Page 38 of What Happened Last Night

“They’ve been better,” I replied honestly. “Please tell me you have something for me.”

“I do. The results of the DNA test are back. There’s a ninety-eight percent chance that William Alden is the father of Candy Xavier’s baby.”

“Well, that’s something,” I said.

The way this case was going, I had half-expected the DNA not to be a match, or at best to be inconclusive, but ninety-eight percent was pretty conclusive.

“Can you email me the report?” I said.

“I’m doing it as we speak,” Dr. Karloff said.

“Great, thanks,” I said.

“Right. All sent. Let me know if you need anything else, okay?” Dr. Karloff said.

“I will. Thanks again,” I said.

We said our goodbyes and I ended the call. I was already opening my email inbox as I ended the call, and I saw the email from Dr. Karloff immediately. I opened the report and hit Print and then I scanned through it. It showed exactly what Dr. Karloff had told me. There was no way William could deny this now. Surely, even someone as brazen as him wouldn’t try to wriggle out of this on a two-percent chance. And if he did, I had witnesses who could prove he was lying. At least about the affair, if not the pregnancy.

But I still didn’t know how this fit into the case because it still gave both William and Carlotta a potentially stronger motive for killing Candy, and by no stretch of the imagination did it pinpoint one or the other of them as the killer.

It did give me an excuse to go out to the Aldens’ place and talk to them, though. Which meant that I might be able to get lucky for once and get something out of one of them that I could use. And at least it felt like progress.

I went to the printer and collected the report and then put my jacket on and headed out. I had just reached my car when my cellphone rang again. I recognized the number straight away as Morrie’s. I ignored the call. It wasn’t helping either of us for me to keep wasting time listening to him ranting and raving. It made more sense for me to go and talk to William quickly. I turned the cellphone to silent and slipped it back into my pocket.

I drove across town, cursing the traffic although it wasn’t too heavy. I finally reached the Aldens’ place and went up to the front door. I knocked and waited, and William came to the door.

“Detective Del Rey,” he said with a sigh. “What can I do for you?”

“May I come in? I have something I need to talk to you about,” I said.

William stood back from the door and let me pass him. He seemed a little reluctant to let me in, but I wasn’t in any mood to pander to him. One of the residents of this house was guilty of causing Candy's death, either by murder or self-defense, and I was getting damned sick of going around in circles trying to work out which one of them it was.

William closed the front door and then led me through to the lounge.

“Carlotta is in her studio. Do you need her as well?”

I debated it for a moment and decided against involving Carlotta at this point. I figured William might be a little bit more forthcoming about the pregnancy if his wife wasn’t there to hear it. I shook my head. William sat down and gestured for me to do the same. He didn’t offer me any refreshments, but to be honest, I hadn’t been expecting him to.

“I just wanted to clarify something with you, Mr. Alden,” I said. “In your original statement, you said that you didn’t know Candy very well. And yet, the autopsy that was carried out on her showed that she was pregnant. DNA tests have shown that the baby was yours. Now how do you explain that?” I asked.

I kept my voice low and neutral, not wanting to make William feel like I was attacking him or judging him. He was much less likely to talk if he thought either of those things.

“This doesn’t put me in a great light, does it, Detective?” William said with a sigh.

I shook my head. There was no point in lying to him. Anyone could work out that being caught in a lie wasn’t exactly helping his case.

“The thing is, I wasn’t lying, Detective. Not really. I really didn’t know Candy all that well. I mean yes, we had sex, but surely, you’ve had sex with a woman you didn’t know very well at some point.”

“Sure,” I replied. “But none of those women have ever turned up dead in my front garden.”

William raised an eyebrow at my blunt statement. “Fair enough,” he said after a long pause. “I know I should have mentioned that we’d had sex at the beginning of this, but it just didn’t seem important. I mean, the sex wasn’t what killed her, was it? It wasn’t like it was that recent. We had a brief fling that ended weeks ago, and I thought the only thing that could come from telling you that was upsetting Carlotta needlessly and making Candy look like someone who was maybe a little too easy. Why ruin a girl’s reputation when she’s already dead?”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. I had to wonder if William really was naïve enough to believe this good Samaritan bullshit himself or if he just thought I was stupid enough to buy it.

“Did you know she was pregnant?” I asked.

William shook his head. He didn’t look at me for a moment, and I got the distinct impression that he was lying.

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