Chapters (18)
"You're right, this doesn't look good for us," Joel said. He took Diane's hand. "We were already under suspicion. Not Felicia, of course, but Diane and I and Victor, and now that…" He had trouble going on. "Now that her body has been found here—of all the places on earth—I think the police are going to decide it was one of us all along. I almost don't blame them. It just looks bad. If I didn't know how much we loved Tabitha…" He sighed heavily. "Maybe they think we conspired together to kill our daughter. They're paid to be suspicious. They can't know it's the last thing in the world we'd do. But as long as they're focusing on us, they won't be looking for the son of a bitch who actually took her."
"Exactly," Diane said, and her hand rubbed her stomach in a circular motion. I yanked my gaze away.
"How long have the police suspected you?" Tolliver asked. When we'd been there, Tabitha had been missing for several weeks, and the police hadn't been around so much any more. But we'd been impressed at how cordial the relationship that had formed between Detective Haines, who'd been the Last Man Standing on the case, and the Morgensterns had seemed. I should have realized that the other cops might have developed other suspicions. Haines had actually gotten to know the Morgensterns a lot better than her associates.
"From the get-go," Joel said, his voice resigned. "After nosing around Vic for a while, they got the idea that Diane was guilty."
I could almost see why they'd suspect Joel, even Victor. But Diane?
"How could that be?" I said incautiously, and she flushed. "I'm sorry," I said instantly. "I'm not trying to dredge up bad memories. I was sure, always, that you and Joel were telling the truth."