Renny began crying again, her shoulders heaving up and down as she struggled for air. ‘Don’t, Mike. No more. I don’t want to hear it!’
Lat shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘Do you want to take a moment, Mr and Mrs Prowse? We’re almost done here.’
Mike nodded and stood up. He looked around the room absently, as though trying to remember where he was. ‘Come on, hon. Let’s take a break. This is too much,’ he said, leading her out of the room.
‘Dad, I’ll take her,’ said Joanne, getting up off the couch. The doorbell rang and she looked at the detectives blankly. ‘I’d better get that. Give us all a minute or two, won’t you?’ Then she followed her parents out of the room.
Janna still stood by the kitchen door. An awkward silence settled in the room, broken only by the loud ticks of the grandfather clock.
‘Hey, Janna, honey,’ Brill said with a winkwhen everyone was gone, ‘do you thinkyou could get me another couple of those cookies your mom set out? I didn’t have any lunch.’
‘Sure,’ she said and shrugged, heading into the kitchen.
Lat looked at Steve Brill like he had three heads. ‘Another cookie? What the fuck is that?’
‘She was porking the brother-in-law,’ he announced with a big smile and a shake of his head.
‘What?’
‘The younger sis. College girl. Something’s going on, boss-man. She knew something, saw something, heard something, did something. I’m not sure what, although my money’s on the doc teaching her a private anatomy class.’
Lat looked back toward the door Janna had just slipped out of. ‘You think?’
‘Female body language, brother. If there’s anything I know, it’s that – a pissed-off broad, or one that’s hiding something. It sure as hell gave her away. Standing the polar opposite away from Waltons. Arms crossed. Nibbling the corner of her cute, pouty mouth. Scared rabbit look. And the older sister is the new matriarch now that Momma is breaking down. Ain’t nobody gonna disparage the Prowse name. And that includes us. So your interview with the rest of the family, I’m afraid, is done, boss-man. They saw what they wanted to see, when they wanted to see it. Even their hindsight ain’t twenty-twenty.’
Lat nodded slowly. He looked Brill up and down as if he were seeing a new person but somehow couldn’t trust his own vision. Brill just kept beaming like a Cheshire cat. ‘So you sent her for more cookies to tell me this?’
‘No. I’m still hungry. I’d actually like to get my hands on some of that real food,’ he said, pointing to the dining-room table and rubbing his stomach. ‘I just thinkit might be rude to askfor some. But you’re good at this interrogation shit, Sherlock. You talk to her. You have a way with people, I can tell.’
Janna walked through the kitchen door at that moment with another platter full of cookies. ‘Do you want more coffee, too, Detective Brill?’
‘No. We want you to sit down, Janna,’ Lat said softly, but sternly. He hoped Brill’s sixth sense was right or he was really gonna feel like an asshole by the end of the day. We thinkyou might have some information that you may want to share with us before everyone else returns.’
Janna sat down slowly on the couch. ‘I … don’t know anything,’ she said softly, looking around. Her blue eyes were large and scared.
‘Were you sleeping with your brother-in-law or was your sister?’ asked Brill, reaching for another cookie.
‘Excuse me?’ Janna asked. Her eyes narrowed and she looked surprised, but what she didn’t look was pissed off that Brill had asked the question in the first place.
The man had absolutely no tact. Lat shookhis head. ‘That would be something we would need to know, Janna; if there was something going on between you and David. Something that would help us make sense out of all this. We’re having a hard time with everyone telling us how wonderful the man was. And if there was something happening between you, it would be better if we heard it from you first, than learning about it from someone else later.’
‘He wasn’t so wonderful,’ Janna said in a soft voice after a moment. ‘But I never slept with him. Neither did Joanne. God, never. Joanne is really religious. She’d burn in hell for sleeping with anyone before she got married, much less her sister’s husband.’
‘So why wasn’t he so wonderful?’ asked Lat.
Janna grew quiet. She twisted her hands in her lap and looked around the room again, before lowering her voice to just above a whisper. ‘He made a pass at me. In May. At the barbecue.’
‘Did Jennifer know?’
‘Yes. She saw him talking to me. I was home for the summer. She came over just in time to hear him askme to go out with him to a local bar after Jen went to bed.’
‘That was a pass?’ asked Lat.
Both Brill and Janna shot him a look.
‘So what did she do?’
‘She ran into her room and cried. She was pregnant with Sophie. Everyone else thought it was the hormones that were making her upset. I never said anything to anyone. David went back to Miami the next day without her.’ She grew quiet again. ‘Apparently it wasn’t the first time either. With me, yes. But Jen knew about the others.’
‘There were other women?’
She nodded and sighed. ‘Yeah. But I don’t know names or dates. They might even have been hookers for all Jen knew. But there were a couple of late nights and perfume-soaked shirts. I think she blamed Memorial Day on me, though. We stopped really talking after that.’
Finally. The perfect husband was not so perfect after all.
‘Was she gonna leave him?’ asked Brill. ‘Were we talking divorce here?’
She almost laughed and shook her head. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, Detectives, but my sister, even though she was pretty, was always insecure. So when she met David, he became like an obsession for her. He was the guy she got but couldn’t ever believe she really did. My parents, my sister, they never saw that. Only I did.’
‘So the first pregnancy?’
Janna shrugged. ‘She never ’fessed to planning an unplanned pregnancy. And she never would.’ She rose from the couch and looked nervously back at the foyer, lowering her voice again. ‘I’ve said enough. But you asked me if she was going to leave him? Let me just say this, Detectives. Jennifer was desperate-crazy about David. He could do anything to anyone and she would never leave. Never. He couldn’t get rid of her, even if he tried.’