Chapter 30. The Detective’s Dilemma
“Wow,” said Lt. Marie, sitting down uninvited, “Lawyered up already, huh?”
“Mr. Kyro is my friend,” said Jacquetta stiffly. Luckily Nelson said nothing.
Clearly unbelieving, Lt. Marie produced a paper. “I’d like you to sign this statement that you made this morning, and answer a few more questions about your roommate’s life. What did you know about her job, for example? Did she ever complain to you about it?”
This guy just wasn’t getting it. While correcting typos with one hand, Jacquetta said, “I don’t think this murder had anything to do with my roommate’s job. My roommate was helping me try to find an anonymous letter writer and I think –“
“Oh? Playing amateur detective, eh? You got any of these letters?”
Jacquetta didn’t know whether he meant had she “received” any or was she carrying, but she had started confiding in him so she might as well continue. “The officer who searched my purse already saw these,” she said laying them out on the table, “But-“
Lt. Marie took one look at the blue stationery and the daisies and said, “Nah. Nah.”
“Nah?” Nelson echoed. It was the first word he had spoken.
“That’s clearly a woman’s letter. This is a man’s crime.”
“It is?”
Jacquetta was grateful for Nelson’s intervention because the detective was defensive with him in a way he certainly wasn’t with her.
“Yeah,” said Marie, “It was a sex crime. She was strangled with a dishtowel – you got any idea how much strength that would take?”
“How much?” asked Nelson.
“A lot. Plus there was a broomstick at the scene. Looks like impotent rage to me.”
“Impotent rage?” Jacquetta echoed faintly. She didn’t dare even think what this could possibly mean.
“Date gone wrong. Enough said,” smirked the detective.
“Honey didn’t date anyone but Barney,” insisted Jacquetta.
“Maybe that’s what she told her roommate, the nun. For all you know, she sent those letters.” He swept them up with her statement as he rose to go.
“They weren’t sent to ME,” argued Jacquetta. But Nelson laid a restraining hand along Lt. Marie’s arm.
“You can’t take those, he said.
Lt. Marie regarded him disbelievingly. “You said it was evidence in the case.”
“And you said it wasn’t.” Nelson took them back. “Get a warrant.”
Lt. Marie seemed incensed.
“When are you releasing my car?” asked Jacquetta.
“At the moment we’re all jammed up with a bunch of uncooperative witnesses,” he said, “So I don’t know. Check back later in the day.”
He flounced out.
“I don’t think Lt. Susan is going to be our savior,” sighed Nelson.
“Well, you didn’t treat him very diplomatically,” protested Jacquetta.
“They had no right to search your car.”
“I said they could! There’s nothing in there but trash. I wanted them to get on with the actual evidence.”
Nelson shook the letters at her. “You see how well THAT worked out!”
“I’m certain he’s completely wrong about the case,” said Jacquetta.
“Well, if he’s right about the dishtowel, I guess it has to be a man. Lundt would be what… twenty-nine? Thirty?”
“Maybe Lundt and Kleinemann are still working together.”
“Maybe.” He stood up.
“So where are you going?”
“With you to the state library, looking up that old case, and then we have to hit the Brass Ass.”
She couldn’t believe it. “Don’t you have work?”
He grinned. “I’m bereaved, remember” The grin faded. “I lost everything.”
Alysse Aallyn 
Leave a comment