“Danishes,” said Serrano.
“Right,” Wickersham said. “So what can I do for you, Detectives?”
“Obviously you know that Constance Wright died the other night,” Tally said.
“I heard,” Wickersham said. He didn’t appear to be too beat up about it. “She was killed, right?”
“Appears so,” Serrano said. Wickersham pulled a metal stool from under the granite countertop and sat down. “Obviously you two had a history.”
“That’s one way of putting it.” Wickersham looked at the coffee maker as though hoping it had miraculously brewed in the thirty seconds since he’d turned it on. “That’s exactly what it is. History. I’ve moved on. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Nobody said you did,” Serrano said. “By the way, this is a nice place. What do you pay in rent?”
“Scuse me?” Wickersham said.
“Rent. What do you pay?”
“I don’t know. Three grand a month. Why does that matter?”
“Try fifty-one hundred a month,” Tally said. Wickersham looked up from the coffee maker.
“What’s your point?”
“Point is,” Serrano said. “We checked the FEC records for your time at the mayor’s office. Lucky for us you were a government employee, so your salary is a matter of public record. You were making thirty-seven grand a year. Before taxes.”
Wickersham turned back to the coffee maker, seemingly trying to will it to finish brewing. “Stupid thing takes forever,” he said. He looked at Serrano. “Did you say you did or didn’t want a cup?”
“I prefer iced,” he said.
“It’s twenty degrees outside,” replied Wickersham.
“Coffee tastes better when it’s frosty.”
“We spoke to other employees at Velos,” Tally said. “Do you know a woman named Adeline Bowers? She’s your age. Been there five years. Started a month before you. Do you know her?”
“Of course,” Wickersham said. “Adeline works in the office next to mine. Boyfriend is always coming by to take her to lunch. Sends her flowers, like, every other week. I mean, some people just don’t act professional.”
“You really have it out for her,” Serrano said.
“It’s nothing personal,” Wickersham said, in a tone of voice that made it sound very personal. “I mean, don’t you hate when people can’t keep their personal and professional lives separate? It’s gross. Like, this is a place of work, right?”
“Sure,” Serrano said.
“And I don’t need my desk smelling like whatever hooker scent she decided to wear that day.”
Tally’s eyes widened. “Hooker scent?”
“Just, it’s overpowering is all I meant. I have sensitive nostrils.”
“Sensitive nostrils,” Tally said. “That’s a first.”
Serrano said, “Ms. Bowers told us she makes sixty-four grand a year. She seems like a smart and ambitious woman. She even wants to open up her own consulting firm down the road.”
“And?”
“And if she’s making sixty-four grand a year and seems to have far better people skills than you, I have to ask: What do you pull down a year, Sam?”
“None of your business,” he said.
Tally said, “No way you’re clearing more than sixty, sixty-five grand a year.”
Serrano added, “I can tell from your reaction that’s on the high end.”
“So what?” Wickersham said.
“So you’re on the hook for over sixty grand a year in rent alone. So, after taxes, you must be running at quite a loss.”
“I have money,” Wickersham said. “In savings.”
“That right?” Serrano said. “Where’d that money come from?”
“An inheritance,” he said, with just enough of a pause between the two words so that all three of them knew he was lying.
“Oh yeah? Who died?”
“My . . . aunt.”
“On which side?”
“Mom’s,” he said quickly.
“When did she die?”
“Last year.” Again, too quickly.
“Last year,” Tally said. “So how did you afford the apartment when you first moved in?”
“I meant she died five years ago,” Wickersham said. The coffee maker beeped. Wickersham poured himself half a cup, filled the rest with half-and-half, and then added two Splendas. He sipped it and grimaced.
“Too hot?” Serrano said. Wickersham shook his head and took another sip.
“What was your aunt’s name?” Tally asked.
“Why do you want to know?”
“I’m making a collage of the Wickersham family tree for a class project,” Serrano said. “Now what. Was. Her. Name.”
Wickersham opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He looked from Serrano to Tally and back. His eyes were despondent, his confidence evaporated.
“What do you want from me?” Wickersham asked. His voice had changed. Fear dripped from it.
“Constance Wright called you the day she died,” Serrano said. “We cross-checked her phone records against yours. In fact, she had called you eight times over the past three weeks.”
“We want to know why,” Tally said.
“I never spoke to her,” Wickersham said. He put his coffee on the counter, placed his palms on the granite, and took a deep breath. “She kept calling and calling, but I never picked up.”
Tally said. “Why didn’t you want to speak to her? You two had a thing, right? You’re single, she’s single . . .”
“How do you know I’m single?” Wickersham said.
“There’s a condom in your change dish by the door, Romeo,” Tally said. “You show me a girlfriend who isn’t suspicious of that, and I’ll show you an imaginary girlfriend. So why didn’t you want to speak to Constance?”
“I had nothing to say to Ms. Wright,” Wickersham said. Serrano noted the respectful way he addressed her. Ms. Wright.
“She obviously had something to say to you. And we think we know what it was,” Serrano said.
Wickersham looked up at Serrano. Even he was curious.
“I think she wanted her money back,” Serrano said. “I think you were paid, and paid well, to lie about having an affair with Constance Wright. You brand her an adulterer, a drunk, maybe plant a bottle of booze where a photographer can get a shot of it, and she subsequently gets annihilated in her divorce settlement and ends up resigning from office. Everybody wins.”
“Except the dead woman,” Tally said, “and her child.”
Wickersham’s jaw dropped. He studied Serrano’s and Tally’s faces to see if they were serious. Serrano nodded.
“That’s right. She was pregnant when she died.”
He stammered, “I . . . I didn’t know. It’s not mine, I swear to God.”
Serrano looked at the kid. Nobody was that good of an actor. He believed him.
“Maybe it wasn’t your kid,” Serrano said, “maybe it was. We’ll need you to submit a DNA sample to confirm paternity or lack thereof. Will you submit to one?”