Whatever Remains (39 page)

             
“Mrs. Latham, let’s just stick to the timeline here, okay? Jade came to the door. Then what?”

             
Looking unsettled at the interruption, Alicia nodded. “I told her I needed help. She came outside, followed me down to the barn.” Emotion threaded through her voice. “I hated bothering her – I know she’s recovering – but I didn’t know what to do. Gracie was…and there was all this blood…”

             
“You reached out for help; it’s understandable,” Trey said. “Did you call 9-1-1?”

             
“No.” The blinking got more earnest. “I should have – I know that – but I was so panicked.”

             
“That’s okay. You didn’t call 9-1-1, but you went for help. I’ve got it right so far?” She nodded. “Jade came to help. What happened then?”

             
“I was…I wasn’t much use. I was so upset…so Jade got some towels and held them over Grace’s arms where she’d…” She swallowed with a big gulping sound. “Where she’d cut herself.”

             
“That was smart thinking; you gotta get the blood stopped.”

             
“She’s a smart girl. A good mom. I just can’t believe…”

             
“Did she stop the bleeding?”

             
“For a bit, yeah. I guess. I dunno. She started…she started yelling at me. It was terrible. Here my baby could be dying, and she’s screaming at me! My friend – we’re good friends – and she’s screaming! I don’t…I can’t understand that.” She touched her arm, wincing for effect. “I don’t know,” she said in a faraway voice, “why she shot me.”

             
“Jesus Christ,” Rice muttered. “Let’s pray she never gets on the stand.”

             
Ben murmured an agreement, attention riveted to her face, to the complex series of mini-frowns and eyebrow twitches she used to punctuate her devastation.
Come on, kid. You gotta nail her down.

             
Trey said, “I’m sure it was traumatic for you.” Alicia’s lips started to tremble as she nodded. “But, you have to look at it from Ms. Donovan’s perspective. It was traumatic for her too, being right there with a woman who’d tried to kill both her own children.”

             
He’d slipped it in so smoothly, with no buildup, that Alicia didn’t have time to check her reaction. She snapped forward in her chair, and in the brief second before she smoothed hurt and shock back across her face, her eyes went livid. She choked on a wordless sound and sank back. “W-why would you say something like that, detective?” She layered on the hurt. “Why, after what I’ve been through, would you even
suggest
it?”

             
His face went blank with surprise. “Um…because it’s true.”

             
She gathered a breath, face flushed.

             
“You do get that that’s why you’re here, right? This isn’t some kinda victim support bullshit. This is a
murder investigation
, Alicia.”

             
“This – this – you can’t say this to me! I lost
my child
!” Her hands curled claw-like around the edge of the table and Ben knew he was seeing what Jade had seen, all by herself, down in the barn. He was furious with himself all over about the fact.  “My children – both of them! – were attacked. My best friend shot me! And you – you – ”

             
Trey magicked a folder from inside his jacket and spread it open on the table in front of him. “Okay, see, there’s some holes in your story. For one, I have Jade Donovan on record saying you two were never close. So you’re definitely not ‘best friends.’ I have a witness who saw you going into the Redding house on the night of Heidi’s murder. And then.” Her face was purpling at an alarming rate, lips pressed into a white line, and when Trey started spreading out photos, she went crimson. “There’s the minor fact that Heidi and Grace aren’t even Heidi and Grace. And that
Helen
has leukemia and a brain tumor.”

             
The photos, Ben could just make out, were of Heidi: holding her cancer sign, scarf on her head; holding a donation jar, hair just a boyish tuft of fuzz. Alicia looked at them, uncomprehending. “Where…how…where did you get these? How…?”

             
“Facebook, actually. Once I started looking into you it was stupid-easy to find this kinda stuff. That’s the thing,” Trey said, leaning forward, pulling her gaze up from the photos. “When you pin shit so perfectly on other people, you don’t cover your own tracks too well, do you?”

             
Ben watched the hate come bubbling up to her surface again; it was a mindless, animal thing, a blind striking-out against whoever happened to be in her way. Her eyes looked dead and black in the dim flickering tubes of the interrogation room. If she’d had a screwdriver, or a hay knife, she’d carve Trey up like he was one of her daughters. She bared her teeth and hissed, a low sound that came through the intercom as static.

             
“What in the
fuck
?” Rice asked.

             
Ben leaned close, until his breath fogged the glass

             
“I
loved
those girls.” Her voice held nothing human. “Nobody even knows how much I loved them.”

             
Something scaled and insidious slid through the room, over the table and down its legs and along the floor under Trey’s chair.
Careful
, Ben thought.
Play it careful
. Trey could feel it, the evil the woman had brought into the room. He leaned low over the table, his voice just audible through the speaker. “What happened with Heidi that night?”

             
Ben didn’t think she’d answer. But she took a breath and whispered, “I have such a hard time making friends.” She moved closer to Trey across the table; her hand twitched and for a moment, Ben thought she meant to touch his face. “I don’t know why,” she said, voice pained. “But it’s always been hard. Heidi – she didn’t mean anything, not really. But she wouldn’t listen. I needed her help and she wouldn’t listen.”

             
A tremor went down Trey’s spine; Ben could see it. “She wouldn’t pretend to be sick anymore,” he said.

             
Alicia shrugged and sat back, crossed her legs and sighed like she was bored. “She wouldn’t help me.”

