“No. After Troy . . .” Her voice drifted off as if she’d lost her train of thought.
“What?”
“It just wasn’t good with Troy,” she said, “so I lied about another boyfriend. To get him to leave me alone. Troy was . . . aggressive, I guess. When he drank, it got worse. He was really nasty.” She met the questions in Pescoli’s eyes.
“He hit you.” She’d seen it a hundred times.
“Well, he mainly punched holes in walls or kicked something. His truck once, I saw that. Put a dent in the side panel.”
“But he hit you.” Pescoli could hardly control her rage at the thought.
Ivy’s voice was soft when she said, “Just once.”
“One is one too many times.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“I’d love to run him in or worse,” she admitted.
“No. Don’t. It’s over.”
“Were you drinking with him?” she asked. Ivy was far from legal.
“No. But I got angry with him and he hit me, slapped me hard across the face, then his fist balled, but he backed away. I broke up with him the next day. I remember it was the day after Thanksgiving.”
“Did you report it?”
“I just told you, I ended it.”
“But if he’s violent, he could hurt someone else.”
“Like my mother and Paul? Is that what you’re thinking? Jesus. You cops. He slapped me. He’s not a killer, for God’s sake!”
Pescoli wasn’t convinced, but seeing her niece’s reaction, decided to let it go. For now. “So, back to that night when you got home from Anna’s?”
“I already told you. I found them . . . dead.” She swallowed. “The house was quiet at that point.”
“Did anything seem disturbed?”
“Not that I saw. There was no furniture turned over, if that’s what you mean. I went up the stairs and . . . and I found Mom.” Her gaze dropped back to the cradled cup. “I went to Mom’s room first. I saw her on the bed and I don’t know . . . it was horrible, and I went to Paul’s room.” Her face contorted at the memory. “He was all bloody and . . .” She broke off, shook her head. Her hands quivered as she forced the cup to her lips again. “And then . . . and then, I thought I heard something. . . someone else in the house, and I ran. I just took off . . . out the back.”
“Did you take anything?”
“What do you mean? Oh. The knife. And just what I had with me. My phone and wallet.”
“That’s all?”
There was a beat of hesitation. “I took some money from Paul’s safe,” she admitted in a small voice. “That’s why that guy attacked me.”
“What guy?” Santana’s gaze was boring into her, the iPad forgotten.
“Yeah, what guy?” Pescoli repeated.
“He must’ve seen the cash I dropped at a bus station,” Ivy said, then gave them a horrific story of how she’d been accosted by a man who’d stolen her money and how she’d gotten away from him by spraying him with hair spray, turning his cigarette into flames, which caught in his hair gel and set his head on fire.
Both Pescoli and Santana went silent for a moment, taking that in. The way Ivy described what had happened made Pescoli think the bizarre event would most likely hit the news. She could follow up on that later.
“Do you think this man followed you from San Francisco, that he could’ve been in the house that night?” Pescoli asked.