Evidence, C. M. Albrecht [e reader txt] 📗

heavily to his feet. He looked at the widow of Wilson Sharp. “Excuse me for a minute, Mrs. Sharp.” He went into the dining room where he disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. After a few minutes, he came back.
He sat back down on the couch and looked at Allison Sharp. Gertz sat down beside him again.
“Mrs. Sharp,” Music said, “I realize how difficult this must be for you—and we hate to add to your difficulties, but when a murder occurs, we have to investigate, you understand.”
Sharp nodded and murmured something in a voice muffled by her handkerchief.
“So,” Music went on, “as difficult as it may be for you, we’d like to ask you to come down to headquarters tomorrow so that we can take a full statement. That way you’ll have a chance to rest and absorb all this. By tomorrow your head should be a lot clearer. All right?”
She had raised her head in surprise. “Full statement? I mean…I just told you everything I know.”
“Of course you did,” Gertz interjected. “Of course. It’s just that in our line of work, things often get misinterpreted. We try to take notes and later—” she broke off smiling “—later we can’t even read them, or if we can, we can’t quite remember the context. At headquarters we can record everything. And as Detective Music says, your head will be clearer. You may remember things that have slipped your mind for the moment. Then, hopefully, we can leave you alone to begin the grieving process. And I believe we already told you that if you need anyone, we can provide counseling.”
Mollified, Mrs. Sharp nodded. “I—it’s all right. We have a minister. Yes, yes, of course. I can come down tomorrow. I suppose that’s routine.”
“Exactly,” Music told her. “Standard procedure. In the meantime, no matter how hard it is for you, please try to remember anything you can about today’s events - and events leading up to today. Any detail, no matter how small, could be vital.”
“Yes, I will,” she said, dabbing again at her eyes.
“You have a lovely home, Mrs. Sharp,” Gertz told her.
Allison Sharp looked at the detective in a distracted manner. “Oh…yes, thank you. We’ve only been here a couple of years. We—we did have a lot of remodeling planned, but now…” Her voice faded as she looked forlornly about her.
Leaving Mrs. Sharp to grieve in silence, the detectives moved into the library where Allison Sharp’s sister, Lauren Olsen, had been waiting.
A few years younger than her sister, Lauren apparently did not spend as much time working out, Gertz decided. Lauren shared her sister’s features, but with a little more fat to soften the edges. Gertz wrinkled her nose at Lauren’s pleasant, if a bit heavy, perfume.
“So you got here a little before eight-thirty,” Gertz began, looking up from her notebook. “Is that correct, Mrs. Olsen?”
She nodded. “We had a ten o’clock appointment to do our nails, and a pedicure. It’s really hard to get in at Giselle’s toward the end of the week. I wanted to go on Saturday, but Mondays are much slower, and—”
“Okay,” Music cut in as gently as he could, “so you got here a little before eight-thirty and...?”
“And?” she looked curiously at the detective.
“And—I mean, and then what did you do? You eat breakfast here? You went right out?”
“Oh,” Mrs. Olsen said. “No, well, we left almost right away. We had breakfast at a restaurant. By then it was nearly nine-thirty, but then Allie remembered she had forgotten some letters she wanted to mail.”
“So you came back.” Gertz said.
“Yes, that’s right. We only touched down for a minute. I was going to wait in the car, but since we had come back, Allie wanted to show me a new painting she just picked up in San Francisco. A Buvary.” She smiled. “Almost five thousand dollars.” When the detectives expressed no reaction to this, she went on: “Besides, I—” she smiled “—thought I’d better run to the powder room while I had the chance. I don’t like public—you know… and then we were going—”
“Okay, Mrs. Olsen,” Music said, “so why didn’t Mrs. Sharp show you the painting the first time you were here?”
She looked confused. “I—I don’t know. I suppose the forgot about it while we were talking. But later she said she had wanted to show it to me.”
Music nodded. “Now this is very important, Mrs. Olsen. When you got back, was the door unlocked, or locked?” His jaws worked gently, barely in motion.
Lauren Olsen looked at him curiously for a moment. “Why, it was locked, of course.”
“You’re sure?”
She screwed up her eyes and nodded.
“And your sister used her key to open the door?” Music pursued.
“Yes…yes, of course she did. I remember because she dropped her keys and I picked them up for her. It was locked.”
Gertz nodded, jotting in her notebook. “And then what happened? Your sister went upstairs?”
She nodded. “Yes. Well, first she showed me the painting.” She indicated a painting on the wall, a glossy outdoor scene. “We talked for a second about it, and then she went upstairs to get the letters. They were in the secretary. I started to go to the powder room in the hall there, but when I heard Allie scream I ran upstairs. That’s when—I—I never saw a—a body like that before. I mean, I’ve been to funerals, but a dead person like that…”
“Did you know Mr. Sharp was dead right away?”
Lauren looked at Gertz. “Dead? I don’t know. No, not right away. I just assumed he was sleeping, but after her scream, I did think it was odd that he didn’t wake up. Still, I—I didn’t want to disturb him. But I was surprised to find him sleeping so late. Wilson’s a—well, I mean, he was always a go-getter. Up at the crack of dawn. He was a hustler, that man. Maybe I’m a little slow, but death just didn’t occur to me at first. But when I saw the look on Allie’s face, I—and then when I realized…” Lauren Olsen’s face suddenly drained of blood as the reality of the murder evidently began to reach home with her.
“It’s all right, Mrs. Olsen,” Gertz told her. “We understand. Just try to relax.”
Lauren took a moment to get hold of herself and nodded.
“So then what happened?”
“Oh, well I—oh, I remember, Allie cried, ‘My God, Wil’s dead!’ and she ran to the phone and dialed 911.”

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Publication Date: 01-24-2011

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