“Under the backseat. Why?”
“Just trying to picture the scenario that gets Dominic into the backseat.”
“That’s where people sit in limos, Wyatt.”
“Yeah, mostly, I know. Except I don’t think Como did. I read that somewhere. Or saw his picture. Something, maybe both. He prided himself on being a regular guy, sitting in the passenger seat up front. I’m sure of that.”
“And what’s that mean?”
“I don’t know. Maybe nothing. So how long?”
“How long what?”
“Before you know the semen was Dominic’s.”
“DNA? About the same as the DNA on the tire iron. Round it off to four days, maybe six, multiply by the phase of the moon, divide by, I don’t know, let’s say fourteen. It’s anybody’s guess. But after today, we may not need it until the trial. We’ll see.”
“You think you’re near an arrest?”
“We’ll see.”
“It would be great if you could say something else besides ‘We’ll see.’ ”
“It would, I know.”
“Well, keep me in the loop.”
“We’ll see.” Juhle’s tone was distinctly ironic. “Hey, this could be her. Gotta run.” And he broke off the connection.
Alicia pulled up to the curb outside the house where she rented her basement room and sat unmoving, staring straight ahead, in the driver’s seat with the motor running, her hands locked onto the steering wheel. She had her lights on and the windshield wipers swished back and forth intermittently.
“What’s she doing?” Juhle asked.
“I don’t know. Waiting for her favorite song to end? Meditating?”
Juhle gave her a full minute before his patience ran out. He got out of his own car, crossed the street, came up behind her, and knocked on the driver’s side window.
Startled, Alicia jerked her hands away from the wheel and her head toward Juhle, who wore a practiced professional expression and held his badge open next to the window.
After a brief moment of what he took to be confusion, she moved one hand over to the door and the window came down.
“Yes?”
“Ms. Thorpe. Inspector Juhle, you may remember. I wonder if we could ask you just a few more questions?”
She dropped her head before lifting it back up again. Then she dredged half a smile from somewhere, said, “Sure,” grabbed her purse, rolled up the window, and pushed open the door.
By this time, Russo had joined Juhle, and now the three of them marched across the lawn and down the side path that led to the entrance to her room in the back. The wind wasn’t as strong as it had been downtown, although the mist and drizzle out here had intensified into true rain, falling straight down on them.
It didn’t make any of them walk any more quickly.
When they got inside with the door closed behind them, Alicia hit the lights and adjusted the thermostat, then turned. “I’m just going to throw on a pullover, if that’s okay.” She crossed the room and took down a bright green knitted sweater that was hanging from a peg on the opposite wall, and brought it over her head. Coming back to them, she got to the table and pulled out one of its chairs, indicating that they do the same.
They all sat.
“I’m supposed to be at work in about an hour and a half. Should I call them and tell them I’ll be late?”
Juhle and Russo exchanged a glance, and Russo said, “I don’t think we’ll be that long, but if we get close, you’ll have that opportunity. Okay?”
“Fine.” She looked from one inspector to the other. “So.” She drew a breath. “What can I do for you?”
“Well,” Juhle began, “as I said, we’ve got a few more questions for you.”
“About Mr. Como?”
Russo had gone solemn, and she nodded. “Him and a few other things, yes.”
“Am I some kind of a suspect?” Alicia asked.
Juhle answered. “We haven’t identified any true suspects yet, Ms. Thorpe. We’re trying to fill in gaps in our understanding at this time. And hope you might be able to help us.”
“So I’m not under arrest?”
“You are absolutely not under arrest,” Juhle said. “You don’t have to talk to us at all and can terminate this interview at any time.”
“So I don’t need to call a lawyer?”
Russo forced a conspiratorial smile. “If you want to call a lawyer, Alicia, that is your right,” she said. “We could wait here for him or her to show up, or make another appointment later. But we are hoping to keep making progress on this case and thought you would want to help us keep it moving along to catch Mr. Como’s killer.”
“It shouldn’t take us more than a half hour,” Juhle added. “Maybe less.”
“Okay,” Alicia said. “In that case…”
“Great. Thank you.” Juhle took out his pocket tape recorder and placed it on the table between them. “We’ll just be taping what we say to preserve an accurate record. We did this last time, too, you recall?”
“Yes.”
“All right.” Juhle pushed away from the table and leaned back in his wooden chair. He crossed one leg over the other, his body language clearly stating that he was no threat to Alicia or to anyone else. “I apologize if we cover a few things we went through last time, but we’ve been talking to a lot of people and sometimes we lose track of the sources of certain information.”
This was the purest of twaddle, and Juhle knew it. What he was really hoping was that Alicia would contradict her earlier answers, and thus give them substantial leverage. And of course, if Alicia had elected to wait to talk to a lawyer, she would have known this. But there wasn’t anything she could do about it now. She didn’t even seem to realize it might be a troublesome issue.
“Now, then,” Juhle began, “you’d been driving for Mr. Como for how long?”
Tag-teaming, Juhle and Russo walked her through most of her earlier statement-her service at Sunset, her duties as Como’s driver, her perceptions of some other key members of the staff at the Ortega campus-and finally got to her personal relationship with her boss, which she answered as she always had. They were close friends, but not intimate.
Juhle kept it casual. “So, once again, you did not have any kind of physical relationship with Mr. Como?”
“No.”
“Never kissed him?”
She hesitated. “Not in a romantic way, no.”
Russo picked up the distinction. “What other way did you kiss him, then?”
Alicia showed her first sign of true frustration, a sigh accompanied by a slight puckering around her lips. “More like a buss on the cheek, sometimes, when I’d first see him or when I was leaving.”
“Both?” Russo asked.
“Sometimes.”
Russo wasn’t letting it go. “Usually?”
Pausing again, nodding, Alicia said, “By the end, yes. Most days. Just like friends do. Maybe a small hug and a little kiss hello.”
“A hug and a kiss, then?” Juhle asked.
“Not a big hug. Really just like a greeting or a good-bye.” She leveled her gaze at both of the inspectors in turn. “Come on, you guys. You know what I’m talking about. We usually kissed hello and good-bye, just like I’d do with my brother. It wasn’t sexual. We had become friends, that’s all.”
Juhle asked, “And you were still friends on the day he was killed?”
“Yes, of course.”
Russo: “You weren’t having any troubles at work?”
“No.”
“None?”
Alicia straightened up in her chair. “What’s this about?”
Russo came forward, but did not answer her. Instead, she said, “You were at Mr. Como’s service this morning.”
“Not for long.”
“We understand that Mrs. Como asked you to leave.”
A bitter chuckle. “If that’s how you want to put it.”
Juhle asked, “How would you put it?”
“Were you there?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Well, the way I’d put it is she had me thrown out.”
“Why would she have wanted to do that?” Russo asked.