“I’m innocent.”

“You’ve said. Look, I just need to know your side of it, OK? Just in your own words what really happened.”

“Nothing happened, I’m innocent.”

I want to scream. Why the fuck can’t people just level with you? Even if he tells me he did do it, and that he liked it, that he got off on it. Hell, even if he fucked the corpse, I’d still take the case. God, that would make a good story, adding a necrophiliac angle! Instead I take a long exhale and level my eyes on him.

“Look, Chris. I need to know what happened from your perspective. There is a freezer with the body of your wife in it, and her twin is claiming you held her hostage. Help me out a little, please.”

“It’s not my wife’s body.” It is a statement; he holds my gaze without flinching. I’ve seen enough lying men to know he is telling me the truth.

“What do you mean, it’s not your wife’s body? The twin has already identified the corpse.”

He smiles at me, a slow, languid smile. “And she said it was Megan. But she’s Megan and the body is Leah. Megan killed Leah and is trying to frame me.”

“Why?”

He seems taken aback by the question. I think he was expecting me to dismiss his claim out of hand.

“What do you mean, why?”

“Why would she frame you?”

“What better way to get away with murder?”

He makes a good point. “But why frame you specifically?”

“It’s always either the husband or the lover.”

“They released her boyfriend.”

“Tom? He was a new addition.”

“So she had another lover? Do I need to ask?”

He at least has the good grace to look a little embarrassed.

“So, you were married to Megan but having… what? An affair? With her identical twin sister?” Damn. I’m impressed.

“I’m not proud of it.”

“No, no, of course not.” We both know he was proud, once upon a time.

“Is that why she killed her?”

“Jealousy is a bitch.” He grins.

“All right,” I say, taking a sip from my coffee cup before placing it down carefully. I pick up my pen. It’s a Cross and I notice Chris’s eyes swing toward it. I do have the ubiquitous Mont Blanc, of course; I bring it out when my clients are more obviously label-driven, and they are always either impressed or a little pissy that I charge them so much that I can afford to spend hundreds of pounds on a pen. But the Cross is a power play; it says I have taste beyond mere price. Every president since Reagan has used a Cross, at least until Trump started using a Sharpie. Chris’s recognition of the brand tells me there is a lot more to this man than a pretty face. I push myself back on to the rear legs of the chair and make a show of getting comfortable. “Let’s level here. There is a lot of evidence against you. I’m not going to sugar-coat it. You are up shit creek, and I am the only hope you have of a paddle.”