by Sonia Parin
Instead of hurrying home, she drove slowly, her gaze skating across the night sky. She couldn’t remember ever seeing such a clear indigo blue sky filled with millions of twinkling stars, the vastness reducing all her concerns to nothing.
“It’s the small pleasures in life that matter.” If she focused on them, she’d make them her point of attraction and invite more pleasurable moments into her life, she thought and felt herself smile with ease.
After stopping a couple of times to gaze at the stars, she eventually made her way home.
As she pulled into the drive her smile dwindled and then froze.
Her heart gave a loud thump, picking up speed and using her chest as a punching bag.
A man strode toward her with purpose, his stride easy, in a swaggering sort of way, his arms raised, his hands palm up effortlessly directing her to stop.
He came round to the driver’s side and waited for Eve to emerge from her car.
She took her time unbuckling her seat belt, her eyes flitting around as she tried to make sense of the scene in front of her aunt’s house.
A police car had pulled up alongside the drive while an ambulance had been driven all the way up the front path. A police officer stood with his legs apart on the front veranda, his hands behind his back, another came around the side. And then there was the one waiting for her to emerge from her car. At least, she assumed he was a police officer. The others wore uniforms while this man sported a jeans and jacket casual look.
He took a step toward her and she imagined he was about to tap on the window when she pushed the driver’s door open and slid out. Her legs gave a slight wobble so she held onto the door.
“What’s going on?”
“I’m Detective Jack Bradford.” He produced his badge. “Mind telling me who you are?”
“Eve. Eve Lloyd. I’m staying here.” She pointed at the house as if her words had failed to convey the message. “This is my aunt’s house. Mira Lloyd.”
“Do you have any identification?”
“What’s going on?” she asked even as she leaned inside the car to retrieve her handbag. She pulled out her license and handed it over.
The Detective drew out a small flashlight and pointed it at her license and then at her.
Eve flinched. “Would you mind not doing that?”
“This way please.” He gestured toward the house.
Eve took an awkward step forward and then stopped. “What’s going on?”
“That’s what we’re here to find out, Ms. Lloyd.”
He gave another firm gesture pointing toward the house. He stood a head taller than her. Eve noted an easy manner about him, the sort that came with a great deal of confidence. He had a solid build, muscular without being overly bulky. Not that she even thought about it, but if she tried to run, she knew he’d only need to reach out and grab her.
Lifting her chin, she focused on moving her feet. All the lights had been switched on in the house. Beyond the windows she saw people moving about.
Stepping up to the veranda, the officer standing there slid his gaze toward her. Eve felt tremors of uneasiness running along her legs and settle in her stomach.
Not Mira.
No. Nothing had happened to Mira.
It couldn’t have.
She was away somewhere thinking and plotting her story outlines and possibly feeling guilty about not returning her phone call...
Her step must have faltered. She felt a steadying hand curl around her elbow. The detective guided her inside and toward the front living room.
“Would you mind taking a seat?”
“Not until you tell me what’s going on,” she said finding her voice while at the same time sinking into a chair.
Another officer approached and drew the detective aside.
Without thinking, Eve erupted to her feet and rushed out of the living room.
“Hey. Stop,” someone called out.
She reached the kitchen and that’s when she stopped.
Right there, on the light gray slate floor of her aunt’s pristine kitchen she saw a body, arms sprawled out, legs apart in a caricature of a chalk outline.
Her body stiffened.
Eve gasped and clamped her hand over her mouth.
Her gaze jumped from the man to the bright blue frying pan she’d used earlier to cook her eggs. The eggs that now sat sunny side up on the man’s head.
Eve took a stumbling step back and collided with a stone wall. Or rather, a very firm chest.
“Is there something wrong with your hearing? I thought I asked you to stay put.”
She swung around, her eyes charging up to fire Detective Jack Bradford with a blast of her resentment when she noticed the person sitting by the fireplace.
Eve peered around him and saw Jill, her legs curled up beneath her, her hands wringing together. When she lifted her large doe like eyes, her lips trembled. Her face was chalk white.
“Jill.”
“I guess you two know each other,” the detective said.
“What are you doing here, Jill?”
The young girl managed to lift her hand and point toward the kitchen. “I—” She crumbled and buried her face in her hands.
Eve turned to the detective, this time her eyes managed to blast him with a fierce glare.
“What’s going on? Who is that?” As the words spilled out, she turned and forced herself to look at the body again.
The shoes.
Brown suede with a flashy gold crest on them.
She’d recognize them anywhere.
After all, they’d been purchased with her hard earned money.
“Alex,” she said, her tone hard.
“You know the victim?”
“Victim?” Resentment surged through her. Eve swung around to face the detective. Even when dead, Alex could garner sympathy. “Alex isn’t... wasn’t a victim. He was always the perpetrator.”
The detective held her gaze.
