Thread of Truth, стр. 34
She sat up and leaned back in the desk. “What about Olivia?”
“What about her?”
“Have you talked to her?”
I nodded. “Sure. I talked to them right after Desmond's parents hired me and then again after I found him.”
She shook her head, annoyed. “Not what I mean. You were talking about prior relationships and motivation and all that. Have you talked to her?”
“I'm not following,” I said.
“You said I might be considered a suspect because I had a relationship with Desmond and because I was angry at him, right?”
I nodded.
“Well, then you better talk to her,” Christine said. “Because I've never seen an angrier person in my entire life than when she showed up here to confront me.”
THIRTY
I sat back down in the desk. “She came to see you?”
“Oh yeah,” Christine said.
“And she was upset?”
“Big time.”
“She knew about the affair?”
“She found out about the affair,” she corrected. “And then she came to let me have it.”
“How did she find out?” I asked.
“She found an email,” she explained. “At least, that's what she told me in between calling me every name in the book. He always told me that he deleted everything, but it's pretty clear to me now that he didn't.” She shook her head. “But she caught me in the parking lot on my way home. She was waiting on me.”
“So she'd just found out?”
“That's how I took it,” she said. “I mean, she was nearly incoherent, screaming at me. Lots of threats, lots of name-calling, lots of telling me to stay away from him. There was no point in lying to her about anything. She obviously knew. But she didn't even give me the chance to say anything. I couldn't even apologize. She was just spitting fire.”
“Had she talked to Desmond about it?” I asked.
“No idea,” she answered. “I seriously couldn't get a word in. I was terrified of her, in a much different way than Desmond. She wanted to kill me, and I kept thinking she was going to try and tackle me or punch me. Or worse.” She paused. “She didn't, but I was scared. I had my car keys in my hand and I was backed up against my car.”
“Anyone here witness it?”
She shook her head. “No. I'd stayed late to grade papers and I'm pretty sure I was the last one out of the building, save for the maintenance staff. Faculty lot was empty except for the two of us. I think she'd sat out there for a while, waiting on me.”
So Olivia had lied to me, too. I'd specifically asked if she and Desmond were having any problems and she told me they were fine. He'd been jealous of her ex-boyfriend, but otherwise they were good. But she'd apparently left quite a bit out.
“She got to the end of her diatribe,” Christine said. “And she started going on about how she was going to email the principal and the newspapers, to embarrass me. When she stopped to take a breath, I pointed out that was going to hurt Desmond, too. I told her I couldn't stop her, but she was going to hurt him, too. That seemed to give her pause. It took some of the steam out of her. I think she f-bombed me one more time and then left.”
“You didn't talk to her again?”
She shook her head. “Nope. I was almost certain I would and she scared me enough that I checked the locks on my home and put a baseball bat near my bed. But, no. I didn't hear anything from her again.”
“And she was clear? She found an email?”
She nodded. “Yep. Was the first thing out of her mouth. 'I read the email.' I don't know which one, but that was the first thing she said.”
“And you never spoke to Desmond about her coming to see you?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “I'm pretty sure it was the same day he went missing, if I remember right.”
I gave her the date.
“Yeah, that was it,” she said, nodding. “It was the same day.”
Christine could've been making up the story to try and confuse me, but I didn't think she was. She'd already admitted the affair to me and she knew what the consequences would be. She wasn't trying to redirect me. So I assumed she was telling me the truth.
She got up from the desk. “I need to...do some things.”
I stood as well. I needed to do some things, too.
“I was serious about the attorney thing. I'm happy to give you a couple names.”
“I'll be fine,” she said. “Well, not fine. But I'll handle it.”
She didn’t look fine but I took her at her word.
“Will you talk to Olivia?” she said.
“Yes.”
“Because if she was as mad at him as she was at me?” Christine Gonzowski shook her head. “She could've done anything.”
THIRTY ONE
I drove back to Coronado, thinking about everything Christine Gonzowski told me, trying to put it in some order that made sense. I was pretty certain she hadn't done anything to harm Desmond. She offered up too many things that would prove her innocent, at least from an alibi standpoint. But I just didn't see the anger in her that I would've expected to see if she'd been ready to kill him. It wasn't there. She was angry with herself, and maybe with me for forcing her to admit what she'd done, but it hadn't boiled over into some unmanageable rage.
And what she'd told me about Olivia confronting her had me rethinking everything I thought I knew about what happened to Desmond.
I got home, jumped in the shower, and did a little more stretching. My legs and back were still stiff from the day before and the morning stretching hadn't done enough to make me feel like I was walking normally. When I finished, I took