The Man in 3B (31 page)

“Okay. You wanna know who killed Daryl?”

He pulled out a pad to take notes and looked at me expectantly.

“It was my stepmother. Connie Mack.”

He lowered his notepad without writing a thing. “Are you jerking my chain?”

“Hell no. Who’d you think I was gonna say? My boyfriend Slim?” I laughed, but when I glanced in his direction, I was met with cold eyes that shut me up.

“Hey, I know what you think of Slim,” I said. “Your partner wasn’t exactly subtle about her feelings. Slim didn’t do it, though. Connie did. Shoot, I would have thought you guys were already looking at her. I mean, isn’t it obvious? Once a murderer always a murderer.”

He cocked his head to the side like he had no clue what I was talking about. “We’ve run a check on every person in this building. She’s never had as much as a traffic ticket.”

I sucked my teeth. “That’s only because no one would listen to me six years ago when I told them she killed my mother. And now look what’s happened. She’s fucking Daryl, and he dies exactly the same way my mother did. I’d call that suspicious, wouldn’t you, Detective?”

You should have seen the look on his face. He was so confused that I could have knocked him in the head, taken his gun and badge, and he wouldn’t have even noticed.

“How come this is the first I’m hearing about this? Why didn’t you say anything last night?”

“Uh, you mean aside from the fact that she was sitting right there in the room with me? I mean, no offense, Detective, but I wasn’t about to speak up in front of a room full of people. In case you haven’t noticed, folks around this neighborhood aren’t too fond of speaking to the police.”

Instead of being insulted, he softened his face and said, “I
understand. But you’re talking to me now because you really loved Daryl and you want his killer brought to justice, right?”

Damn, this guy was good. Just like that, I was no longer mad at him. In fact, I was close to tears as I admitted, “Yeah, I loved him.”

He patted my hand. “I’ll take a look at your claims about Connie Mack, but you do understand I’m gonna need a little more to go on than your word, right?”

“Wait right here,” I said, then jumped up and ran into my bedroom. I brought back a scrapbook full of newspaper clippings about my mother’s death and handed it to him. As he flipped through the pages, I asked, “How many suicides do you know that involved a fire?”

That was not a rhetorical question. I took a brief pause, allowing him to reply, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. I could tell by the look on his face that he’d never dealt with a suicide by fire in his entire twenty-year career.

He looked at me with sympathy in his eyes, but I could tell he still wasn’t entirely convinced. “You bring up an interesting similarity, but these articles say your mother was also found to have very high doses of prescription drugs in her system.”

I rolled my eyes and spat, “Drugs that Connie probably force-fed to her before she set the fire!”

He stood up from the couch, and I figured that was the end of it. He was going to write me off as paranoid just like all the other cops did when my mother died, and fat-ass Connie was going to get away with murder again. At least that’s what I thought until he asked, “Do you mind if I take these articles with me?”

“Does this mean you’re going to look into it?” I asked.

He hesitated for a minute like he was still trying to decide, and then he said, “I can promise you that my partner and I are going to leave no stone unturned in this investigation. First thing I’m going to do when I get back to the station is see if I can get my hands on the files from your mother’s death.”

I had to grip the sides of the cushion to stop myself from jumping off the couch and shouting, “Hallelujah!”

“Thank you. Thank you so much. That’s exactly what I needed to hear.” I wiped happy tears off my face.

He headed to the door and then turned to look at me one last time before he left. “You know, Krystal, I think you might wanna get yourself into a program.”

A fresh wave of tears streamed down my cheeks. “That was the last thing Daryl said to me too.”

“Then maybe Daryl Graham was smarter than any of us will ever know.”

When I heard a knock on my door, I was already on my fourth bottle of Febreze. I’d been spraying it everywhere, hoping to get rid of the smell of smoke that lingered. The spray was masking the odor, but it wasn’t enough to get rid of it. The smoke had settled into my couch, in the carpet, in the walls. If I couldn’t get rid of it soon, I didn’t know what I was going to do. I sure couldn’t live in an apartment where the smell would be a constant reminder of the nightmare I’d been through.

