Free You Know Who I Am (The Drusilla Thorne Mysteries Book 2) by Diane Patterson

Then one of them, the only woman of the four, asked me for my statement again. I asked her if we could talk under the stairs, away from the growing crowd of people. She thought I wanted to get away from the noise. In reality, I needed away from the cameras that were coming out and focusing on me.
      After I talked to the second cop, I stood in the shadows under the stairs and waited for the next time I had to tell the same damn story again. Stevie hadn’t called me back, which meant she didn’t have good news for me yet.
    When the Ford drove up and double-parked behind the second patrol car, I knew two things: the homicide detectives had arrived, and I would be leaving soon. Either with police escort, or without.
    The driver got out—thin, wiry, shorter than my one hundred and seventy-five centimeters. Under the street lights, his skin color looked Hispanic and he had the flattish nose of a Central American Indio. He had an empty expression that must have taken years to develop.
    The second detective got out and I wondered whether he was free for dinner, and then whether I would be free to join him. Or at least out on bail. Forget dinner; I wanted to talk about breakfast. Great gods above, people really were better looking in Los Angeles. He was maybe a decade younger than his partner, taller, and muscular. I admit to being deeply shallow and preferring men who are in damn good shape, which he was. He seemed congenitally unable to smile. I was willing to work very, very hard on that problem. He glanced around the scene and stopped when he came to me. I saw the barest twitch in the side of his lips. A good sign. A very good sign.
    Was being sexually attracted to one of the homicide detectives investigating your husband’s death a normal reaction? I’d ask Stevie, but at a question like that she’d blush and hide in a corner for a while. Until such time as she’d researched the answer in a couple hundred books, half of them in German, and had a prepared a treatise on the topic.
    Then one of the uniforms pointed me out. My current object of serious lust glanced at me, and then said something to his partner, shielding whatever he was saying from view. From my view. But not before I saw that twitch flatten right out and the shoulders stiffen enough to indicate the shields were going up. Clearly, I should make other breakfast plans. And I needed to watch what I said to him. The most likely suspect in someone’s death is immediate family. A marriage like ours, doubly so.
    I hoped Stevie was having luck finding me a lawyer. Any lawyer. Who was willing to accept a down payment of cash from an unknown source.
    Once in my life, I needed to find out if there was an easier way to do something. There had to be. For once, I needed to try that option first.
    The detectives walked toward me. My pulse raced and my solar plexus seized up, which meant my nervous system was in working order. My father used to say the only people who weren’t tense around the police were other cops and criminals.
    My father: a man never nervous around cops.
    After all, he had half of Scotland Yard on his payroll.
    My affect when I’m nervous is to get languid. Relaxed. Some have used the word “cool” and others “patronizing,” but in my own defense I was raised to be patronizing—people were either of our class or they were below it. Just because my station in the world has fallen precipitously doesn’t mean all that early training went to naught.
    When the detectives got to me, the badges came out with introductions. The tall one with the nice body and the not-so-nice scowl was Detective Samuel Gruen. The twitch in his lips developed into a hard stare. All right then—he would be playing the bad cop. His partner was Detective John Vilar. Vilar had a softer, less confrontational stance, and a sadder air. I wondered how long each man had been doing this job.
    Vilar’s eyes were soft and brown. “Mrs. Abbott.” His voice as polite and sad as