Page 29 of Red Snow
“Lying to a detective when a person close to you has been murdered is always a bad thing, and it does nothing more than bring more suspicion to you,” I tell her, sounding like a teacher scolding a student. This woman is older than me, she should know better.
“I know. I didn’t mean to,” she says as the tears start rolling down her red cheeks. “I just knew how bad it would look if you found out we’d been sleeping together.”
“I see. How do you think it looks?” I know how it looks, but I want her to hear herself say it, so she can know how fucked she is right now.
She lets out a sigh before speaking up. “It looks like we may have been involved. Like maybe we tried to get rid of her so we could be together.”
“Exactly. So is that what you did?”
“What? Oh my god, no! Of course not! I would never do something like that. I was the one who found her!” she pleads.
“Right, you were the one who found her,” I say, using her words against her. “You were sleeping with her husband behind her back, and you were the one who found her dead. That sentence sounds pretty damning, don’t you think?”
“No, that’s not how it is,” she says, her voice quivering with every word now. “Yes, I was sleeping with her husband, but I would never kill anyone. He was going to leave her for me anyway.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes, that’s what he told me! He said we were going to be together after he divorced her, because she was always going out and sleeping around. He was just building up his nerve, but I know he was going to do it. He loves me.”
“Does he love you enough to kill his wife?”
“That’s ridiculous! He’d never kill her. He doesn’t have a violent bone in his body.”
“Well, I guess we’ll see, won’t we?” I snip. I stand up and look down on the crying red head. “Where were you the night Brenda went out?”
Anita lets out a shameful sigh as her shoulders seem to slump all the way down to her waist. “I was with Patrick. At Brenda’s house.” I can see how saying it out loud makes her feel, and that’s exactly what I want. She should feel like shit for what she’s done.
“You were at her house with her husband while she was being murdered,” I say just to make sure it really sinks in. I think she’s a terrible person, but talking to her has only confirmed what Patrick told us about his whereabouts. “As much as I despise your situation with Brenda and Patrick, we don’t have any more questions for you right now. However, I think you already know you’re going to be on our minds until this case is resolved, so don’t even think about leaving Anchorage. Don’t even dream about it, or I’ll be there when you wake up to lock you away. Got it?”
“I understand, Detective,” she says, nodding her head.
I leave the weeping school counselor sobbing in her office as I walk out of Creekside Park Elementary School, back to the cruiser. I’m not sitting on top of my high horse as the world’s biggest hypocrite, for the record. I’ve cheated on plenty of girlfriends. I’ve been whoring around for a long time now, but the difference is that I’m not married, and I don’t fuck married women. I would never go out of my way to break up a home. That shit is fucked up, so while I may fuck like there’s no tomorrow, I’m not a homewrecker.
I close the door to the cruiser and start the engine so I can turn on the heat. The temperature seems to be dropping more and more every day now as we get deeper into the winter. The sky is dark gray, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we started getting some thick snowfall tonight.
As I warm my hands in the hot air shooting from the heater, my phone starts ringing. Marcus’s name is on the display, so I answer quickly.
“What’s up, partner?” I greet him.
“Hey, where are you?” he asks, sounding rushed.
“I’m in the parking lot of Anita’s school. What’s going on?”
“Get back to HQ ASAP, man. I found Brenda Cox on the video from Koot’s. You need to see this.”
