She smiled now, quick and easy. “It thrilled me, thrilled me enough I took a chance and contacted a college friend who worked in publishing. She agreed to read it, and she liked it.”
Now DeLano let out a sigh. “What a moment that was. She had a few editorial suggestions, and I worked on those in secret. And when I had, when she read it again, she bought the manuscript. It was, and is, one of the biggest moments of my life.”
DeLano glanced at Nadine. “You understand.”
“I do, absolutely.”
“I contacted my mother,” DeLano continued. “I didn’t tell her, but asked if she’d like to have the girls, an overnight. Of course she did, so I arranged that. I spent the day shopping for candles, flowers, what I needed at the market to prepare Craig’s favorite meal. I did all this with such excitement, such joy. I was a writer. I’d written a book. It would be published. People would read it.
“When Craig came home, I had the scene set. An elegant, intimate dinner for two. I had champagne. He questioned why I’d let my mother take the girls—without clearing it with him—but I told him I wanted a special evening for the two of us.”
She looked down at her linked hands. “He thought I was pregnant. He didn’t know, as I also kept that to myself, that I was on birth control because I wasn’t ready to have another child so quickly. I wanted another year first so, rather than argue, I’d lied. I’m not proud of that.”
“Your body,” Eve pointed out. “Your choice.”
“Yes, but he wouldn’t have agreed, so I took the coward’s way. In any case, I told him no, not yet, but I had, in a way, given birth.
“That night, I poured the champagne, and I told him about the book, how I’d written it in my free time over the last year or so, how much fun it had been for me, how satisfying. And best of all I’d sold it. He listened to all this, and I should’ve known, I should’ve seen it, but I was so happy, so inside my own excitement, I didn’t see what was coming. Free time? he asked me. Wasn’t that interesting? I had so much free time. I had free time because he did all the work, and I’d used what he’d given me to lie and deceive, to hide my ingratitude.”
She took a long breath. “I tried to defend myself, to tell him I hadn’t neglected anything. Him, the girls, the house. But … He took my plate, dumped the food on the floor—to remind me I only had food and shelter because he provided them. When I objected, he hit me. When I objected to that, he hit me again, and again. He ordered me to destroy the manuscript, tell this friend he suspected I’d had sex with I’d made a mistake. He ordered me to clean up the mess I’d made, then come upstairs and do what his wife was obligated to do.”
Eve gave it a moment while DeLano visibly composed herself. “And did you?”
“A stronger woman would have told him to go to hell, but, yes, I cleaned up the mess, put the kitchen to rights. I locked myself in the powder room long enough to take a picture of my face, the bruises, the blackening eye. Then I went upstairs. It was rape, but I didn’t fight. I didn’t protest. In fact, I pretended to enjoy it. In the morning, I fixed his breakfast, apologized again when he demanded it. When he left for work, when I was sure it was safe, I packed what I needed, I packed what the girls needed, and I left. I went to my mother’s. She called a friend, a lawyer. I arranged for a neighbor of my mother’s to keep the girls while the three of us went to the police and filed charges. I also filed for divorce.”
“What did he do?” Eve asked.
“He objected. He claimed I’d committed adultery, had been an abusive wife and mother. But he couldn’t prove any of it, as it simply wasn’t true. He threatened, and he made the next several months very hard. But I knew he didn’t want the girls, and I would not, I would not have them live under a man like Craig. I went to therapy, I wrote another book—and lived with the girls, with my mother.”
“What about the assault? Did he get dinged for it?”
“His lawyer suggested that the divorce would go smoother if I withdrew the charges. I wouldn’t. I’d had smooth, accepted smooth, and it made me a doormat. What would being a doormat, what would allowing myself to be physically attacked teach my daughters? He eventually pled it down, did community service, had to agree to rehab for domestic abuse, and two years’ probation.”
“A ding. Not enough of one, but a ding.”
