Fear Nothing (Detective D.D. Warren #7) - Lisa Gardner Page 0,114

Charlie thought, and didn’t realize Shana was sleeping around. Then he’s passing through the shortcut with the lilac bushes, and he overhears Donnie breaking up for Charlie. But what Sam really hears is that Shana had another boyfriend in the first place. And that sends him into a frenzy.”

“Did anyone see him that night?” Alex asked reasonably. “Witnesses that spotted Sam returning home bloody, or maybe the foster mom found blood-soaked clothes?”

“Nada. Whereas, Shana wins on all those accounts. So again, I’m liking Shana for the murder of Donnie Johnson. However—”

“Excellent. I enjoy a good investigative however—”

“I think there’s something we still don’t know about thirty years ago. Hence, my problem, because I can’t know what I don’t know, right? But you raised an important question the other night.”

“Thank you.”

“Why now? What’s the inciting event? Shana’s been locked up thirty years, Harry Day’s been dead forty years. Why all this madness now?”

“And the answer is?”

“I think it’s Charlie Sgarzi. He decided to write this stupid book about his cousin’s murder, apparently to cleanse his own conscience, and as a result, he’s been dredging up old business. And that got someone’s juices flowing.”

“Someone who never even met you but decided to push you down a flight of stairs?”

“I can’t know what I don’t know,” D.D. assured him.

“Interesting alibi. Do you remember anything yet?”

“No.” She rubbed her forehead. “Just Jack’s favorite lullabye, Rockabye, baby, on the treetop . . .” She started humming it; she couldn’t help herself. “I can hear it all the time, playing in the back of my mind. Like a radio song you get stuck in your head. Except I don’t think it came from the radio. I was humming it at the scene, and then . . . a sound. I heard something. Then I must’ve done . . . something? Maybe confronted the killer somehow. But my gun was out, right? I couldn’t have drawn after I started falling. The gun had to come first. Meaning I did see something that night, engaged in some kind of altercation. Rather than run away, however, the killer decided to give me a giant shove off instead.”

Alex smiled at her sympathetically, massaged her feet. “How’s Melvin?”

“Oh, we’re getting more used to each other. At least investigative work is distracting. I know they’d never clear me for duty yet, but I swear, Alex, if I didn’t have this case to occupy my mind . . .”

She was thinking of his earlier point, that faint whiff of blame that while being pushed down the stairs might not have been her fault, her actions since had basically drawn a murderer even closer into their lives.

Alex smiled at her now, blue eyes crinkling with understanding. “You are who you are, you do what you do. And you’re tougher than you think.”

“Isn’t that from Winnie-the-Pooh?” she asked him.

“Hey, I happen to like a tubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff. What do you think Jack and I do with our free afternoons?”

She rolled her eyes. He smiled again, and for a moment, life was good.

“All right, back to the case,” Alex said. “Male or female killer. Have you decided yet?”

She made a face. “Tricky. Odds would still say male. Shana Day aside, not many female killers would engage in this level of postmortem mutilation. Of course, Shana Day is involved, meaning all bets are off.”

“The use of chloroform strikes me as girly,” Alex said. “Not to mention, women arouse less suspicion than men, especially when walking a neighborhood late at night or visiting a cancer-stricken elderly woman. It might be one of the reasons your killer has been operating beneath the radar screen.”

“True. But what motive? I like someone such as foster brother Sam, who was once involved with Shana, had some kind of attachment. Shana doesn’t have, and apparently has never had, any girlfriends. Only female bond in her life is with her sister.”

Alex stared at her. “You mean the one who shares the same homicidal gene pool, not to mention a medical school background that must’ve involved scalpels?”

“Yeah. That one.”

“Have you looked at her?”

“Please, she’s pretty much part of the case team. As tactics go, we’re keeping our friends close and our enemies even closer.”

“Does she have alibis for the nights in question?”

“Nope. Phil asked. Apparently, Dr. Glen spends most of her nights alone.”

“Meaning . . .”

D.D. shrugged, winced again. “It’s possible Adeline’s involved. It would be naive of me to assume otherwise. But . . . I think Adeline’s trying to