Philadelphia Noir - Carlin Romano [57]
“Help me, Meg,” he said quietly. “We’ve got to get everyone out of this room.”
She nodded and together they started herding out the curious, nudging, even pushing, until the dimly lit room was empty of the living. They stood together, shoulder to shoulder, looking in at the lovely room. Chintz sofas, comfy chairs, warm Aubusson carpet, silk shaded brass lamps, the traditionally decorated Christmas tree in one corner, the dead college girl on the couch.
It seemed like only moments until a rush of cold air from the foyer and gruff men’s voices heralded the arrival of the Lower Merion police.
The investigation was a blur, managing to be intrusive, hyper-real, boring, unfocused, and intense, all at once. Most of the time Meg felt as though she were underwater. Technicians took over the living room. The immediate family was sequestered downstairs in the family room. Guests were asked to wait in the dining room, guarded by two uniformed officers who coped with a barrage of requests to use forbidden cell phones, to go to the bathroom, to leave and come back in the morning.
One by one, they were each brought to the kitchen for an interview with the two detectives, who put their questions quietly and took notes. A steady stream of uniformed officers and technicians came and went, each leaning down to whisper information or request instructions from the seated detectives. Someone had made coffee.
Among the last to be interviewed, Meg told the detectives what she could. It was a party like many others, confused, eventful, inconsequential. Soon forgotten, except, of course, for the murder.
She was leaving the kitchen, gratefully clutching her mug of coffee, when an officer brought Henri in for his interview, his head down, disheveled, looking even more broodingly handsome than ever. Meg glanced at him, passing, then stopped. Henri had already begun to speak in his charmingly accented voice, roughened by alcohol and a hint of something else. Megan stood stunned to hear Henri confess.
“I did it, you know? I murdered that poor girl. I didn’t mean to, you know? But I did it. I’m sorry. Désolé.”
His anguish was genuine. Tears streamed from beneath his long lashes. He ran a hand through his tousled hair, then over his stubbled, cleft chin. “I’m sorry. You know? I didn’t mean it. It just happened, you know?”
Meg gaped at him. He was almost as broken as Lulu had been, a monster, a chimera assembled from parts of his former self. His life was over too, and he knew it.
“I wanted her, you know? Sex, it’s what the party is all about, no? Sex. She wanted it too, but then she changed her mind, pushed me away.” A trace of a smile crossed his face, a remnant of his old roguish charm. “Me. She pushed me away. I knew she wanted it, you know? I took her shoulders and shook her, hard, to make her see reason, you know? But she passed out. I was sure it was only that.” He drew himself up a little. “I make love to a lot of women, you know? But never when they are passed out. So I left the bedroom, my beautiful little chérie untouched on the bed. But I must have killed her. Shook her too hard. Her neck must have snapped, you know? I am … I am désolé.”
His voice broke, his shoulders shook, he dropped his head into his arms on the counter and wept. Meg’s mind reeled. She watched until, at a signal from a detective, an officer put his hand on her arm and led her out of the kitchen.
As she left the room, Meg heard the detective ask Henri how the body had ended up in the den. She knew without looking that Henri only shrugged.
After a long while, the guests were released, shocked, tired, bedraggled, and grief stricken, to make their way home. No one met anyone else’s eyes. An officer asked Meg if she wanted to return to Philadelphia at once, but Thom told them she had planned to stay overnight and was considered family. Meg smiled at him gratefully. She would stay.
Brought back through the living room, Meg stood at the