murder scene, bopping Mavis on the head. Chances are there won't be much of a time lag."

"I know. I've got to cover all the bases. I'm going to track down the people Mavis recognized at the victim's house, get statements. I've got to find a table dancer with a big dick and a tattoo."

"The fun never ends."

She nearly smiled. "I need to find people who can testify she was really ripped. Even with a dose of Sober Up, she couldn't have been clean enough to have taken out Pandora if she'd been drinking her way downtown."

"She claims Pandora was using."

"Something else I have to check out. Then there's the elusive Leonardo. Where the fuck was he? And where is he now?''

Leonardo was sprawled in the middle of Mavis's living room floor, where he had fallen hours before in a drunken stupor brought on by a full bottle of synthetic whiskey and a boatload of self-pity.

He was surfacing groggily and feared he'd lost half of his face sometime during the miserable night. When he lifted a cautious hand to it, he was relieved to find his entire face in the usual place, only numbed from being mashed into Mavis's floor.

He couldn't remember much. It was one of the reasons he rarely drank and never permitted himself to overindulge. He was prone to blackouts and blank spaces whenever he chugged down a few too many.

He thought he remembered staggering into Mavis's apartment building, using the key code she'd given him when they realized they were not just lovers but in love.

But she hadn't been there. He was almost sure of that. He had a vague picture of himself lurching across town, glugging from the bottle he'd bought – stolen? Hell. Blearily he tried to sit up and pry his pasty eyes open. All he knew for certain was that he'd had the damn bottle in his hand and the whiskey in his gut.

He must have passed out. Which disgusted him. How could he expect to make Mavis see reason if he came weaving into her apartment, babbling drunk?

He could only be grateful she hadn't been there.

Now, of course, he had a raging hangover that made him want to curl into a ball and weep for mercy. But she might come back, and he didn't want her to see him in such a mortifying state. He made himself get up, hunted down some painkillers before programming her AutoChef for coffee, strong and black.

Then he noticed the blood.

It was dried, streaking down his arm, onto his hand. There was a gash on his forearm, long, fairly deep, that had crusted over. Blood, he thought again, stomach jittery as he noted that it stained his shirt, his pants.