“He was my husband.” Her chin shot up in defiance of what she’d been forced to admit. “My ex-husband.”
The detective’s attention shifted away from her. He gestured with a nod. Eve turned around in time to see an officer removing the eggs from Alex’s head and slip them into a plastic bag.
Evidence, she couldn’t help thinking, followed by the reminder that Alex had never liked eggs, any which way, and that had made cooking for him extremely difficult.
She responded to the tug on her arm, her feet moving automatically. Moments later, she found herself sitting in the front living room again, the detective taking a chair opposite her. Within minutes, she watched as the ambulance officers wheeled Alex away.
“Would you like something to drink?”
Eve found the offer odd coming from a stranger. Shouldn’t she be offering to make pots of coffee?
She shook her head. “What happened?”
“We received a call from Jill Saunders. She found the body.”
Jill?
“Would you mind telling us where you were today?”
Us? She looked up as if to confirm there was only one of him. She supposed he meant us, the law enforcers.
So what did that make her?
The suspect?
Eve slid to the edge of the chair. “I did not kill Alex.”
“Okay.”
“I was having dinner in town. With Helena Flanders.”
“Is she a friend?”
“She’s the local travel agent. I wanted to ask her about my aunt’s whereabouts. Mira Lloyd. This is her house.”
“Your aunt is missing?”
“No, I mean... I don’t know.” The sound of a vehicle reversing had her twisting around to look out the window. The ambulance was leaving and taking her ex-husband’s body away.
Alex. Dead.
In Mira’s house.
“So which is it?”
“What?”
“Your aunt. Is she missing or not missing?”
“She’s awa
y. Except that I didn’t know she’d be away. She usually... always tells me when she goes on a trip.”
“And this time she didn’t.”
“She’s an author,” she said as if that explained everything.
“Jill Saunders says she does general house cleaning for your aunt.”
“Yes.” Or at least, that’s what Jill had also said to her.
“She also said she came round to help you clean up after your house was broken into.”
“And that’s when she found Alex?” Eve had only been out for a couple of hours. “When did all this happen?”
He held her gaze long enough for Eve to think he didn’t really care to be at the receiving end of questions.
“We haven’t established that yet. Perhaps you can help us out. What time did you leave the house?”
“I don’t know. I rushed out.” She explained about the phone call she’d received from Helena Flanders. “I guess it must have been before five. Helena’s office was still open and businesses usually close at five. I noticed one of her staff leaving just as I was arriving at the travel agency.” Eve brushed her hands along her thighs; something the detective seemed to take note off. She clasped her hands together. Didn’t nervous people fidget with their hands?
Nervous... guilty people.
“And then you went to dinner.”
“We heard the police sirens. We were about to be served our main course... no wait... we were half way through our main course. An hour later, we parted ways.”
“Did you drive straight here?”
“Yes.”
“It took you half an hour to drive in from town? It’s only a five minute drive.”
“I drove slowly.”
“I there a reason for that?”
“I’m trying to relax.”
He frowned.
“I’m here to relax,” she threw her hands up in the air, “And look what’s happened.”
“You sound inconvenienced.”
“Well, wouldn’t you be if you were trying to relax?”
He stretched a leg out, gave his trouser a tug and sat up again. “About the break-in—”
“What about it?”
“Why didn’t you report it?”
“This is going to sound strange, but I didn’t take it seriously. I’m from the city and—” She raised both shoulders. “It didn’t really seem that important.”
“Someone breaking in, not important? Jill Saunders said you’d chased after an intruder.”
Jill Saunders had been saying a lot of things.
“I heard Richard Parkmore reported a break-in at his place.” She waited for him to say something. For a long moment, he held her gaze as if trying to reestablish some boundaries.
“Where did you hear that?” he eventually asked.
“At the restaurant. Word spreads quickly on the island.”
“Did word reach you about your husband’s death? Is that why you took your time returning to the house?”
“What? He’s not... he wasn’t my husband. Alex and I divorced a year ago.” Her gaze dropped to his chest. She counted the times it rose and fell before he spoke again.
Five easy breaths.
“When you recognized him, you sounded angry.”
“I thought I was rid of him once and for all. And here he was again—” Dead on her aunt’s kitchen floor. “He hated eggs.”
Again, she counted his breaths.
Five.
“You’re a chef.”
“Did Jill Saunders tell you that too?”
He looked at her arms. Specifically, at her forearms. They were strong. Not in a bulky way, but she’d spent years handling heavy pots and pans...
Eve supposed he’d again breathed five times.
“Cast iron frying pans are quiet heavy,” he said.
Eve brushed a hand over her forearm and tugged at the sleeve that only reached her elbow.
“Do I need to call a lawyer?”
Chapter Seven
Eve was under strict instructions to stay on the island and available for further questioning.
