Free A Veiled Deception by Annette Blair

veil. So I guess I needed to find somebody with a possible link to the girl. The exercise served as a diversion until the uniforms came for us. They took us one by one, as if for a date with destiny, where one might expect to be shot by a dozen rifle-bearing officers speaking a foreign language, or so the maudlin situation made my overactive mind work, which could account for my “vision/hallucination/flight of fancy.”
    When Sherry and Fiona followed a detective from the room, Justin and I reached out emotionally, and he came to sit beside me.
    Nobody who’d gone for questioning returned, so the room slowly emptied. Cue the X-Files soundtrack. Shiver. I grabbed Justin’s hand. The Sweets eventually joined us. Werner must have started early canvassing the neighbors.
    Young Mrs. Sweet apologized for offering a hanging tree to lynch Jasmine “just last night, the poor dead thing.”
    Still poker-faced, Deborah made no sound, not even the pretense of a sniff.
    “Mrs. Sweet,” I asked the elder. “Were the two of you called in for questioning?”
    “Of course not, dear. We’re here to support Sherry.”
    “Bless your hearts.”
    They sat with us, improving the ambiance in the room with their smiles and signature scents of rose water and baby powder.
    Werner came for me himself.
    At first, he sat behind his desk, across from me, and sized me up—payback for the Wiener comment, no doubt. Then he shrugged, repeated last night’s questions, after which I repeated my answers. While I did, he filled in the blanks on his computer screen, and printed the statement form out for me to read and sign.
    “What about the autopsy?” I asked. “Any clues there?”
    “You watch too much TV. We don’t have the report yet, and if we did, I wouldn’t be discussing it with you .”
    “I’m sorry,” I said, relaxed now that my official statement had been taken.
    “No problem. It’s natural to be curious, especially when you’re the one who found the body.”
    “No,” I said. “I apologize for giving you that nickname in school. Kids can be cruel. I’m sorry I was a typical, cruel kid.”
    He looked at me as if he actually saw me, maybe for the first time, until his gaze focused beyond me . . . to a hurtful place?
    Guilt skewered me, but Werner’s sigh held a “c’est la vie” quality. “I like to think of that episode in my life as character building,” he said. “Because of it, I learned to fistfight at an early age, work out regularly, and generally stand up for myself, which encouraged me to enter the police academy.”
    He shrugged. “Maybe I would have been a wuss, without your ‘help,’ and I use the term loosely.” He shook his head philosophically. “Who knows, but for you, I might be a shut-in computer nerd, instead of a detective. I didn’t like what you did, but I took what I could from it and threw the rest away.”
    “So you forgive me?”
    His grin wasn’t meant to be pleasant. “I didn’t say that.”
    “Okay, so you’re not a forgiving man, but you are a fair one.”
    “I am. I want the real killer, Madeira. I hope, for your sake, it’s not your sister.”
    “It’s not. Thank you.” I turned to go back to the waiting room, but he took my arm and steered me around toward a side door that led to the parking lot. My father and Cort were exchanging literary quotes in lieu of conversation. Justin stopped pacing when he saw me.
    “Where’s Sherry?” I asked him.
    “She and Fiona haven’t come out, yet, and they went in for questioning before us.”
    “Baste it!” I swore. “And your mother?”
    “She’s not out yet, either.”
    Deborah came out almost immediately, but another fifteen minutes passed before Sherry joined us, and she’d been crying. I met her and took her in my arms, everyone crowding around us, but as soon as Justin broke through, Sherry moved into his arms.
    “Are you okay, hon?” he asked, smoothing her hair back from her brow. She was looking down, so we