Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Jamie

I left the interviews with William and Carlotta with more questions than answers, but I was at least starting to put together a theory. I walked along the hallway back toward the incident room with Officer Stanford. Officer Dumont was in there waiting for us.

“Okay,” I said, taking a seat in the incident room. “Officer Dumont, can you complete the paperwork and arrange for William and Carlotta to be released? Be civil, thank them for their help, and so on, but make it clear to them that they may be called back in for further questioning at any time. Make it clear they are to be available if or when that happens.”

He nodded and got up and left the room. I looked at Officer Stanford for a moment and decided to run my theory by her and get her take on it.

“So, I’m thinking that Candy and William were involved in some sort of affair at some point. I think William most likely ended it and that’s why he wanted the restraining order. It seems Candy didn’t take too kindly to being tossed aside. William is being evasive about knowing Candy, and Carlotta’s reaction to the girl’s name being spoken was odd. She acts like she hates the girl, calling her a bitch. It sounds to me like Carlotta found out about the affair, which is why William called it off in the first place. What do you think?”

“I think it’s likely.” Officer Stanford nodded. “Carlotta sure has some sort of grudge against Candy. And William was very careful not to admit to any sort of fling, but he was also very careful in his word choices, making sure he cast doubt on the idea of his knowing Candy well but not outright denying it. Is it at least possible that Carlotta was more involved than being the scorned wife, though?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, the part about the restraining order could be to throw us off the scent of what really happened between the three of them. Could it at least be possible that Carlotta and William invited Candy into their marriage to spice things up a little?”

“Like a threesome?” I said.

Officer Stanford nodded and went on.

“Yes. Exactly like that. It would explain Candy’s presence in the couple’s bedroom. Maybe the whole thing was a sex game gone wrong and neither of the suspects dares to admit it. There’s definitely something they’re not telling us. I mean, I expected them to be nervous in this situation, but they’re both so guarded and more nervous than I would have perhaps expected them to be,” she said.

I thought about it for a moment, but then I shook my head.

“I agree that both William and Carlotta are hiding something, but I don’t think it’s that. Whether Candy really was stalking William and broke into the house or whether she was lured there by one of the couple, I don’t think Carlotta was involved in any sort of sex games with them. The way she spoke about Candy, her tone and the fact she called her a bitch to me and a slut in her first interview, says that she really couldn’t stand the girl. ”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. I just can’t shake the feeling that there’s a whole lot more to this story that we’re missing,” Officer Stanford replied.

“It could be something as simple as pride that’s stopping Carlotta from talking about her husband’s affair,” I said. “I mean, it’s got to hurt to tell strangers that your husband was cheating on you, right?”

Officer Stanford nodded, her face thoughtful.

“It might be worth sending a few officers around the neighborhood. I know the house is kind of remote, but someone might still have seen something. It might give us a clue as to whether Candy was an invited guest lured in or whether she was breaking in. Because I think it could make a big difference to the case. If she was lured in, that makes it premeditated. If she was an intruder, it’s more complicated than that.”

My cellphone rang in my pocket. I pulled it out and glanced at the screen.

“Hold that thought. It’s the CSI team. Maybe they’ll have some answers for us,” I said.

I stood up and began pacing, something I often found myself doing while I was on a call. I answered the call.

“Detective Del Rey. ”

“Hello. This is Officer Garrison. I’ll be putting together an official report later on today, but for now, I thought you might like to know that the broken window in the basement was likely done by the victim. It was kicked in, and there was a swatch of material on the glass that matches the dress the victim was wearing at the time of her death.”

“Thank you,” I said.

I ended the call and turned back to Officer Stanford. I told her what the crime scene officer had told me.

“It sounds like she was definitely a jilted lover hell-bent on revenge and that she broke into the house rather than being lured into it,” I added when I finished telling her about the swatch of fabric.

“Yeah, it does. And now we have to work out whether Candy was pushed out the window in anger by one of the couple or if it was self-defense. We know there was a knife wound on Candy’s hand, but we don’t know for sure who brought the knife to the scene.”

I nodded. She was right, but first, I would settle for finding out for sure which of the couple actually killed Candy. It wasn’t going to be easy to find out. If neither of them remembered what happened, we might never get to the bottom of this mess.

“I’m going to start working on my preliminary report,” I told Officer Stanford. “Can you start pulling phone records for William? I want to know how much contact he really had with the victim and see if we’re on the right line with the jilted lover thing. Pull Carlotta’s records too. It won’t hurt to see if she’s had any contact with the victim that she’s failed to mention.”

Officer Stanford nodded and turned in her chair to face her computer. I stood up and moved to the back of the room to my desk. I began to type up a report, being sure to only include facts that we knew for sure, even though I was beginning to build up a much more detailed picture in my head.

I could see Candy sitting at home, getting more and more pissed off that William had discarded her like a used toy. I could imagine her angry with him for doing that to her, angry with Carlotta for demanding that William end the affair. I could imagine her plotting her revenge, deciding to go to the house and confront the couple once and for all. Maybe taking a knife with her for reassurance, or maybe planning on taking her revenge to the next level if she wasn’t satisfied with the outcome. Had William promised her more than he had been willing to give, or was Carlotta right and she had been delusional, believing the fling to be more than it was?

