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Raoul seemed to be taking forever to get through the witness interviews. Anxious for her turn, Kat had started timing them. His questioning of one of the caterers was going on twenty minutes now.
“Hey, Kat.”
Kat turned to see Sam Easton, the owner of Easton’s Eats standing next to her. “Hi, Sam.”
He jutted his chin toward the kitchen. “Deirdre still in there?” Although there wasn’t a door to the kitchen, Raoul had roped off enough of a buffer zone to prevent curious onlookers from seeing or hearing anything that went on inside.
“Your server? Yes,” Kat replied.
He sighed. “Poor girl. I hope he’s not giving her the third degree. She wasn’t even going to work this event, but Rich fell ill at the last minute.”
Kat figured Rich must be one of Sam’s employees. “Have you been interviewed yet?” she asked.
“Yeah. I’m just waiting for Deirdre before I take off. I’m her ride.” Sam looked around. “Have you seen Imogene anywhere?”
“She went upstairs to lie down.” Imogene hadn’t looked well after Raoul had finished questioning her. Kat had been itching to ask how things had gone, but her friend had shaken her head before saying she didn’t have the strength to talk about it now.
“Huh.” Sam dropped his gaze to the piece of paper in his hands, then brought it up for Kat to see. “I was going to give her my invoice, but she probably doesn’t want to be bothered.”
Kat took the page from him, her eyes hovering over the colorful logo in the top left corner. Under different circumstances, the jaunty fruit basket sporting two grape eyes, a banana smile, and a pineapple hairdo while brandishing a knife and fork in its two stubby raspberry-hands would have made her smile, but the somber atmosphere of the house doused any amusement she might ordinarily find in a silly cartoon.
“Do you need the money now?” she asked.
“Nah. Imogene was going to write me a check after the party ended, but with everything that went down this evening . . .”
“Right.” Kat’s stomach clenched at the reminder. “I can give this to her later, if you’d like.”
“Thanks. I didn’t want to leave it lying around.”
Deirdre stumbled out of the kitchen then. Her red eyes and puffy face made it clear she’d been crying.
“Deirdre.” Sam took a step toward her.
She let out a sob as she collapsed into his arms. “This is so awful.”
Sam patted her on the back. “I know. But don’t fret over it. The police will catch whoever did this.”
“Were you able to help them at all?” Kat asked Deirdre, eager to hear whether the police had unearthed any leads yet.
But Deirdre only shook her head. She tried to smooth out the crumpled tissue in her hand before using it to swipe at her tears. Kat could see her fingers trembling.
Deirdre tilted her head back and gazed up at Sam. “Can we go now?”
“Yes, of course.” Sam turned toward Kat. “I still have some stuff in the kitchen. Could you tell Imogene I’ll come back for it later this week?”
Kat nodded. “Sure.”
“Thanks, Kat.” He offered her a lopsided smile before wrapping an arm around Deirdre’s shoulders and guiding her through the crowd that had been slowly dwindling as Raoul concluded his interviews. He looked relieved to finally be out of there.
Kat knew exactly how he felt. She checked the time on her cell phone and sighed. How long was it going to be before Raoul called her in, anyway? Andrew’s interviews never took this long.
Of course, Andrew was a more experienced detective, Kat reminded herself. Perhaps Raoul was still getting a feel for the process. She would just have to be patient.
Raoul poked his head out of the kitchen. His eyes homed in on her, and he summoned her with a crooked forefinger. “Come with me, please.”
Kat exhaled, nearly tripping over her feet in her haste. “Finally.”
His eyes narrowed.
“I mean, yes, Officer Leon, I’m on my way,” Kat amended, forcing herself not to look too keen to get this over with.
It didn’t take long for Kat to see why the interviews were taking so long. Raoul seemed to think being a good detective meant asking so many questions that eventually a person couldn’t help but trip up over something. After instructing her to walk through every little thing she’d done since stepping through Imogene’s front door, he posed a series of questions that merely rehashed what she’d already told him. The whole process left her itching to tear her own hair out.
“Let me get this straight,” Raoul said thirty, excruciating minutes into their session. “You had never met Landon Tabernathy before this evening?”
“No,” Kat replied curtly, silently adding, For the fifth time, no.
“Hmm.” Raoul paced from the refrigerator to the sink and back again, pausing to shoot her a sidelong glance every third step.
Kat squelched an eye roll. “What about you?” she asked. “Did you know him?”
He came to an abrupt halt and squared his shoulders. “I’m the one doing the questioning here.”
Kat’s patience snapped. “You’ve made that quite clear by rephrasing the same five questions a million different ways. But that doesn’t change the fact that I don’t have any answers.”
Raoul regarded her for a moment that stretched into one minute, then two. She met his assessing gaze with one of her own. She’d had enough, and she wasn’t going to let him intimidate her into feeling less worthy for not having any useful information to share. She couldn’t help what she’d seen—or not seen—and she refused to feel guilty about it.
Finally, he gave a slight nod and tucked his notebook in his breast pocket. “All right then,” he said. “In that case, we’re done here. But I want to be the first person you call if you remember anything later.” He yanked a business card out of his breast pocket and snapped it between his fingers before holding it out to her.
She took it. “Of course.” With great restraint, she managed not to break into a run as she hurried across the kitchen.
“Wait!”
Raoul’s shout halted her in her tracks.
“One final word before I let you go,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“Stay out of this.”
She frowned. “What?”
Raoul leaned against the counter, but he didn’t look the least bit relaxed. “I know you have a reputation around town for attracting crime. Wherever you go, trouble seems to follow.”
Kat bristled. “That’s hardly my fault.”
“Either way, you need to leave the investigating to the police.”
“I plan to.” Then, simply because she couldn’t resist the barb, she added, “I have complete faith in Detective Milhone’s ability to get to the bottom of this.”
Raoul’s eyes darkened.
“He’s the most competent policeman I’ve ever met,” she went on. She wasn’t sure why she was so intent on needling Raoul. Evidently she was more sensitive than she’d thought to insinuations that she might have had something to do with the previous crimes she’d found herself involved in.
“That he is,” Raoul said, his voice clipped. “But just because the two of you are swapping spit, don’t think that gives you a pass to butt into police business.”
Kat’s face reddened. “You’re way—”
“My original point remains,” Raoul barked, cutting her off. “You should trust me—the police—to handle this investigation. In that spirit, I expect this will be our last time chatting about Mr. Tabernathy’s passing.” He regarded her down the length of his nose. “Unless, of course, you’re guilty.”
Kat gritted her teeth, but she didn’t say anything, telling herself that he was merely doing his job.
After all, she might not be guilty, but someone at this party sure was.
