Free Clubbed to Death by Elaine Viets

spent a lot of time in a gym. His upper arms bulged.
    “I don’t know,” Helen said. “The last time I saw him, he was walking toward his home.” Then she remembered something that filled her with relief. “Wait! May I see that shirt again?”
    Officer Ruley held up the shirt, just out of Helen’s reach. She couldn’t touch it, but she was close enough to see it.
    “It rained last night,” she said. “That shirt is dry. I don’t know who tore it or how it got so bloody, but the damage happened after I left and after the storm. It was just starting to rain when I pulled out of the parking lot. By the time I got to I-95 it was a deluge. The shirt would have been soaking wet.”
    “We got a couple of drops here at the beach, ma’am. The heavy rain was to the west, by the highway.”
    Florida weather was perverse. There could be a downpour in one neighborhood, and a few blocks away the sky would be clear.
    “Look around the parking lot if you don’t believe me,” Ruley said.
    “Do you see any puddles of water?”
    Helen just saw one puddle—of blood.
    “You don’t know if that’s Rob’s blood on the shirt,” she said.
    “No, ma’am. We’ll run tests for that. We’re also going to check and see if there’s any other blood. Like yours. May I see your hands, ma’am?
    Hold out your hands, palms down.”
    It looked worse than this morning. The knuckles were red, swollen and streaked with purple and green. The scabs were the size of dimes.
    “Unfortunately, you’re under arrest,” the young cop said.
    “Arrest? What for?”
    “For the domestic abuse of your husband.”
    “Ex-husband,” Helen said.
    “We have witnesses that there was an altercation resulting in trauma,” Ruley said. “You were the aggressor in the situation.”
    “Domestic abuse! I’m not married to him. We haven’t lived together for years.”
    “Florida law states if family members who once lived together batter each other, they can go to jail for domestic abuse.”
    “I didn’t abuse him,” Helen said. “I punched him in the mouth. He deserved it.”
    “That’s what they all say,” the cop said.
    Helen’s heart sank. She did sound like one of those hateful wife beaters.
    “What were you fighting about? Alimony?”
    “He doesn’t pay alimony,” Helen said.
    “Your children?”
    “We don’t have any,” Helen said.
    “Your sex life?”
    “We don’t have any of that, either,” Helen said.
    “You had to be talking about something,” Ruley said.
    “His current wife,” Helen said.
    “That would be related to your prior relationship,” the officer said.
    “No,” Helen said. “She can have him. I’m glad he married Marcella.”
    “So glad, you had a fight with your ex. Witnesses saw you hit him.
    He was bleeding. Your knuckles are bruised and scabbed, so you hit him hard. Now he’s missing.”
    “Witnesses also heard him say that there was nothing wrong,” Helen said. “Rob asked the witnesses to forget the whole episode. He said it wasn’t my fault.”
    “That was the last thing he said right before he disappeared,” Ruley said. “We have witnesses to the altercation. We have blood and physical evidence, including your own hands. I’m taking you into custody, Ms. Hawthorne. Put your hands behind you.”
    He began reciting the Miranda warning, “You have the right to remain silent—”
    As Helen was handcuffed, she saw Jessica running up to the entrance of the lot, calling her name. The officer on guard stopped her.
    Jessica clung to the chain-link fence, eyes wide, hair wild, looking like a scene in a movie Helen couldn’t remember.
    “Helen,” Jessica shouted. “What can I do?”
    “Call Margery, the name on my employee contact sheet,” Helen said. “My landlady, Margery Flax. Tell her I need a lawyer.”
    That was about the last thing Helen said for the next five hours.
     

CHAPTER 7
    “I’m not talking until my attorney arrives,” Helen said.
    “That is your right,” Officer