I set down the Febreze and went to the door. Without checking the peephole, I flung open the door and said, “Detectives, come on in. I’ve been expecting you.” It was Thomas and Anderson, the two lead detectives I’d met the night before when they took us to the precinct. It was supposedly so they could ask questions about the fire, but it turned out to be little more than a free fried chicken dinner. I sure hoped they were more serious about investigating Daryl’s death today.

Obviously the way I greeted them wasn’t what they usually experienced when they knocked on someone’s door. They gave each other a confused glance.

“You’ve been expecting us? What are you, some kind of psychic?” Anderson asked.

I laughed and told her, “The girls on the stoop told me you’d been questioning everyone. I figured it was just a matter of time before you made your way to me.” I gestured for them to sit on the couch, and
they settled in. Their clothes would probably be reeking of smoke by the time they left. “Have you made any progress in finding Daryl’s killer?”

“Some,” Detective Thomas said. “But we’re still in the beginning stages of our investigation. We’re trying to eliminate possible suspects from our list. This, unfortunately, brings us to you.”

I might have been expecting them to show up, but I sure as heck hadn’t been expecting them to say that. “Am I a suspect?”

“Right now everyone’s a suspect. Considering your close relationship with Mr. Graham, I hope you can understand why we’d like to speak to you and scratch you off our list as quickly as possible,” he said.

I felt tears welling up in my eyes at the mention of our relationship. It had only been a day, but I missed Daryl so intensely that hearing his name set me on edge. I still couldn’t believe they considered me a suspect, but I was willing to do whatever it took to make sure they arrested someone for this hideous crime.

“I’ll tell you everything I know. I just want you to find Daryl’s killer,” I told him as I slumped into the armchair before my knees gave out.

Anderson jumped in, sounding much less sympathetic than her partner. “I’m glad to hear that because we talked to your stepdaughter, and—”

“Oh, God. Here we go. I knew this was coming,” I said. “What has Krystal accused me of now? Murdering Daryl the same way I murdered her mother?” I had to laugh to keep from crying. This whole situation was so absurd. I never could have imagined my life would get to this point.

Thomas, who was busy taking notes, didn’t say anything, but I saw him smirk like he thought the theory was as stupid as I did. Anderson was looking at me with raised eyebrows, though, and I realized she had taken Krystal’s accusations seriously. She was waiting for me to defend myself.

I shook my head. “She must be driving you all crazy, pushing to
have me arrested. I should have known that she’d bring up her mother’s death. She’s been trying to pin that woman’s death on me since the day of her funeral. She brings it up every chance she gets.”

Anderson said, “Yes, she did bring it up. What concerns me is that you didn’t. Don’t you think you should have volunteered that information at the precinct last night?”

I definitely didn’t like Anderson’s tone. This woman was one hard-ass cop, probably looking at this case as her chance to prove herself. Well, she was not about to use me to get ahead.

“Excuse me,” I started with no intention of speaking respectfully. “My boyfriend had been burned up in a fire, and you had us sitting down at the precinct, waiting for two hours. Then you talked to me for five whole minutes, and you expected me to volunteer that BS? You have got to be kidding me.”

“So, you’re saying that Krystal’s accusations are BS?” Anderson asked, stating the obvious.

“Of course I am! Her mother died in a fire. My boyfriend died in a fire. I don’t see how that points a finger in my direction. Shit, people die in fires every day.”

I had to get control of my emotions in a hurry, because I could see from Anderson’s expression that she was reading something into it.

I turned to Detective Thomas, who seemed to be the more reasonable of the pair. “You guys aren’t taking that bitch Krystal serious, are you? She’s been talking this crazy stuff for years, and as you can see, no one’s ever charged me with anything. I didn’t kill that woman. She committed suicide.”

“We’re trying to get to the bottom of this, Connie, and the only way we can eliminate you as a suspect is to ask you questions. We’re just doing our job—and that job is to find your boyfriend’s murderer.” His voice was calm and reassuring, and I felt my pulse relaxing.

“I know,” I told him, “but I didn’t have anything to do with that fire. If you don’t believe me, call Sergeant Acosta of the Second Precinct in Nassau County. He’ll tell you. I was at work that day.”

