Dark eyes, like the ends of a double-barreled shotgun, shifted to Deke. “Don’t play stupid. You know we’re getting a divorce. You’re here because Deidre’s pissed.”
Tyler had been in law enforcement for twenty-plus years, and he knew how the system worked. He would choose his words carefully.
“When’s the last time you saw her?” Alex asked.
Tyler’s frown deepened. “Cut to the chase. What’s going on here?”
Alex needed Tyler to understand he wasn’t in charge of this conversation. “When’s the last time you saw her?”
Tyler shifted his stance. “Last week, at the attorney’s office.”
“She made a call to you last night at about nine.”
“I saw the missed call, but she didn’t leave a message. I didn’t bother to call her back. Why’s this important? Did she or her boyfriend have an issue with me?”
The boyfriend, Alex guessed, was David, the guy from the running group who’d held Deidre close at the track. “Why would they?”
“She was forced to sign an agreement giving me full ownership of the house. I also got the few stocks we had.”
Deidre, from what he’d learned, had been a fierce competitor who didn’t give up easily. Perhaps she had more to gain with David than to hang on to what she’d had with Tyler. Or maybe Tyler knew what buttons to press to make Deidre concede. “So you think this is about money and property?”
He shifted his stance and adjusted his belt buckle. “I told Deidre if she didn’t walk away from the house, I’d let everyone at the Nashville Police Department know that it was her cheating that ended the marriage.”
“Who was she having an affair with?”
“I don’t know the guy’s name. But I saw them together a couple of times. Kissing.” He balled up his fingers into a fist before relaxing them. “Blond. Slick. Pretty boy.”
“Are you the one who keyed her car?” Alex’s question was a guess, but he delivered it as if it were fact.
Tyler’s narrowed gaze confirmed he’d hit a nerve. “That what she told you?”
“Did you key her car?”
Emotion colored his cheeks. “No. Hell no.”
“You look pretty mad,” Deke added. “Mad can make anyone do stupid things.”
“I didn’t key her car and I wasn’t the one calling her in the middle of the night. She accused me of that as well. I’m pissed by her cheating, but I’m not that desperate.”
“She still with this boyfriend?” Deke asked.
“I don’t know.”
“How’d they meet?”
“That running group she started last fall. Started off as wanting to get in better shape, and I was all for that. Next thing I know, she’s packing her clothes and moving out. Needed time to think. That was six months ago.”
Tyler had yet to refer to his wife in the past tense. Could be savvy as easily as innocent. He was a cop and knew what to expect from another cop. “Deidre was found dead in her apartment this morning.”
Alex watched Tyler closely. Intense moments like this had a way of forcing down the guard. And when the guard was down, even the best lies unraveled.
Tyler shook his head, closing his eyes for a moment as if he hadn’t heard. “What did you say?”
Alex enunciated each word carefully. “She was murdered.”
Suspicion darkened his eyes. “How?”
“Stabbed.” Deke spoke, hurtling the word toward Tyler like he was delivering a punch. “At least a dozen times.”
The color from Tyler’s face drained and he stumbled back a step, as if the brutal words came with a physical push. He lowered himself into a chair angled in front of his desk and cradled his head in callused, lined hands. His wedding ring, dulled by time, caught the washed-out light from the ceiling’s fluorescent fixture. “Your facts can’t be right. Deidre is one tough woman. She can kick ass with the best of them.”
“No argument here,” Alex said. “She was one hell of a fighter. But whoever got hold of her was tougher, or they caught her off guard.”
Tyler raised his watery gaze and locked it on Alex. His lips curled into a scowl that deepened the lines around his mouth. “I didn’t kill my wife.”
They weren’t divorced so my wife was technically correct. But Tyler’s emphasis on the words suggested possessiveness. “I didn’t say you did. You’re still her legal husband so I owed you a death notice.”
Tyler balled his fingers into tight fists, as if gripping onto his emotions. “Fuck. I can’t believe she’s dead. Have you told her sister Joy?”
“We put a call in to her. She arrives tonight.”
“Damn. She’s going to be devastated. She and Deidre were so close.” He rubbed his eyes as if they stung.
“You two were involved in a contentious divorce. Your tone and manner suggest you’re pretty angry with her.”
Tyler swallowed as if his throat had filled with sand. “I’d never have killed her. She didn’t deserve that.”
Deke rested his hands in the pockets of his overcoat. “Where were you yesterday and last night?”
Tyler glared at Deke, absently rubbing the underside of his wedding band. He clearly didn’t like being questioned, especially by a younger officer. “Out. On patrol.”
Unmindful or, likely, uncaring of the tension radiating from Tyler, Alex removed a small notebook and pen from his pocket. “By yourself?”
“If you haven’t noticed, we’re a small department, Agent. It was my turn to make the rounds last night and that’s what I did. What do you estimate the time of death?”
Alex, unwilling to be pinned, shrugged. “Not sure yet.”
“The medical examiner is having a look at her late today or tomorrow. Do you know a woman by the name of Leah Carson?”
“No. Who is she?”
Alex had been willing to tag team with Deke on this interv
iew until Deke had mentioned Leah’s name. “She’s in Deidre’s running group. They were friends.”
“I don’t know any of her new friends. Did she meet her in that damn running group as well?”
“I couldn’t tell you how they met.” Alex doled out the truth as easily as a lie if it suited an investigation.
“I’ve never met her.” He tipped back his head. “There was a time when I knew every detail about Dee’s life. But in the last year, she’s become a complete stranger to me.”
“How’d that make you feel?” Deke asked. “Losing control like that can make a guy angry.”
“What’re you, my shrink now?” Tyler growled at the younger agent.
Deke’s easy humor appeared untarnished. “Answer the question.”
“Angry enough to cut Deidre off from our joint assets and angry enough to see that she lost ownership in our house.”
“And to key her car?”
“I never said I did that. But I can tell you I wasn’t angry enough to stab her. Jesus, she was my wife. I loved her.”
“I don’t doubt you loved her. But a razor’s edge separates love and hate.” Forensics suggested this murder had been planned carefully, but Tyler didn’t need to know that. “Maybe you went to reason with her one last time and the visit turned into an argument that escalated. How many times in your job have you seen domestic disturbances that got out of control?”
“This wasn’t a domestic disturbance, Morgan. My wife was murdered.” Pain and seething anger covered the final words.
“I’ve no doubt you love . . . loved her.” He’d seen genuine regret and sadness in a murderer’s eyes before.
Tyler ran a callused hand over his head. “Fuck you.”
He leaned forward, as if he had more to say and then caught himself. “This is the last thing I expected today.”
“I’m sure Deidre would agree,” Alex said.
“I didn’t kill her!” He shouted the words, stopped himself, and then, in a lower voice said, “I might have been pissed, but I’d been pissed at her before. This isn’t the first bad patch we’ve had and I knew it wouldn’t be the last.”