MONDAY MORNING
“Hey, honey. You okay?”
Aria was spread out on a full-sized bed separated from mine by a small, cheap nightstand. She glanced up at me, ears plugged with music, then returned to flipping through an old Vanity Fair magazine the previous tenant had left behind.
She hadn’t spoken to me since yesterday. When I looked at her, I didn’t see the little girl who had decorated her hair with yellow dandelions or who clung to my leg when a stranger said hi. In a single week Aria had grown into an adult, with adult problems. I missed my little girl.
With the sunrise I felt dread rise with it. I was a homemaker without a home, a mother without a child, a wife without a husband. I hadn’t anticipated the perpetual state of panic I’d be stuck in when I slashed my husband’s neck. Little more than twenty-four hours ago it had been a tiny thought that crept in, then it fully formed in my mind. Take his life like he took yours.
When I picked up the knife, I hadn’t anticipated the butterfly effect that would ripple out from there. The years of anger, pain, and injustice had taken the wheel; my body was just along for the ride. Now here I was, gazing out the window at the Extended Stay hotel parking lot below, waiting for everything to come crashing down. Eventually the police would show up, slap on the handcuffs, and haul me off to prison. The fear had kept me awake all night, buzzing in my skull.
We hadn’t been allowed to return to the house yet as it was still being investigated and analyzed as the crime scene, so Aria and I checked into the only long-term hotel in town, since I wasn’t sure when we’d get to go home. Every phone call made me jump, and the patter of feet in the hallway outside our door made my heart skip a beat. It was a waiting game at this point: waiting for Detective Rossi to figure out I was a cold-blooded murderess.
It was shortly after ten o’clock when I recognized the detective’s black sedan pull into the parking lot. The temptation to run was strong, but I held my ground. He wasn’t accompanied by other policemen, so I figured I was safe . . . so far. I imagined when the day came that I was officially under arrest they would arrive with guns drawn and sirens blaring—just like on TV.
“Detective Rossi is here,” I said to Aria.
She closed the magazine and popped her earbuds out. “Then I’m going for a walk. Text me when he leaves.”
“Be safe, honey,” I reminded her ironically. The monster wasn’t out there on the streets; it was living with her.
Aria swept past me out the door, leaving me alone with my anxiety. It was better this way; I had wanted to avoid forcing Aria to endure these “interview” sessions, especially without an attorney representing us. I had barely had a day to figure things out, let alone pack some meager belongings and find a place to sleep, as everything was moving so quickly with the investigation. How did anyone throw together a defense team on such short notice? Milk, bread, and a criminal defense team weren’t exactly part of our family budget. Anyway, if I had immediately lawyered up, that would only make me look guilty, or at least suspicious.
I hurriedly brushed my hair and splashed water on my face to make myself somewhat presentable, but I didn’t have time to hide the dark rings under my eyes or the pimples splotching my temples from stress.
A knock on the door, a detached greeting, a declined offer for a cup of burned coffee. Whoever had stayed here before me had cooked a crisp black residue to the bottom of the carafe, which no amount of scrubbing could clean. After pouring myself a cup—cheap coffee being the only sustenance I’d had in twenty-four hours—Detective Rossi directed me to the cheap round dining room table that accommodated four, if squished knee to knee.
“I’m going to cut to the chase,” he began, setting his briefcase on the table. “The preliminary autopsy report came back. I have some news.”
I swallowed a mixture of anticipation and fear, waiting for him to continue. He passed a folder to me, opened it up, and pointed to the top piece of paper with the heading Autopsy Report.
“According to the medical examiner, your husband didn’t die from the stabbing, Mrs. Fischer. He was already dead from lethal cardiac arrhythmia before his throat was cut.”
I ran my finger down the long line of medical jargon that I didn’t fully understand.
“Wait—what does that mean?” I couldn’t make sense of the words. Something about Owen already being dead . . . that couldn’t be possible.
“Lethal cardiac arrhythmia is a heart attack. Your husband was already dead from a heart attack before the perp cut his throat.”
I looked up at the detective, who chomped on a piece of gum. The man sure loved his spearmint.
“How were they able to determine this?”
He ran his finger under a line of text. “It explains it here, but you may have noticed when you found your husband that there wasn’t much blood coming from his neck.”
“Honestly, I was in such a panic when I found him, I didn’t really notice anything but the big gash.”
“Well, he didn’t bleed out because he was already dead. The ME is determining the approximate time and cause of death, but we think it was poisoning or a drug overdose, based on the preliminary toxicology report. As you can see, this leaves us with a lot of questions.”
“What kinds of questions?” I didn’t want to know, but I needed to be prepared. My hands trembled, so I tucked them under my legs.
“Like who would have poisoned him. And why. And with what. Somehow the postmortem wounds play into all that, which we’re looking into. As you can appreciate, when a man is first poisoned and then coincidentally has his throat slit on the same day, well, it arouses a lot of suspicion.”
“So you think it’s the same person.”
“Most likely. And most likely a female. Poisoning is more common among women than men.” His eyes assessed me like I was a lab specimen, not a grieving widow. “Maybe they poisoned him, then wanted to make sure the job was finished. Or staged the break-in to hide the poisoning. It’s not an uncommon spousal tactic.”
