"The hell with the clasp," I snarled. "Tell me the rest of it."

Leah flinched at my tone. "Gerhard went at her again, and again she resisted. She threatened to lodge a complaint with the police and to tell his wife he attempted to rape her. So Gerhard threatened her back. If she told anyone about what had happened, he would expose her as Inspector Clapper's whore. In fact, he would do it anyway if she didn't sleep with him." Leah paused and wet her lips. "Gerhard told me Esther was frozen with shock when she heard he knew about her and Clapper."

"But Esther didn't sleep with Strauss, did she?"

"No. She ran out of the office, crying."

And later Esther told Natalie Davidson that there was a problem at work, but that she could handle it. What had she planned on doing? Had she had a plan at all?

I said, "When did Strauss tell you all this?"

"Later, when we were in—" She bit off the end of her sentence, but I would have put money on the missing word being bed. Strauss and Leah had used the attempted rape of Esther as foreplay, a means by which to enhance their lovemaking. My stomach flipped at the perversity of it.

"How could you do this to her? To your friend?"

Leah's eyes flashed and her face hardened into a childish mask of fury. "She wasn't my friend. I hated her. Her perfect skin, her height, her beauty, her flawless English, her grace, the way men looked at her. She could have had her pick. I'm sure she could have married some English officer if she wanted, and he would have taken her away from here, to England. I wanted her to suffer. I wanted her humiliated. I wanted her to be just like me so she wouldn't be better than me."

"But she was," I said softly. "She was infinitely better."

Leah stared at me for a breathless moment, the fury slowly evaporating from her eyes. Then it was as if an invisible hard shell around her had crumbled and a sliver of her repressed humanity peeked out. Burying her face in her hands, she broke out in tears, her small frame quaking with loud sobs.

I gave her a minute to stop crying. It took her more than twice that. Finally, she ceased and lowered her hands. Her face was a mess—eyes reddened, nose runny, cheeks slick with tears.

"I know I shouldn't have done it," she said in a choked voice. "I know it was wrong."

"It's too late for that," I said. "What I need you to tell me now is whether Strauss killed Esther and the baby."

She stared at me in shock, then violently shook her head. "No. Of course not."

"Why not? He tried to rape her and she threatened to tell his wife. It's as good a motive as you'll find."