Death Before Facebook

alone?”
    Marguerite looked alarmed. “Cole said—”
    “That I’d stay with her. Sorry, but today it’s got to be that way.”
    Well, what the hell. This is just Round One. Maybe I’ll ask her the same questions eight or ten times. I’ll come back every day till she cracks.
“We haven’t really talked about the night Leighton was killed.”
    “Omigod!” Skip could practically see the imprint of her hand on Marguerite’s face, so vivid was the impression that she’d been struck.
    “I’m sorry, but we really have to.”
    “What is there to say?” Her voice went up with each word, ending in a high whine on “say,” so that it came out “sayyyyyy.”
    “Just tell me what happened, that’s all.”
    “It was twenty-seven years ago!”
    “Some things you don’t forget.”
    Marguerite squeezed her husband’s hand and gave an audible gulp. She spoke slowly and mechanically. “We were out. At my mother’s house…”
    “Who?”
    “Geoff and I.”
    “Anyone else?”
    “No.”
    “Go on.”
    “We were there and we came home. Leighton was dead. That’s all.”
    “Was anyone else in the house?”
    “No!”
    “Geoff remembered a fight.”
    Before Marguerite could answer, Cole did: “What do you know about Geoff? How could you possibly know that?”
    It was time to get tough with these people. “Mr. Terry, I’m a police officer. It’s my job to know things.”
    “Why should we believe you?”
    “Frankly, I don’t care if you believe me or not. Geoff remembered a fight.” She pronounced each word separately and deliberately. “Geoff was killed because whoever killed Leighton thought Geoff knew his identity. That means he—or she—was in the house at the time—”
    Cole said, “Wait a minute, wait a minute. I resent what you just said. Are you accusing my wife of killing her own son?”
    “I didn’t say that. Since we don’t know who Geoff’s killer was, I’m not assuming anything.” She paused a moment but Cole said nothing more. “He or she was in the house at the time. And Geoff almost certainly wouldn’t have been there without you, Mrs. Terry. That’s really pretty obvious, isn’t it? Am I going to ask you down to the police station to answer the really hard questions?”
    “You can’t talk to me like this.”
    “Don’t you think it’s about time you got real? Your son’s dead, Mrs. Terry.”
    Marguerite gasped. “I didn’t kill him, goddammit! I didn’t kill him!” She was getting hysterical.
    “I’m not accusing you of anything.”
Yet
. “But tell me something. How well did you know Mike Kavanagh before your husband died?”
    “Oh, I see what you’re getting at. Oh, yes, I see. Well, you’re barking up the wrong tree, Ms. Police Officer. I didn’t know Mike Kavanagh at all until he started showing an interest in Geoff. Long after Leighton died. Long after.”
    “It couldn’t have been that long. You married him eight months after.”
    Cole said, “I really think that’s irrelevant.”
    But Marguerite had somehow entered a private world of her own, seemed scarcely aware that either of the others was in the room. “I would have loved to kill Leighton. Do you have any idea how abusive he was? Can you imagine what it’s like to have your hair pulled when you come in—to be pulled around a room by your hair and thrown across a bed? Leighton did things like that because he didn’t want to leave marks. He had a thing about that—leaving marks.
    “It was always, ‘Who’ve you been in bed with, bitch?’ Not hello or good evening. Just that. Or ‘Who’d you fuck tonight?’ And a lot of hair-pulling. Sometimes slaps. But you know what he really loved? He’d hold my arm behind my back and push it up till I screamed. He’d bend my fingers back. Oh so lovingly. He just loved to do that.”
    “I guess you did want to kill him.”
Maybe you even planned it
. “Did you tell Mike any of this?”
    “Are you kidding? Mike thought he was a saint. Why would I tell Mike?”
    “Maybe Mike was in love with you and you wanted him to kill Leighton for you.”
    “You’re crazy, you know that? You’re just a crazy bitch.” She stood and, though she seemed unsteady on her feet, managed to look threatening. “You’re crazy nuts!” Her arms flailed in the air.
    Cole stood and caught Marguerite’s waist with both arms. “I think I’d better get her back to bed.”
    Skip left without a backward glance.
    * * *
     
    When the cop had left, Marguerite