And there it was. Sweat trickled down my armpits. I was suspect number one, not that I had expected it to go any other way. It was always the husband . . . or the wife. At least on those lurid 20/20 murder mysteries Owen and I had watched faithfully every Friday night.
“Are you suggesting I murdered my husband? Because I’ve told you my alibi and it was confirmed.”
“I’m not suggesting anything, Mrs. Fischer. Yes, we confirmed your alibi, but poison could have been administered at any point. Depending on what was used, it could have taken effect at any time. The crime scene investigators should be able to piece everything together once they’re done working the scene and compiling the facts. We’ll be subpoenaing all phone calls and messages, see if anything turns up.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. Owen’s last voicemail. Shit.
“Plus we’re interviewing witnesses and possible suspects, so we’ll get to the bottom of it soon. We’ll find your husband’s killer, I promise.”
I could taste the threat beneath his fake courtesy.
“You have witnesses?” It had been dark out, so early. Who would have seen anything at that hour?
He grinned. I shivered. “You’d be surprised how early some elderly people wake up. And there are lots of elderly people in your neighborhood; they might have seen something useful. You know as well as I do, Mrs. Fischer, that in today’s society there’s always someone watching. Someone who might have seen who took your husband’s car, or if any unfamiliar vehicles were parked on the street. All it takes is one pair of eyes to glance out the window at just the right moment to see what happened.”
“So you do have witnesses then.”
“I’m not at liberty to divulge those details, but let’s just say no one is ruled out yet. However, if you cooperate and continue to be open and honest with me, it’ll make things a lot easier for you.”
He stood up and rapped on the table.
“I do need to warn you, though. We’ll be keeping tabs on both you and your daughter, so don’t leave town.”
“I won’t.”
As he left, I knew it was time to lawyer up, although I had no idea how to go about finding the right one. After an online search, I discovered we wouldn’t qualify for a public defender because we made too much money, yet our savings were meager. How the hell would I find the money to afford decent legal aid? By the time I found a job—I had already started looking weeks ago without telling Owen, but the pickings were slim—and had a paycheck coming in, it’d be too late. And the insurance company wouldn’t pay out until the investigation was completed.
But the bigger question was, who had gotten to Owen first? Lily had access to drugs, but they were prescription drugs. Could those even cause a heart attack? I had no idea, but I suppose too much of anything could do lethal damage. Not to mention, Lily had never approved of Owen, found him controlling and abusive. But enough that she would kill him? It didn’t ring true.
Robin was the only one I could imagine who would want Owen dead. In fact, the whole family had motive. As a doctor, Grant had access to any number of drugs and I bet Robin was angry enough to kill. Or maybe Ryan wanted vengeance after Owen attacked him. As my mind began to arrange all the pieces in various patterns, the door rattled as someone knocked. I nearly jumped out of my skin.
I opened the door and found Detective Rossi. Again. “Everything okay?”
“Mrs. Fischer, I was just heading to my car when I got a call. I’m going to need you to come down to the station with me.”
My heart stopped. I barely got the words out. “What about?”
“We found something that could break the case open. Meet me in the parking lot—and bring your daughter.”
I could feel it in my bones that it was over. Somehow I was going to be incriminated for a crime I didn’t end up committing after all. Irony didn’t begin to cover it.
I texted Aria to meet me out front, then headed outside to meet Detective Rossi. He was waiting at his car for me, coolly leaning against the hood, arms folded across his chest, sunglasses hiding his judgmental eyes. When Aria arrived, she had questions that I couldn’t answer and the detective refused to.
“We’ll discuss it at the station,” he answered simply.
“Can I drive myself?” I asked. Something about sitting in the back of a police cruiser seemed awfully fated.
“It’s probably best that you both ride with me. Don’t worry—I don’t mind bringing you back.” His finality gave me no choice.
He escorted us to the police station in silence. I held Aria’s hand the whole way, and she clutched mine like it was a lifeline. When he asked us to sit down, we weren’t offered coffee or soda this time, which told me it was worse than I thought.
The detective held a picture out as he sat down.
“Know what this is?” he asked.
I did, but I didn’t want to say. It was Aria’s bag of pot. I warned her with a look not to speak.
“No.”
“We found it in Aria’s drawer. Aria, I’m sure you know what this is, right?”
She shifted rigidly, picking at the chipped red paint on her fingernails. “A friend asked me to hold it for him.” Liar. The giveaway was all over her face.
“It’s foxglove, a poisonous herb that when ingested can cause irregular heart function. Even death. Any idea why your friend would ask you to hold on to a poisonous herb?”
“No, sir,” she answered. Still peeling tiny red curls of nail polish. Still lying.
So it wasn’t marijuana. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Had my sweet, innocent girl poisoned her father? And who had given it to her?
“Detective, I’m sure this is a misunderstanding.” I was shocked. I didn’t know what to say, but I needed to say something. “Aria would never hurt her father. It can’t be what it looks like.”
“We’ve put a rush on the toxicology report, Mrs. Fischer,” he growled, then turned to Aria. “And you better have a damn good explanation for why this was in your drawer.”