Afterlight - Elle Jasper [102]
Claude ignored Phin and stared hard at me. “You’ll find out. Let’s go.”
I gave a short laugh. “If you think I’m riding anywhere with you, you’ve grown senile in your old age, Murray.” I grabbed my keys off the hook. “Why am I needed for questioning?” I asked, hooking my pack onto my back.
Claude Murray, a graying man in his midfifties and getting more portly by the second, gave me a hard stare. “Looks like your past is coming back to bite you in that little ass of yours, Poe,” he said quietly. “Your old boyfriend Kelter Phillips just turned up at the city morgue.” His gaze raked over my body, and I literally felt like I needed a bath. “And according to his girlfriend, you were the last to see him alive.”
Part 9
QUICKENING
I was pretty sure that perv Murray noticed the shock on my face about Kelter, and was even surer he took pleasure in delivering the information. Not that there was any love lost—not by any means. It’s always a shock when someone dies unexpectedly—even a scumbag like Kelter. I was actually surprised he’d lived as long as he had.
On the way to the police station I gave Phin the skinny on my background with Detective Claude Murray. I stared at a traffic light through my shades and began. “Ol’ Claude had a thing for me back then—yeah, gross, I know. Even though I was just a kid, I could tell he was a freak. I’m sure I wasn’t the only juvy he had a thing for.”
“What do you mean?” Phin asked, his voice growing dark, like Eli’s did.
I shrugged. “You know—his touch lingered way too long when cuffing or uncuffing me, and whenever we were alone he’d touch my hair, brush against me—sick stuff like that.” I laughed cynically. “I guess because I was a little junkie at the time, he thought he could get away with it. And he had. I’d been privately scared of him back then. Now? I’ll kick his ass, even if it means a night or two in jail.”
Phin sat quietly in the passenger seat and listened, his face growing angrier by the second, and I knew then that Detective Claude Murray was now on the Duprés’ lifelong shit list.
“Hey,” I said, and punched him in the arm. “I got it. No worries. I’m a big girl now, not some crazy little druggie teenager. Okay?”
He glanced at me, and although I couldn’t see his eyes through his shades, I knew he was scowling. “Right.”
I parked the Jeep and popped some quarters in the meter, and Phin walked into the station with me. He stood against the wall and waited, arms folded over his chest, and I was led into the back. When I glanced back, he had his cell phone out, and I knew he was calling Eli. Oh, boy. Phin shrugged, and I continued down the hall.
I knew the way, of course, and saw that things really hadn’t changed in ten years. Claude was waiting farther up the hall—the inside of the station reminded me a lot of junior high, with dingy white concrete walls and tile floors, wooden doors with little brown nameplates screwed onto them. And . . . it smelled funny. Weird-funny, and it brought back old, unwanted memories. Claude smiled at me as the police officer escorted me to the interrogation room, and I went quietly in and sat down.
“So you’re hanging out with old friends, Ms. Poe?” Claude asked.
“No. Just went by for a few drinks.”
Claude leaned over my shoulder. “I have a witness that says she watched you enter the back rooms with Kelter Phillips after making nicey with him at the bar. And you know we know what goes on back there.”
I gave him a glare. “Get to the point, Detective. Yes, I saw him that night, but so did hundreds of others. When I left, he was very much alive.”
“Alibi?” he asked.
“Sure. Why don’t you ask the doorman, Zetty? He watched me leave.”
“Were you with anyone?” He walked around to face me. “Oh—let me clarify that. Were you with someone whose last name you knew?”
Prick. “Yes.”
Claude blinked and waited. “Well, are you going to give me a name?”
I looked him in the eye, although I hated bringing Eli into this. “Eligius Dupré, and I was with him