Chapter Four
Maurelle
I sat down in the interrogation room, noting the cleanliness of the table and floor.
It wasn’t like the last few I’d been in where I’d just as soon vomit than sit down.
I placed my bag down on the ground next to my feet, as I waited for them to take a seat.
It had been almost a week since Oliver died, and they were finally getting around to having a chat with me.
I knew by the looks on their faces that they considered me a serious suspect which means they’d been following me without me realizing.
It must have been the quiet one.
The one with the peppering of gray hair just over his ears and freckled throughout his dark brown hair and the stony look to his eye.
He’d seen some shit in his life, I could tell just by the way he regarded me from across the table.
The other younger one who I knew to be called Tommy was too impatient, he hadn’t learned the tools of his trade yet.
I had to be careful with this other one.
“Thank you for coming in, Mrs. Benoit-Clayton,” he said, taking a seat opposite me.
“I never changed my surname, but you can call me Maura.”
He nodded. “Sure, thank you, Maura.”
Looking down at his folder, I could see he had a copy of the records I’d allowed to stay out in the world.
“You don’t seem all that surprised that we called you in here,” Tommy said, rather abruptly. “Or sad that your husband was killed.”
I removed my eyes from the older one and looked over at him. “Everyone grieves in their own way, Detective. It would be rude of me to assume you were a little cocky and trigger happy simply because you are young, wouldn’t it? Do not presume to know my sadness simply by looking at me.”
He was infuriated. I could see his fists clenching as he fought not to throw handcuffs on me right here and now.
“Tommy,” the other one said. “Go and get a coffee.”
There was a silent tussle of power between the two before Tommy relented and left the room. A silent victory but I’d never show it.
“I apologize, Detective, but I fear I’ve missed your name.”
“Detective Garrick,” he replied. “But that’s of no consequence here. Let’s get back to your husband. Tell me how you met.”
“At a gala,” I replied quickly. “He was presenting the fundraiser for one of his charities and I was there as a guest.”
“How did you fall in love?”
“That’s rather a personal question, Detective Garrick,” I replied. “Must we dance around with niceties? You brought me in here for a reason, let’s get to it.”
I thought I caught a slight smile on his face, almost as if he were impressed that I could surprise him. I got the feeling he didn’t smile often.
“All right,” he said, closing the manila folder and moving it out of the way. He leant back in his chair and assessed me for a moment. “Let’s talk about the day of the incident.”
“I was home, upstairs in my parlor,” I lied.
“I’d been having some midday cocktails, so I had already tired of his tirade of telling me about his business transactions for the day.
I was reading a book when I heard a thud.
Thinking he’d simply dropped something, I called out for him to be careful.
He was awfully clumsy, you see. When I didn’t hear a response, or anything after that, curiosity got the best of me and I came downstairs to find him dead. ”
“You didn’t come down because your cocktail was empty?”
“I never said it was empty.”
“No, but the shattered glass had no liquid around it. Meaning, you finished the drink when it was smashed. Could that be the reason you came down the stairs?”
Oh, he was good.
“Perhaps,” I said, being a little more cautious with my answers. “I can’t quite remember.”
“How long from the moment of hearing the thud did you come down the stairs?”
“I would say it was anywhere from the moment it happened to a few minutes.”
He smiled again, just briefly, but enough to have me on edge.
“You see, I don’t quite know how that’s possible, Maura.
You see, the lab analyzed the poison that was in his stomach, and told me how long it would take for it to register in his system before he started to suffocate.
Then comes the sad part, the suffocation lasts for more than a few minutes.
If this was the case, and you aren’t lying about how long it took you to check on your husband after you hear a thud, then you watched your husband choke to death and then called 911. ”
Shit.
He was good.
Better than I’d ever come across in my time as a serial husband killer.
“Are you accusing me of allowing my husband to die?” I asked him, all pretenses off the table now. I needed to know how serious this was.
“I’m simply asking you about the sequence of events that led to your husband’s death.
” “I didn’t come down until my drink was empty,” I told him.
“I’m a ridiculously petty wife, and when I heard the thud, I thought he had broken yet another piece of furniture with his oafishness and it annoyed me.
So I ignored it. And now, I must live with that for the rest of my life knowing that I could have saved his life. ”
He didn’t believe me. Not even with the tears I had managed to force out of my eyes to make my point.
“Do you feel that way about your other husbands’ deaths?” he asked me.
The question had been so out of left field that it shook me for a moment. “I’m sorry?”
“Oliver was your sixth husband, if I’m not mistaken. Not one of them had ended via divorce from what I’ve discovered. All died within a few years of marrying you. Don’t you find that odd?”
It surprised me that he knew about them. They were all under different names, but it wouldn’t take a genius to work out that I had changed my name. I’d never been that secretive about it before, because it had never been an issue.
“They were all accidents and suicides,” I replied. “I’ve never been charged with anything, nor should I. I’m the one who is left behind.”
“No, but you sure do seem to have a stiff upper lip about all of this. I’m accusing you of serial murder and you haven’t cracked, you haven’t raised your voice, you haven’t made hysterical rantings, and you certainly haven’t sobbed for your husband’s death.”
“I am from higher society,” I told him. “We do not show our emotions. It’s unladylike.”
“Is it unladylike to start shopping for the next husband before your last husband’s funeral?”
He had been following me. And I hadn’t seen him.
Damn, he was good.
“Are you following me, Detective?”
“Of course we are, Maur–a.”
My heart hammered in my chest when he hesitated on my name.
Did he know my real name? He couldn’t possibly.
I’d taken great strides to hide that from everyone.
Then again, most of my husbands’ I had married under other names so if he’d pieced that together, then perhaps I hadn’t taken as much care as I thought.
“Are you charging me with anything?” I asked him.
“We’re simply having a chat,” he said. “Are you feeling a little guilty?”
“Before you make false claims, and get yourself in trouble, I’d like you to call my lawyer.”
“An innocent woman doesn’t need a lawyer,” he said.
“I’d be a fool if I didn’t protect myself legally,” I replied, grabbing my lawyer’s business card from my bag and sliding it across the desk. “After all, it is your profession that has imprisoned innocent parties consistently, and has more than your fair share of corrupt officers.”
“Sit tight,” he replied before he took his folder and grabbed the card before he left the room.
Kane
She followed her lawyer to the door after I’d exhausted all of my questions that I could ask.
I stood there, watching a serial killer walk out scot free, unable to find enough to charge her.
If I charged her too fast and without enough evidence, she’d get away with it.
At least we had time until she was going to kill her next victim.
She needed to marry them first, and usually nothing happened for a few years.
“I will stop you,” I told her when her lawyer had cleared the room. “You won’t find another victim. You’re going to end up with a needle in your arm, Maurelle, and the State will take your life.”
She stopped in her tracks when I mentioned her real name and turned to me, smiling. I could smell her perfume from here, a mix of florals and musks, causing me to have a visceral reaction to it, and I had no idea why.
“I invite you to try, Detective,” she said, softly so that no one could hear. “No one’s been able to stop me yet.”
She winked as she caught up to her lawyer and left the precinct.
A challenge.
Well, little lady, I sure did relish challenges.