             
Trey’s voice went supersoft, like he was afraid to know the answer. “Why Jade’s arena? Why leave her there?”

             
Alicia almost smiled, there and gone again. “Jade’s my friend. At least, she
was
. I would have thought she’d at least care about what happened to my girls.” Her eyes lifted across the table. A muscle ticked in her cheek. “But she’s no better than any of the rest of you. The bitch.”

             
Trey swallowed. “Is that what happened to Grace? You wanted to push Jade into reacting?”

             
“Push, detective? Well that sounds rude. I can’t force anyone to do anything. If Jade was my friend – like she told me she was – then she would have helped me. But she’s a bitch. Like I told you.”

             
“Right. Right.” He jotted a note. “But you had to try, didn’t you? Just to make sure?”

             
“
I
didn’t do anything. My Gracie was so upset about what happened to her sister. She’s not that stable, you know. I was afraid something like this might happen.”

             
She was so damnably calm; now that she’d learned the game they were playing, her moves were flawless. Trey didn’t have long left if he hoped to get any kind of confession out of her. “Alicia, we both know Grace wasn’t tall enough to reach that knife. And your prints are all over it.”

             
She shrugged. “Are we done here? I should check on Grace.”

             
“No, ma’am. You’re under arrest, remember?”

             
Her eyes – Ben squirmed against the touch of them – came to the one-way glass, as if she could see them through it. Her lips curved in a small, secretive smile. “Arrest?” she said. “Why, whatever for?”

They showed her into an interview room with glass windows and cushioned chairs, a water cooler in one corner and a little wicker basket of snacks on the table in the center. Jade had a cup of coffee she had no intention of drinking and one of Jeremy’s sweatshirts draped around her shoulders. A detective trying hard to live up to cliché with a spare tire and a bald spot named Hendricks motioned for her to take a seat and then threw himself down in the chair opposite. He wasn’t on the case, she knew, but the precinct was buzzing; tonight seemed to be an all-hands-on-deck situation for the department. She had an idle wonder if Hendricks had been asked to take down her statement, or if he’d elbowed someone for the chance, wanting in on the media frenzy case of the year.

              “You should drink some of that.” He gestured to the coffee as he uncapped his pen. “You might be in shock.”

             
“I’m fine.”

             
He gave her a long, calculating look. Then shrugged. “Okay.” He put pen to paper. “Start from the top.”

             
She did reach for the coffee, at some point, throat going dry as she walked through the scene again. More pressing than the horror of the crime was the sense that she could have intervened in some way. If she’d been friendlier with Alicia…if she’d given the woman the feedback she needed…

             
When Detective Hendricks ushered her back out into the squad room, Jeremy was waiting for her. His arm went around her waist immediately, his frown knowing. He didn’t say anything until they were in the parking lot, staring at a shifting wall of mist, the cool air seeping through her clothes.

             
It didn’t feel real: the moment, the dark night, the questions she’d just answered. There were a hundred things she wanted to say to Jeremy, but all she did was prop her head against his shoulder.

             
“Come on,” he urged. “Let’s go home.”

The rain had picked up again, falling in thick lamppost-gilded sheets on the other side of the conference room windows. Ben shoved his hands in his pockets and let the wall hold him up. Trey was at the long table, head between his hands, looking like he’d gone ten rounds with a heavyweight. Beside him, Riley drummed her fingers mindlessly against her cheek.

             
“Her own children,” she murmured. “I’ve seen that before, but the
way
she did it…Can you imagine being so desperate for a little attention that you’d kill your own daughter?”

             
“Some people get drunk on YouTube; some people murder. The world’s a fucked up nightmare. Go figure,” Rice said with a sigh like he was having a heart attack.

             
“And she doesn’t even care,” Trey said. The kid was having a tough time wrapping his mind around this. “She doesn’t even
feel bad
about it.”

             
“Well, what do we know?” Rice asked. “How’d she go about it? We’ve gotta tell the DA in the morning.”

             
Riley gathered herself with a visible effort, tucking loose strands of hair behind her ears. “From what we can tell, Alicia was ready to pull another stunt with Heidi, only Heidi had had enough. She was old enough to tell her no. Something must have happened that night – something that finally set Alicia off. Maybe they fought. Maybe Heidi bolted. Either way, they ended up on the trail halfway to the Redding place. Grace lied about it all – who can blame her; she’s been brainwashed. But we have her on record about the hissing. That was Alicia.” She paused and wet her lips. “Based on the way she covered her tracks – there wasn’t a shred of evidence in that house – I’d say…I’d say this was premeditated. She covered her tracks, literally. And pinned it on Redding. The screwdriver could have been a weapon of opportunity, or it could have been in her pocket already, just waiting for the right moment.”

             
“Yeah,” Ben agreed, earning a dark look from his captain for taking an active stance. He ignored him. “The neighbor said Heidi had been withdrawn: she and Alicia had been fighting. And after it was done, Alicia far from panicked. She carries the body up to the Redding place – ”

             
“How’d she get in?”

             
“They’ve got a hide-a-key that’s a brass frog by the back door. She lets herself in, washes the body, stashes the screwdriver. Heidi was a small kid, and thin too, and Alicia’s got some muscle on her. She redresses her, and carries her down to the farm.”

             
“Muscle or not, that could have taken a while. And Heidi was dead weight.”