“Would you mind telling us where you were on the night of the twentieth this month, at around nine in the evening?” he asks me.
A small lamp immediately lights up inside my head. This can’t be good.
“I was home,” I tell him. I realize at this point that he will be the one leading the conversation. His partner is here just because of bureaucracy and the need for there to be always two policemen together.
“Did you arrive at that time or were you already home before?” the detective continues, asking me detailed questions.
“I was already home,” I reply casually, knowing I have nothing to hide. “My whereabouts can always be checked very easily.”
“I see.” Once again, he doesn’t seem all that convinced, and he doesn’t even try to hide it. “Can anyone corroborate your whereabouts?”
“My daughter,” I say, although I doubt Marley’s word would hold much water for this guy. “And our nanny.”
“Your nanny?” he repeats, as if he doesn’t know what the word means.
“Yes,” I confirm. “She is with my daughter until I return, then she goes home for the evening. That’s usually somewhere around eight, sometimes nine, I guess.”
I knew I shouldn’t have added that last part, but I wasn’t thinking.
“Sometimes it’s nine?” He latches onto it like a drowning man latches onto a life preserver belt. I can’t blame him. I flew into that one on my own.
“Yeah,” I nod. No point in denying it now. “Occasionally I have dinner meetings with clients, but I try to finish everything by nine, so I can put my daughter to sleep.”
“How old is your daughter?” he asks. I can’t tell if he’s just being polite or if it has something to do with my whereabouts, but I don’t like sharing anything regarding her with strangers.
“Seven,” I tell him.
“Those are the best years,” he replies, and I see a flicker of humanity in him, but it is quickly extinguished by the following question. “And the nanny… what is her name?”
“Lilly Saunders,” I give them her name.
He turns to his partner, who then writes it down into a small notepad, pocketing it as soon as he’s done.
“We’ll have to speak to her as well,” Detective Puttner tells me.
“Why?” I ask, trying to remain calm, although I’m liking this less and less. “Am I a suspect?”
“Do you feel like a suspect?” he replies.
“I don’t have a reason to feel like a suspect.”
I know what he’s trying to do. He’s trying to piss me off, so I’d slip and say something, which he might understand as me being involved in whatever the heck happened to Morris, but I know better than to engage in such mind games. I wouldn’t be where I am otherwise.
“We are talking to everyone who knows Mr. Morris,” he offered an explanation.
“I don’t know him that well, and I’m sure that Lilly doesn’t know him at all,” I question his reasoning. If he’s here to interrogate me unofficially, I just want him to know that I wasn’t born yesterday.
He ignores my comment and just continues where he left off.
“Miss Saunders will just be asked if you indeed returned home when you said you were,” he informs me.
“In other words, you need her to corroborate my alibi?” I wonder.
I’m still not pissed at this moment. To be honest, I’m amused that Alex was right. He hinted that something like this might happen, and he hit the bull’s eye.
“Like I said,” his voice is calm and composed, “we’re just scratching off some things from the list. If you were home as you say you were, that shouldn’t bother you.”
His last phrase is followed by a defying glance. I know he wants me to react, but I won’t.