“We already have. He’s sending over the file. Hopefully that will clear some of this up.”

I was kind of taken aback by that. These two were seriously pursuing this angle if they’d already contacted Nassau County about me. That damn Krystal had been a thorn in my side for so long. Why the hell couldn’t she have been the one in that fire yesterday?

Anderson jumped back in to ask, “Why don’t you tell us why your stepdaughter is so adamant about you being her mother’s killer?”

“I was having an affair with Krystal’s father. She’s always claimed that I murdered her mother to get her father, but she’s got the story all wrong.”

“Really? Well, why don’t you tell us the right story, then?” Anderson said, still sounding like she had some kind of problem with me. This woman sure took her bad cop image seriously.

I released a heavy sigh and then told them the same story I’d repeated to the Nassau County detectives all those years ago when Krystal first brought up this bullshit. “I didn’t need to get rid of anyone to get Avery. He’d already told his wife he was going to divorce her to marry me, but he had no idea the woman was so unstable. She couldn’t take losing him. She had some kind of breakdown and took an overdose of valium.”

“Tell us about the fire,” Anderson said.

I wanted to tell her to read it in the damn report when it came from Long Island, but there was no sense in antagonizing her. “She doused her comforter in WD-40 and placed a lit candle at the other end of her bed. She was already dead from the pills by the time the bed caught fire. All of this was in the report, but Krystal refuses to believe it. She can’t get it out of her head that I did it.”

“I see,” Anderson said. “And what does her father say about all of this?”

Damn, I was hoping they weren’t going to mention Avery. These two were in homicide so maybe they didn’t know about the robberies, but I sure as hell didn’t want them asking me questions about it. The last thing I needed with everything else going on was to be linked to Avery’s criminal activities as an accomplice or something. It was in my best interests to make it very clear that I’d distanced myself from him.

“Her father… ha! Well, Krystal got her wish after all because we broke up a few months ago. Our divorce will be final in a couple of weeks.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Thomas said, surprising me with his kindness. “I’ve been divorced. It’s not easy.”

“No, it isn’t,” I said, feeling a little less like I was in the hot seat. “But I got lucky. I met Daryl. He was the best thing that ever happened to me.” This brought on a fresh wave of tears.

Anderson still wasn’t ready to back off. “You make it sound like everything between you and Mr. Graham was great,” she said. “But I hear you two weren’t even on speaking terms the day before his death.”

I nodded and shrugged, refusing to let her think she was intimidating me. “I wasn’t talking to him. He lied to me.”

“Is that why he was on pussy punishment?”

I stared at her without answering. In my head, I was cursing those nosy bitches on the stoop with their big mouths.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” she said with a smirk. “Is that why he called you a fat ass?”

She thought she had caught me in a lie. I couldn’t help but smile. “No, that’s not why he called me a fat ass. He’s always calling me fat ass.”

Thomas looked up from his notepad. “And you didn’t take offense?”

Anderson seemed happy that her partner had finally chimed in on her side. She stressed his point by adding, “Someone called me a fat ass in private, let alone in public, I’d want to kill him.”

I burst out laughing. “Take offense? Is that what all this is about? You think I killed Daryl because he called me a fat ass? First of all, I’d never hurt a hair on Daryl’s head, let alone kill him. And even though what we had wasn’t long-lived, I loved him.”

“Loved him, huh?” Anderson said doubtfully. “Maybe the feeling wasn’t mutual if he was running around calling you a fat ass.”

I shook my head. This woman just wouldn’t let up. “That was his pet name for me.”

Anderson frowned at me like she thought I was feeding her a load of crap.

I couldn’t wait to break this one down for her. “Yes, people called me fat all the time, but Daryl took the power from the word. When Daryl called me fat, it wasn’t F-A-T. It was P-H-A-T. Pretty, hot, and tempting, which I am.”

“And you really want us to believe that?” Anderson asked.

“You can believe it or not,” I replied. “It’s the truth.”

Anderson folded her arms. She looked pissed off, like she was sick of trying to get me to tell the truth. Well, I guess it was time for me to give her what she wanted—the raw, uncensored truth.