Chapter 49
“Let’s go back to yesterday evening,” Marcos says. “You went upstairs to talk to Marie about the video. What happened then?”
“We were going to bring it to you and ask you to reopen the investigation. I know the video doesn’t actually show Roy hurting her…”
“But it’s pretty damning,” Bates says, working his jaw. I know they already watched it.
“What about the wedding dress?” Marcos asks.
I put my hand over my eyes and scrunch them up till I see stars.
“Marie didn’t think the video was enough.
She had this crazy idea to entrap him.” I bring my hand down and take a deep breath.
“You have to understand that Marie adored Deborah. I don’t know if you’ve seen that photo of the two of them in her room?
They were close friends, not just employer and employee.
“Roy was going to come home any minute, and Marie got this crazy idea into her head that if one of us dressed up in Deborah’s wedding dress and veil, then we could scare him into thinking her ghost had come back.
We could make him beg for forgiveness, and we’d record his confession on her phone.
I know. It’s crazy. I didn’t want to do it because I knew it would never work, but she was determined.
She was afraid that you wouldn’t reopen the investigation otherwise. ”
“If we’d known of some of those details at the time—”
“I know, I know. And I told her we had enough now, but she wouldn’t listen. Deborah’s wedding dress was in Roy’s closet. He was always taking it out, lying down with it—”
“Really? You saw him do that?”
“Absolutely,” I lie. “Many times. You can imagine how that made me feel… He must have been racked with guilt, but still. Anyway, she was sure we could pull it off. So she put the dress on and she was about to put on the veil so Roy wouldn’t see her face when he came home.
“He arrived earlier than we realized, and he went nuts. I mean, nuts. He knew immediately this wasn’t Deborah’s ghost. Then we told him that we knew what he had done, that we had the thumb drive and we were taking it to the police.
He lost it. He wanted to know where it was.
He grabbed Marie by the hair and dragged her to the chair—”
“Forgive me, Mrs. Davies,” Bates says. “But why didn’t you call the police?”
“I couldn’t find my phone, so I went to grab the rifle out of the glass cabinet.
I didn’t know where the key was so I had to break it.
Meanwhile, Roy was tying up Marie and going absolutely nuts.
I went back in with the rifle which”—I swallow, blink a few times—“was a terrible mistake. I’d barely walked in and he just grabbed it off me.
He pointed the gun at me. He was screaming that he’d shot Deborah and he was going to do the same to us.
He didn’t care what was going to happen to him. ”
“He said that? That he shot Deborah?”
I nod violently. “I tried to grab the rifle off him, but he’s too strong for me.” I wipe one eye, then the other. “He shot her. Point-blank. Right in her face. He pointed the gun at me, but I ran anyway. I ran out of the door and screamed for help.”
Detective Marcos taps his pen on the file. “Dr. Davies’s version of events is quite different from yours.”
I make a face. “Yes, well, it would be.”
“He says you’re the one who shot the victim, and he tried to wrestle the gun off you.”
I almost say it, Please don’t call her a victim, but I catch myself just in time.
I brush off tears. “She was my friend. We were going to help each other. Together, we were going to avenge my sister.” In a querulous voice, I say, “I did everything I could to save Marie.” I pat my eyes with the tissue. “But it wasn’t enough.”
They write things down, clarify a point or two, then Detective Marcos leaves the room, and Bates tells me he will see me out.
“Do you have somewhere to stay, Mrs. Davies? Because you can’t go back to the house.”
“I’ll figure something out,” I say.
“If you need emergency accommodation—”
“No, I don’t really. I’ll be fine.”
He opens the door for me.
“Will Roy be arrested?” I ask.
“We don’t know yet. We’re still conducting foren—”
“No, no, I don’t mean for killing Marie. I mean, will Roy be arrested for the murder of Deborah?”
He thinks about it. “It’s hard to tell. You’ve seen the video, Mrs. Davies. If that’s all we’ve got…”
“But what about the letter from Veronica? The lack of alibi?”
“Yes, these are all strong points, but they’re still only circumstantial.”
“But what about everything I told you? All the things Marie told me.”
He rubs the back of his head. “I honestly don’t know, Mrs. Davies, but I’ll tell you this much. Without a witness, it’s going to be very, very hard to prove.”