Twisted Game (Margot Harris 6)

“I was with him just like I told you.”

“Yeah, but you left out the part where he left at eight-thirty. Did you know your husband was on his phone from eight-forty-six to eight-fifty-four?”

“Okay, what does that have to do with anything?”

“Good thing you’re pretty, Phoebe, because you’re kind of dumb. It means he wasn’t stabbed until sometime after eight-fifty-five. You want to know how long it takes to get from the Palms to your place at eight-thirty at night?”

Phoebe didn’t answer.

“Kind of puts you home in time to kill your husband and his girlfriend.”

“But I wasn’t there.”

“It’d be nice if we could prove that.”

“What happened to innocent until proven guilty?”

“It’s a nice idea, but the bloody dress they found stuffed in your trash can seems to have put the ball in our court.”

“Anyone could have put that there.”

“Okay, but since you were seen wearing it earlier in the day, it would help if we could show you couldn’t have been there.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Then where were you?”

“I stayed in the room. They’re nice rooms and I figured if Tim didn’t expect me back until eleven, I ought to stay out until eleven. It was part of our unspoken arrangement.”

“Unspoken arrangement?”

“What you don’t know can’t hurt you.”

“You sure he was in on the arrangement?”

“He pretended to buy that I was going to hang out with some girls from the golf club. He might not have been the brightest bulb on the string, but he wasn’t that stupid. What about the knife or Tim’s missing engraved straight razor?”

“I think they’ve determined the razor wasn’t the murder weapon.”

“But it was gone.”

“If you say so.”

“I do. What about the butcher’s knife then?”

“The one that’s missing? The wounds are consistent with that kind of knife.”

“So, it was the murder weapon?”

“Or one a lot like it.”

“Wouldn’t I have thrown that in the same trash can with the dress? How is it that I was supposedly dumb enough to put evidence in my trash bin, but I hid the knife where they couldn’t find it?”

“It’s a fair point, but ‘Why would I do something dumb’ defense has never held up in court and you’re making a huge assumption that they won’t find it between now and the trial.”

Phoebe started to say something but caught herself. Instead of talking, she put a cigarette between her lips. After she lit it up and blew out some smoke, she asked, “What now?”

“Maybe Mr. and Mrs. Helms didn’t have the same unspoken agreement you and Tim had.”