Page 8 of What Happened Last Night

“I interviewed William Alden. He was shifty and he was being very evasive. He’s distancing himself from the whole thing, but I can’t decide if it’s because he’s guilty or because he’s in shock. He was particularly evasive about knowing the victim. He tried to claim he didn’t know her at all, but when I pressed him, he admitted to knowing her in passing,” said Officer Stanford.

“Do we have anything to suggest whether she was known to him?” I asked.

Officer Stanford nodded.

“Yes. Candy was working as an intern at the firm where Alden is an architect. He could be telling the truth about not knowing her very well, and maybe at first, her name didn’t register with him. The company is big, and Alden is high enough up the chain that he probably doesn’t know half of the interns there.”

“But?” I prompted Officer Stanford, sensing she wanted to say more but was holding herself back.

“But I don’t trust him. There’s something about him I don’t like. He seems shifty.”

I nodded and thought for a second.

“So it’s a he said, she said?” I asked. “He’s blaming the wife and she’s blaming him.”

“No, actually. They aren’t blaming each other, and this is the one major point that their stories agree on. They both claim to have been so drunk that they collapsed into bed and don’t remember any of what happened.”

“Convenient,” I said with a sigh. I turned to Officer Dumont. “Did you interview the wife?”

“Yes,” he nodded. “Carlotta Alden. She was a little bit more forthcoming with how she knew Candy, although she is sticking to the blacked out drunk alibi. She instantly admitted that Candy worked for her husband. She claimed not to know her well, but she told us a story about Candy coming to her house one day to collect some paperwork for William. That’s how she recognized her, and it is why William’s story about not knowing who she was at first is a little shaky. If he sent her to his house, he has to know a little bit about her. I’m damned sure I wouldn’t be sending some intern I didn’t know to my house to collect something from my wife.”

I was inclined to agree with that.

“Anything else?” I asked.

“The way Carlotta’s voice changed when she spoke about Candy stood out to me. She talked about her like she really hated her, although she claimed to barely know her. I honestly don’t know what’s going on with these two, but nothing is exactly as it seems with them.”

I nodded my head. This was going to be tricky. It would be hard to get them to turn on each other when they both knew there was no witness to the crime other than themselves, and if they truly were too drunk to remember what had happened, then neither of their testimonies would hold much weight in court.

“Has anyone tested them to see if they’re telling the truth about the amount of alcohol they consumed?” I asked.

The two officers nodded, and Officer Stanford began talking again.

“We had both of them tested when they first came in. Obviously, some time has passed since their last drink. If their story is to be believed, then they were both already passed out when Candy was killed, which was roughly between two and three a.m.. By the time we tested them, based on those timings, at least five and a half hours had passed since their last drink. Obviously, alcohol affects everyone differently, and we have no way of proving one way or the other whether they truly can’t remember the events of that night, but the reports came back, and they do seem to support their stories. William still had enough alcohol in his system this morning to knock a horse out. Carlotta had slightly less than William, but still a significant amount. Toxicology has confirmed that the alcohol levels could cause alcoholic amnesia, or then again, it could just be a convenient cover story.”

“Do we have any idea why Candy was there last night?” I asked.

“No,” Officer Dumont said. “There was a broken window in the basement that Candy could have used to enter the property. But it could also be that she was invited in and the broken window is a coincidence. Forensics are still on the scene, so hopefully they’ll find something that can clear that up one way or the other. The victim’s father didn’t seem to know who the Aldens were, and he believed Candy was in bed asleep until we woke him up to tell him otherwise.”

I shook my head. It was a right mess of a case. Two witnesses, both intoxicated, both potentially willing to lie for the other one. A victim who didn’t seem to have enough of a tie to the suspects to be at their house at all. Did she have some sort of beef with the architectural company that she and William both worked for? But if that was the case, why go after William and not the company’s CEO or her direct manager or whoever she was pissed at?

There was only one way I was going to get to the bottom of this, and it wasn’t going to be by sitting and chatting with the officers before me. They both seemed sharp, like they knew what they were doing, and I found that I trusted their perceptions and opinions. But I wanted to hear the answers from the suspects myself. I wanted to observe their body language, their facial expressions as they talked. And try to find out if they were lying about any of this. And of course, which one of them actually pushed the victim out the window.

I stood up rather abruptly, causing the two officers to share a look. I laughed softly.

“This is how I roll. When there’s something I decide to do, I tend to just act quickly like that. You’ll get used to it. But don’t worry. If I have any sort of problem with anyone on my team or what they’re telling me, they’ll be the first ones to know,” I reassured them.

My words seemed to put the officers at ease a little bit, which I was glad of. It seemed that the newer officers believed me to be a bit of a dick and were treading carefully around me. I hoped to be able to change their minds over the course of the investigation, but it was far from my main priority right now. Some detectives worked well with a bunch of drones who were too afraid to speak their minds. I preferred to treat my team as equals and have them speak freely.

“I want to talk to the suspects,” I said. “See if they trip themselves up or begin to contradict each other. I’m going to talk to Carlotta first as something tells me she’ll be the first of the couple to crack. She’s already given away more than her husband. Officer Dumont, you can accompany me,” I said.

Officer Stanford opened her mouth to protest and I held up my hand for silence.

“It’s nothing personal. If you’re there, she’ll be extra-careful not to trip herself up. If I take someone in who hasn’t already questioned her, she might drop her guard a little,” I explained. “And then after Carlotta, I’m going to talk to William and you can accompany me, Officer Stanford.”

“Let’s go,” Officer Dumont said, getting to his feet.

I led the way across the incident room, and I glanced back as we reached the door. Officer Stanford was already engrossed in the files again, looking over them no doubt for about the fifteenth time, looking for something, anything that we could have missed.

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