Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.
― George Eliot
Mrs. Sanchez appeared at Cici’s elbow, her eyes wide. “Did this young man say a break-in?” Her voice trembled. “In this neighborhood?”
She began a rush of Spanish, none of which Cici would translate to Gordon or Devon, who strode forward and stood beside Cici.
“It’s a body,” Devon muttered out of the corner of his mouth.
Cici gasped. “That’s horrible.” She shook her head. “Someone died in the house?”
Agent Gordon scratched the side of his head. “Looks that way…” He fluttered his hand. “On the property, at least. It was in the backyard. In the ditch.”
The guy definitely wasn’t from the area. While the acequia was technically an irrigation ditch, no local would call it such. The colloquialism mattered, probably because it was a small part of heritage many people in the area needed to clasp tight, especially since the gentrification of the neighborhood.
Wealthy patrons had flocked to Santa Fe for decades, but the housing market’s boom in the eighties had pushed many of the generations-old property owners out of their homes. The tension between native Santa Feans and more recent transplants tended to stem, in part, from the old-timers missing the generational home they’d been forced to part with.
Again, Cici cringed. “How horrible.”
Mrs. Sanchez crossed herself and offered up a soft prayer for the person’s soul. Cici concurred.
“What can I do to help, Agent Gordon?”
Gordon slid his hands into his pockets and smiled. Unfortunately, his thin lips disappeared, and his face took on a reptilian quality. That chill returned to settle at the base of Cici’s spine. She didn’t need an elder’s shamanesque qualities to know she wasn’t going to like Gordon’s next prognosis.
“Why don’t you start by telling me where you were five to seven hours ago?”
Cici’s mouth dropped open at the implication.
“Are you seriously asking for my reverend’s whereabouts at the time of the victim’s death?” Devon asked. He straightened to his full height, looking with baleful pity on the shorter Gordon.
Cici swallowed, stunned, and Mrs. Sanchez sputtered before puffing out her substantial chest and settling her hands on her hips.
“That’s my reverend you’re speaking to, Agent,” she practically hissed. “She’s a good, honest, God-fearing woman. Not a criminal like the raton who trespassed and killed a person.”
Agent Gordon’s gaze never wavered, and the unpleasant sensation of being a bug crunching underfoot settled over Cici as he continued to stare.
“I dropped her home about six hours ago,” Devon said. “From the hospital where the rev spent last night with an ailing member of the congregation. I would have told you that earlier if I’d had any idea you planned to ask my pastor where she was.”
Devon’s lips were stiff as if he, too, couldn’t fathom someone questioning Cici’s integrity. Gordon’s facial muscles shifted, as though trying to cover disappointment.
“I got to the hospital at about six last night. I sat first with a congregant who has pneumonia. Then I visited with a cancer patient and his family until they said their final goodbye.”
Cici’s throat clogged with emotion. This part of her job always made her ache, but the loss of one of her family’s lifelong friends last night caused tears to prick at the back of her eyes and her nose to sting with unshed tears.
Gordon’s shoulders folded in. “What about after you were dropped off?”
“I got ready for bed and spoke to my husband, Sam.”
Gordon’s lips pressed flatter. “Phone or video?”
“Phone.”
“How long were you on with him?”
She tapped her lips. “Devon dropped me off around eleven, and Sam called about eleven fifteen, maybe eleven-twenty.”
“So, you would have had time to get here.”
Devon shouldered forward. “No, because I drove her home. Her car’s at the hospital.”
Cici bit her lip, wondering if she should mention her motorcycle, but she swallowed down the information after a slight shake of Mrs. Sanchez’s head. Even if she hadn’t seen that, Cici had already decided to talk to Sam—and maybe Evan—before she offered more information to Agent Gordon.
Something about Gordon’s questioning sat wrong.
He seemed to have already decided she was guilty of the crime, and having her friends vouch for her was only going to continue to tick him off.
“And you can’t tell me who had the codes to the security gate and security system here, to this property?” Gordon asked.
“I’m sorry, no. I don’t know the codes.”
“Why would you be listed on the contacts list, then?”
Cici shrugged. “My guess is I was added after my sister’s death.”
“Murder,” Mrs. Sanchez corrected. “After her identical twin was stabbed in cold blood.”
Gordon ignored Mrs. Sanchez’s indignant diatribe. “Can your neighbors vouch for the fact you were home?”
Again, Cici shrugged. “We’d need to ask. I tried hard to be quiet when I got home. It was late, and most of my neighbors are elderly.”
Gordon’s face pinched harder. With each comment Cici made, she felt as if she were digging herself into a deeper hole. The problem was, she didn’t know this game. And she definitely didn’t understand the rules.
“We believe the person entered the house and made sure to leave a note before he or she exited the back door and headed toward the acequia,” Devon offered when the silence grew too long and painful.
Gordon kept his gaze locked on the technicians moving through the crime scene.
“That’s what happened?” Mrs. Sanchez’s expression turned stormy. “And you planned to pin an entrance on a woman of God? A thief and a…a reprobate trashed a house that her family has owned longer than your family has even known Santa Fe existed.”
Mrs. Sanchez started screeching in Spanish, her gestures wild and full of anger.
“Considering I didn’t know my father still owned this house,” Cici said loudly, to be heard over Mrs. Sanchez’s angry monologue, “I really wouldn’t know any details.”