She hadn’t bothered to explain that she had nowhere else to go. Her apartment had been sublet for six months. While she’d planned on visiting her aunt for at least a month, she’d had no idea what she would do with the rest of the time she’d allotted for the launch of the new Eve Lloyd.
After everyone left, Eve stood in the middle of the living room wondering what to do with herself. The detective had asked if she wanted to stay somewhere else, or if there was someone she wanted to stay with, but she’d insisted she would be fine.
Crime scene tape prevented her from going into the kitchen. Something she found absurd since the police appeared to have done a thorough job of collecting samples of everything, including the contents of the trashcan.
Making the rounds of the house, she looked out the front window and noticed a squad car parked outside.
Did that mean they didn’t trust her?
Was she under suspicion?
Had she put herself under suspicion by asking if she should get a lawyer?
She sat for a long while in the dark trying to gauge how she felt about spending the night alone in a house where a man had been killed.
The fact she’d mentally referred to Alex as a man suggested she was already trying to distance herself from the incident as a way of coping with the experience.
For a long time, she’d hated Alex but never enough to want to see him dead.
Not really.
People had their faults.
Alex more than his fair share.
As far as Eve was concerned, if she couldn’t accept a person’s faults, then the only solution was to find distance. Wasn’t that what her parents had done with her?
Eventually, she fell asleep curled up on the bed. Sometime during the night, she must have woken up enough to pull a quilt over her.
* * *
Alex. Killed. “Murdered.”
Those had been the first thoughts she’d had when she woke up the next morning and they stayed with her for the remainder of the day, spinning around in her mind.
Stepping out of the shower, she raked her fingers through her hair.
Who would want to murder him?
She dug around the closet looking for something appropriate to wear as if the occasion called for something special.
She was a widow. By default.
Should she wear black?
With an impatient shake of her head, she selected a pair of faded blue jeans, black boots and a cream cable sweater. And since she couldn’t access the kitchen, she grabbed a jacket and set out to find herself some breakfast.
Annoyingly, she wondered if her appetite would work against her. Surely it would indicate a clear conscience. Although.... shouldn’t she be more upset?
As she got in the car, she continued to wonder how her actions would be perceived.
“Oh, stop it.” As if people would expect her to go hungry just because her ex-husband had been murdered.
Who would kill Alex?
Everyone liked him. In fact, despite his embezzlement, she’d actually... sort of... still liked him.
He’d been a charming man. Polite. Friendly. Engaging. A great conversationalist.
Murder just didn’t make sense.
It happened to other people. It was the sort of incident you read about or watched on a long running crime TV series.
She’d bet anything money was behind it all.
That had been Alex’s long-standing fault. Caring more about money and the lifestyle it could provide him.
Driving past the squad car, she slowed. The officer barely glanced her way. As she drove off, she noticed he remained at the house.
It didn’t mean she was off the hook. When she reached the town, she encountered another squad car. It tailed her until she parked her car.
She went into the Chin Wag Café, making a point of sitting by the window within sight of the parked squad ca
r, a part of her wishing to be accommodating and cooperative.
A tap on the café window had her looking up.
Abby Larkin stood there holding a handful of books under her arm.
Eve waved and signaled for her to join her.
“Hi.” She was all smiles but her eyebrows drew down into a slight frown. “I’ve never seen so many police cars. Everyone’s talking about it. They’re saying it has something to do with Richard Parkmore reporting an intruder yesterday.”
“You haven’t heard.”
“What?”
Eve caught her up giving her a brief rundown on everything that had happened since the day before.
“Your ex? Dead? In your aunt’s house?” Abby leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Did you kill him?”
“As if I’d tell you if I had.” She took an impatient sip of her coffee. “It’s such an inconvenience. I can’t even use the kitchen.”
“Eve. How can you say that?”
“Well, if you’d known Alex, you’d understand. I can’t figure out what he was doing on the island. I haven’t seen him in two years. Suddenly, he’s there. Dead. And I’m being interrogated.” An image of Detective Jack Bradford popped into her head and she felt her body flush.
“What just happened? Did you think of something? Your face went all red.”
She sighed. “Have you seen the detective in charge?”
Abby shook her head. “I’ve never even been issued a parking fine. I’m a law abiding citizen.”
“What does that make me?”
Abby gave an easy shrug. “A suspect, of course.”
“Please don’t joke.”
“I wasn’t. I’ve read enough crime thrillers to know you have to be realistic. The finger’s pointing straight at you. You knew the victim. He was killed in your home.”
“Right. So I lure my ex-husband to the island, kill him, and then trot off to have dinner.”
“Perfect alibi and perfect blasé attitude.” Abby sat back. “It’s what I’d do. Play the innocent card. Go on as if nothing had happened.”
“He was killed with a frying pan. My fingerprints will be all over it.”
“You should be more thorough with your washing.”
“I’ll keep that in mind next time I plan to kill someone.” She drank more of her coffee and eyed Abby over rim of the cup. “You must be pleased.”