Page 150 of Passions in Death
“It’s just hard. But I can’t stay with Angie indefinitely. I—I had next week off anyway, so I’m hoping I can find a place, something in the same neighborhood, and start moving in.
“Is this about ChiChi?”
“Not directly. You should know she’s agreed to plead guilty to the assault in exchange for mandatory community service and anger management training.”
“Fine. It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter. I’m sorry, let’s sit down.”
“Actually, I need to ask you for something.”
“All right. Oh, the painting? Glenda told me you wanted to buy one of Erin’s paintings. The one she did of the pizzeria. She thought it would cheer me up. It did, a little.”
Sitting, she looked around blankly, like someone just waking from a hard sleep.
“Shauna, we need you to come with us, to go through your apartment with us.”
“What?” Panic leapt into her eyes. “Why?”
“You’re the only one who’ll know, for certain, if anything’s missing.”
“But… Erin wasn’t killed there. It wasn’t a break-in. I don’t understand.”
“It’s a loose end we need to tie up before we can move to the next stage of the investigation.”
“What stage? What stage?” She pushed out of the chair. “We were supposed to be married on Saturday. Do you know what we should be doing today? We should be putting up decorations for the wedding. We should be laughing and arguing about what goes where. And checking with the florist—we didn’t order a lot, but we each wanted bouquets, and flowers on the tables we’d set up. Now I have those.”
She pointed at the flowers on the table.
“I have those, from her memorial. Now you want me to go back to the apartment where we lived together, made all these plans, where we had a life together?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Do you think I killed her?” It wasn’t anger, but absolute devastation. “Do you think I’ll go there and break down and confess I killed the woman I loved?”
“No. You’re not, nor have you ever been, a suspect.”
“Then why? How could this possibly help you find who killed her?”
“Because if something’s not there that should be, you’ll know.”
She dropped into a chair again, covered her pale face with her hands. “God, God. I know I’m being stupid about this. I know it’s weak, but—”
“It’s not stupid,” Peabody corrected. “It’s not weak. It’s grief, and it’s human and it’s hard. We wouldn’t ask if we didn’t think it’s important.”
Dropping her hands, Shauna stared at Peabody. “Becca and Greg have gone in to get some of my things, to clean out the food stuff. And Donna and Angie helped Erin’s family get some of her things.”
“But you know what they removed,” Eve said.
“Yes.” Shauna closed her eyes, took a breath. When she opened them again, she looked at Eve. “You really think doing this will matter? Will help you find who killed her?”
“Yes.”
“I need to get my purse.”
When she walked away, Eve shook her head. “She doesn’t believe me, doesn’t believe this matters.”
“But she’s doing it. It’s hard for her, but she’ll do it.”
“Yeah. She’s tougher than she looks, but it’s going to hurt. Let’s make it as quick as possible.”
