Day Seventeen
“Mr Aubrey,” said Detective Warner, “why don’t you tell me the truth?”
Raj’s fingernails cut into the backs of his hands as he tried not to whimper. The blinds were all closed at midday, windows locked, furniture backed against them. His eyes kept darting towards the front door.
“I’m… I’m not sure what I can say…” he muttered.
“Mr Aubrey, I need to make something clear. You’re a suspect in three ongoing murder investigations. You were high on the list before, but with this third case, it’s—”
“I know,” Raj nodded. “I know, it looks really bad.”
“I does. And you know, the only thing that’s stopping me from placing you under arrest right now is that there’s something wrong about it all. Something off. I can see it in your eyes. You’re hiding something. Something important.”
Raj refused to make eye contact. He squeezed his palms together tighter.
“I th-think I know who killed them,” he said.
Warner leaned in, touched his hands gently.
“Can you tell me?”
He swallowed slowly.
“I have no evidence,” he said. “I don’t know how I can prove it, or even if I sh-should try, but…”
“Mr Aubrey, leave evidence to me. Just tell me what you think happened, and we’ll go from there.”
He nodded.
“My girlfriend, she’s… I think she did it.”
“Your girlfriend? Ms…”
“Rosen,” he said. “Beth Rosen. She… she’s been very angry lately. I mean, more than usual. She was just insanely jealous of Laura—”
“Laura Beckwith,” Warner said, making a note.
“Yeah. And then Reggie… she got into a big fight with Reggie about her computer, and she told me to take care of it, or she… or she said she’d… she’d take care of it for me.”
“Were those her exact words? ‘Take care of it’?”
“I… I don’t…”
“It doesn’t matter. Listen. All right, Mr Aubrey, I want you to listen to me.” She gripped his hands tightly, made her he was looking her in the eye. “It’s not that I don’t believe you, but this needs to be checked into, you understand?”
“Y-y-yes.”
“I’m going to go talk to Ms Rosen, and I’m going to see what she says, and then I’m going to come back to talk to you some more. I want you to be here when I come back, all right? You need food, you order in. If I come back and you’re not here, things will not go well for you.”
“I understand,” he nodded. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Good,” she said, and stood up. She glanced at the windows, squinted at the tiny shafts of light that got past the bookshelves. “Lock and chain the door if it makes you feel better. I’ll be back in a few hours.”
Raj locked himself in the closet again, barricaded the doors with the heaviest of the stereo equipment, and brought in enough food and water to last him a few days. He held his baseball bat till his hands went numb.
He fell asleep there, late in the afternoon, and never heard the MacBook’s fans go wild again. Warner never did come back.