Killer Love - Ella Goode Page 0,27
could be brought up during cross-examination and make you look less impartial.” Sanchez is stalling. She’s not literally wringing her hands, but she doesn’t like being here and asking questions of me. But she brings up a valid concern. I hadn’t thought of it and I admit that. “I wasn’t thinking of anything but that my wife was being harassed. Should that be brought up in court, too?”
Sanchez grimaces. “Look, I don’t want to ask—“
“We don’t want to ask,” Lee interjects. He leans forward, placing his hands on his knees. “But we have to.”
“Or we wouldn’t be good detectives,” adds Sanchez.
I pull the car victim out of the cooler. Sanchez and Lee both turn away as the smell escapes the sealed unit.
Lee puts a finger against his nose, but Sanchez braves the smell. “The thing is while a number of the victims were represented by Dering, he’s not a surgeon. Based on statements from his housekeeper, Dering can’t wield a butter knife, let alone one of these.” She holds up a scalpel.
“I’m very good with the scalpel.” In another life, maybe I would’ve been a surgeon, but I chose this route instead. It’s the best of both worlds. I get to avoid the pesky practice of dealing with live humans and I can wield my blade.
“Yeah, you are.” Lee’s head jerks up. “Wait, are you confessing?”
“To being good with the knife?” I reach over and pluck the scalpel out of Sanchez’s hands and drop it onto a tray of used instruments ready for sterilization. “It would be foolish for me to lie about that. You’ve watched me work.”
“Yeah.” The two detectives engage in an unspoken battle as to who will ask me the most uncomfortable question. Lee loses.
He sighs and steeples his fingers together. “The other night after the acquittal of Mr. Washington, you weren’t home. Where were you?”
I unzip the body bag, trying to act as natural as possible. They hadn’t asked this question, not specifically, of Angel. Maybe they wanted to but knew she’d refuse to discuss me without being present so they didn’t know what story I’d told her—that I’d been out of town to do an autopsy on another body.
It wasn’t technically a lie. I had been working on another body, just not out of town.
“Am I to account for every night or just the one of Mr. Washington’s death?”
“Every night that a victim died would be great,” Sanchez says. I don’t know if she’s serious or sarcastic.
“I’ll look at the calendar and get back to you.” It looks like I’ll have to pay a visit to Chad earlier than I thought. My calendar is not something that I care to share with the two detectives.
“Great. When should we expect it?”
“Tomorrow.” They both look surprised. “It’s on the computer. It won’t be hard to print it out.”
“Right. Sounds great.” Sanchez gets to her feet with enough carelessness that the chair knocks against the desk and the monitor flickers on. She taps her fingers on the wooden top. “Care to print it out now?”
There’s a hint of challenge in her voice, as if she thinks I won’t. I abandon the body and walk to the computer. She watches as I type in my password, which I’ll change when they leave. Lee crowds me from the other side.
“Usually I like to be taken out to dinner before I’m fucked,” I say as I print out my calendar for the last month.
“I’ll bring you a sandwich for lunch.” Sanchez snatches the paper from the printer. “Thanks for this. We’ll get you cleared from our suspect list as soon as possible, Doc.”
“I’ll be on tenterhooks until you do.” I rise and lean against my desk, looking as unconcerned as possible.
The moment the door shuts, I text Angel. Lee and Sanchez have asked me for an alibi for Washington’s death. I printed out my calendar.
Her: Who cares how he died? He was awful. He killed his wife. I can’t believe he got off!
My fingers hover over the screen. Sometimes I think Angel is as bloodthirsty as me. There is a feralness to her, particularly in bed. She wants me to be brutal with her, to face fuck her until her tears come or to jack into her tight pussy until she’s screaming. Enjoying a little spice in the bedroom isn’t the same as sanctioning murder. Academically, she probably does like the idea of justice coming to Washington’s door. On the other hand, she doesn’t want her husband to be dirtying his