I imagined her moving through the darkened house and into the couple’s bedroom, maybe throwing on a light, dazzling the couple. Did she lunge for one of them and end up going through the window as either William or Carlotta defended themselves?

That was the bit I had trouble picturing. Whether Candy attacked first or whether she truly was the victim in this. And more frustrating than that, I couldn’t picture her attacker as more than a black shadow. I couldn’t decide whether I was leaning more toward Carlotta having killed the girl or William having done it. My gut told me Carlotta had more of a motive. She was the scorned woman, but she was also slightly more forthcoming with information than William, which made me very suspicious of him.

And the alcohol-induced amnesia was a sticking point for me. There was no way to prove it wasn’t true, not after the toxicology report on the couple confirmed their alcohol levels were high enough for it to be a possibility, but it felt too convenient to me that neither of them could remember anything about an event so traumatic it should have at least partially sobered them up.

The alcohol-induced amnesia complicated things whether it was true or not. It effectively meant there were no witnesses to the crime, because even if their memories came back, which sometimes they did after a time, could they be trusted? The memories would likely be fragmented, and I knew that everything that had happened since could potentially taint the memories, producing false memories that wouldn’t feel like lies but still might not be an accurate description of what had really happened.

And even then, even if the memories came back fully, no jury would view either of them as reliable witnesses. They were both admittedly intoxicated at the time of the crime, and they both had a lot to lose from this.

None of that changed the fact that one of them had killed Candy Xavier, though, and I intended to do everything in my power to find out what had really happened to her in that house and get justice for her. I just didn’t know how to get to the bottom of it all. At least not yet. But I would. I would get to the bottom of it all if it killed me .

I shook my head, trying to shake away the swirling thoughts in my head. I wasn’t getting any further by dwelling on them. It was just the same old information going around and around in there and giving me nothing new to work with.

I forced myself to focus on my report, and I soon had it completed. There were a lot of gaps, but I had recorded everything we knew about the case so far, which in black and white, didn’t look like a lot.

I hit Print and shrugged my shoulders. It was still only day one, and not many of my cases got solved that quickly. Cases that were cut and dry enough to be solved on day one didn’t usually reach my desk. They were solved by the officers who got called to the scene.

I looked up as I waited for my report to print, surprised to see Officer Stanford writing on the whiteboard on the wall. I really must have been focused on the report because I hadn’t even heard her moving around, let alone heard her on the phone obtaining access to William and Carlotta’s phone records.

Officer Stanford must have felt my eyes on her because she turned around and smiled at me.

“All done?” she asked .

I nodded my head.

“All done,” I confirmed. “Any luck with the phone company?”

“No,” she replied. “They’re both with the same company, which is a bonus, but as I suspected, the company is refusing to release the records without a court order. I’ve filled in the paperwork and emailed it to Judge Green. I’m just waiting for him to respond, and then I’ll go and collect the court order and get back in touch with them. I just thought I might as well update the board while I was waiting.”

“Good thinking,” I said. “Let me know the moment we have those records.”

I stood up as my report finished printing. I walked over to the printer and retrieved the pages which were still warm from the machine.

“I’m going to take these to the chief,” I said.

I left the incident room and made my way to the chief’s office. I knocked, but there was no answer. I tried the door and found it unlocked, so I slipped inside and left the report on the chief’s desk. I knew he would spot it and call me if he needed anything clarified, although there was so little to be reported at this point that I was sure I wouldn’t hear from him yet. There was really nothing for him to question except my lack of ability to get to the bottom of this, and that call wouldn’t come for another couple of days yet, and by the time it did, I would have something more for him. I hoped.

I left the office and began to make my way back to the incident room. I stopped off for a coffee on the way. I sat in the kitchen sipping the coffee and thinking. I was pulled from my thoughts when my cellphone rang again. I felt a knot of dread in my stomach. The chief must have found something in my report to question.

I took the call, relieved to see it wasn’t the chief calling me at all. It was the coroner’s office.

“Detective Del Rey,” I said.

“Hi, Detective. It’s Sharon Lloyd, secretary to Dr. Karloff, here.”

“I know who you are, Sharon,” I said, unable to keep the smile out of my voice.

Dr. Karloff had been the main coroner for the state for as long as I could remember, and I spoke to Sharon regularly.

“Sorry.” She laughed. “Force of habit. Dr. Karloff wanted me to call you to let you know the autopsy of Candy Xavier is scheduled for six o’clock tomorrow evening. He thought you might like to be present. ”

“I would. Thanks for letting me know, Sharon. Have a good day,” I said, and then I ended the call.

I wasn’t sure what the autopsy could tell me that I didn’t already know, but I knew it was part of my duty to be there either way. And besides, it would be good to catch up with Dr. Karloff. A lot of the detectives found him to be insufferable. He was loud, boisterous, and somewhat eccentric, but I liked the man. He was a good guy, and we were friendly enough that we caught up outside of work for a drink or two now and again. He was reliable, and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to see if he had any insights he could let me in on, things that wouldn’t make it to the record but could help in some way.

I knew I was clutching at straws, but sometimes, in a case like this one, straws were all you had.