Ashes to Dust (Las Vegas Mystery)

and sat upright in her chair. She folded her hands together in her lap and stared down at them.
    Calmly, she said, “I was afraid this would happen. In a way, I’m relieved it has come out, because now the waiting is over.” She turned her head to her daughter. “Crystal, I think it’s time to tell the truth.”
    Crystal’s eyes welled up with tears. Crossing her arms, she lowered her head and gazed at the floor.
    Kathy raised her head and fixed her eyes on Alice. She took a deep breath and let it out. She said, “I killed Laura Roberts.”
    Alice’s eyes popped wide open. Snow’s eyebrows shot up.
    “How could that be?” Snow protested. “You were in Omaha.”
    Kathy shook her head. “I wasn’t in Omaha. I was here in Las Vegas.”
    Snow waited, still overwhelmed by her statement, his heart racing.
    “I flew down here to visit Crystal on the fourteenth. I was expecting to arrive in the evening, but they put me on an earlier flight. I knew Crystal would still be at work, so I didn’t want to bother her there. I decided to surprise her. Instead, I surprised someone else.”
    She settled back in her chair, swallowed hard, and continued. “I got a taxi from the airport and arrived at her home shortly after two in the afternoon. I have my own key to Crystal’s front door for situations like this, where I need to get in when she isn’t there.
    “So, I let myself in. Quietly, because I knew Laura worked the swing shift and I didn’t want to wake her, should she be sleeping.
    “I went into the living room and set my bags down. And heard strange noises coming from down the hallway. I had never heard anything like it. It sounded like a woman being tortured.
    “I decided to investigate, and so I walked quietly down the hallway to Laura’s room, since it was becoming apparent to me the noises were coming from there.
    “The door to her bedroom was wide open. And I stood in the doorway staring in horror at the two of them.”
    “Who?” Snow asked.
    Kathy looked at Snow. “Laura Roberts and Andrew Tully, my daughter’s fiancé. They were in Laura’s bed, completely without clothes, doing things to each other that I have never seen before. I was both horrified and disgusted at the same time. And I screamed at them.”
    She stopped. Alice and Snow waited.
    Kathy lowered her gaze to her hands in her lap. “Well, they stopped what they’d been doing and stared back at me with the same amount of horror I was feeling, I’m sure. They jumped out of bed and began putting on clothes, both of them cursing.
    “Andrew didn’t even have his shoes on. He went running out of there, barefoot, without even a hello or good-bye. Like I was a ghost or something.”
    She raised her gaze to Alice. “Once Andrew was out of there, I confronted Laura about the situation in her bedroom. I asked her how she could do such a thing with her best friend’s fiancé, of all people.
    “We argued. Heatedly. Began yelling at each other. I was so mad I just wanted to grab her by the hair and beat her senseless head against the wall.” Kathy clenched her teeth together so tightly her jaw muscles popped out. She stared fire at Alice. “The things that woman said to me, I couldn’t believe. The names she called me. Vile, horrible things. And the look on her face as she said them. All I wanted to do at that moment was kill her.”
    “How did it happen?” Alice said.
    Kathy nodded. “Somehow I calmed myself down. At least I thought I had. I walked out of her bedroom and went into the living room. Laura slammed her bedroom door so loud the whole house shook. Then I saw the bat leaning against the corner near the front door. I wasn’t even thinking about what I was doing. I just walked over to it and picked it up.” She paused, her eyes filling with tears.
    “Take your time,” Alice said.
    Kathy nodded. Her eyes focused on the front of Alice’s desk, she continued. “I walked back over to the end of the hallway and stood behind the wall near the corner of it. And I called to her, in a friendly voice, and told her I wanted to talk to her for a moment. She yelled back for me to leave, and I told her I would, but I wanted to apologize before I left.”
    “Apologize for what?” Alice said.
    Kathy shrugged. “For invading her privacy. That’s what I told her, and it worked. She came out of her room, down the hallway. And when I saw her head emerge past the corner and into the living room—I swung that bat with every ounce of