Lie Still by Julia Heaberlin Page A

guess. Again, I don’t know her well enough to say. Her headache came on suddenly.”
    “She didn’t say anything that indicated she was worried?”
    “No, the conversation was … just small talk. Benign.” If you considered a puppy murder and sex toys under the mattress to be benign. Maybe Cody would. I wasn’t sure why I was lying, setting more traps for myself. But yesterday Caroline wasn’t the victim in that room. I wasn’t about to start my sentence in this town by ratting out the people who were.
    The officer, tapping out his notes on an iPad, paused over the word
benign
, and I stopped myself from spelling it for him.
    “What time did you leave Ms. Warwick’s home yesterday, ma’am?” He stuttered a little over the
ma’am
, and I began to sympathize that he had drawn the short straw to interview the wife of the new boss.
    “Let’s see. I looked at the clock when I got home. It was three-fifteen. So I probably left her house around three.”
    “Did you have any contact with the housekeeper? Maria Valdez?”
    “Yes, Maria let us in. She let me out. I was the last one to go.”
    He paused for a beat, as if that was significant. “Did she show any animosity toward Mrs. Warwick?”
    “Absolutely not.”
    “Do you know if she’s an illegal?”
    “
Illegal
isn’t a noun.” My voice was clipped, not liking where this was going. “If you’re asking if she’s in the country legally, I don’t have any idea.”
    “Yes, ma’am. We’ll be checking on that.”
    Patronizing. No more trace of a stutter. Maybe he’d faked it. You’d think at this point in my life I could read people faster. Like last month, when that New York plumber charged me twice what he should have, swaying any doubts about the price with astory about being a single father who struggled to braid his daughter’s hair that morning.
    People are adept at getting what they want these days, mingling the lies and the truth, fooling you, wriggling into your soft parts. Maybe people always had been like this.
    I was beginning to think that underneath Cody Hill’s fresh-scrubbed face, a redneck bully thrived.
    “That’s an interesting little club she’s got set up,” he drawled. “I’ve heard some weird rumors about it from my girlfriend. Like they all have special tattoos in a private place. A lot of pissed-off women in this town, both the ones who get in and the ones who get blackballed. My girlfriend, she’s still hoping for an invite.”
    “I’m not her ticket,” I said. Tattoos that said
liar
or
whore
or
killer
? Nothing seemed too far-fetched at the moment.
    Cody frowned, not liking my answer. “Did things seem normal between Ms. Warwick and her guests?”
    “I don’t know them. I don’t know what normal would be.”
    “Did anything at all stick out at you yesterday?”
    “You’re just asking the same question different ways. Maria could surely tell you more about these women than I can. Did you ask her? She speaks English.”
You jerk
.
    He flipped the iPad cover over his notes, and stood. “Mostly, I was just after a timeline.” The words flowed in a syrupy drawl. “I ’preciate it, ma’am.”
    He towered over me as we walked to the front door. He stopped short, four inches from my stomach, invading my baby space, nauseating me with the smell of bitter sweat and an overdose of Old Spice deodorant.
    “One more thing, ma’am. Your husband’s already thinking about calling in the FBI. It ain’t even the usual forty-eight yet. It’s tough being the new guy, trying to please the mayor. We all get that. But we can handle this. So maybe you could assure him, since you’re a friend of Miss Warwick’s, that wouldn’t be such agood idea. Give her a little time to come home on her own. Prevent her some embarrassment.”
    He glanced down, and I became distinctly aware of the paper bulge in my front pocket, and then the one in his pants. I realized that his eyes weren’t trained on my belly but on the sliver of