“He remains bitter, and I think sincerely believes he was wronged, that he was an ideal husband to me. But he never laid a hand on me again. As I said, he remarried, he has the son he wanted, and—from what I can glean—a biddable wife.”
“Maybe tuning her up is part of the biddable.”
DeLano shut her eyes again. “I don’t know. I hope not, but I don’t know.”
“He resents your work—I bet part of the bitter is lodged in your success with that work.”
“Yes. And I’ll admit to feeling some ugly little satisfaction from that.”
“Using your work to kill could be some serious payback.”
“I can’t see it. Believe me, that’s not defending him. He’s a small man, Lieutenant. And a man who prides himself on image and status. If he wanted payback, if he needed it, he’d try to smear my reputation. But to do that would smear his own. So he leaves me and mine alone, and I do the same for him.”
“Okay.” Eve let it drop, fully intending to see for herself.
She opened the file, studied the crime scene photos of the street LC, the white scarf with the perfectly tied side bow around her neck.
“Who killed the LC in the book, and why?”
“I had a female killer, a fairly traditional wife and mother, I later realized I based in part on myself. She had a psychotic break when she realized her husband used LCs—very young LCs—and murdered three before they caught her. The white scarf and bow symbolized the sash and bow from her wedding gown.”
“A female serial. Any connection to the killer and motive from the second book?”
“None, except the characters of Dark and Hightower, and some of the other cast I developed in the first series. In that second case, the killer was male, paid to kill the actress by the lover of an actress up for the same part.”
“A pro?”
“No. A failing screenwriter trying to get backing for his script. A friend of the lover was a producer. The agreement is: Kill this woman and I’ll produce your script. The killer had no connection to the victim. They’d never met. The screenwriter and the producer have a falling out when the producer goes low budget and the screenwriter wants more. The producer kills the screenwriter.”
“How?”
“God, do you think … He sets it up to look like a suicide. Gets the screenwriter drunk—while agreeing to the high budget treatment. When he’s drunk enough, the producer hangs him, types a suicide note on the computer. It’s bungled, and Dark is already looking at the producer. More, the screenwriter left the outline of a new script on the same computer. One that mirrors the deal made, the killing done.”
“The third book. The main murder if there’s more than one.”
“I’m going to need stronger than water before this is over. Poisoning, in an edgy, popular club, a crowded dance club. Cyanide added to a pomtini.”
“A what?”
“A martini flavored with pomegranate. They’re popular. The victim is a minor celebrity. She was the girlfriend of a trash rock musician—that’s what launched her celebrity. Bad girl, wild child, lives on the edge, and often over it. She uses people as freely and carelessly as she uses illegals.”
“Nice. Okay, we’re going to want to see your reader communications. Start with the last year.”
“All right. I’ll have my mother put it together. She handles that end of things, and the social media.”
“You say you don’t date. Is there anyone you’ve brushed off in the last year or so?”
“I don’t really put myself in that situation.” With a half smile, DeLano lifted her shoulders. “I’m a forty-three-year-old single mother and introvert.”
“You look good, you’ve got a brain, notoriety, and you’ve got money.”
DeLano opened her mouth, closed it, considered. “Well, yes.”
“Think about it. You may want to talk to your mother about this, since it would give her more of a sense of what to look for, or it might spark a memory of a communication that applies. Otherwise, don’t talk about this.”
“I need to tell my girls.”
“Teenage girls tend to blab to other teenage girls.”
“Not if I put it under the dome. The Family Only Dome. It’s a sacred trust in our house. My mother’s the same, Lieutenant. If it’s put under the dome, it stays under the dome.”
“You can consider all this under the dome,” Eve said to Nadine.
“Understood and agreed in advance. It’ll break eventually, Blaine. You should work on a statement, have it ready when it blows.”
“Right, yes. You’re right. If you need me for anything, Lieutenant, anything, I’ll be available. I’ll get out of your way.” She rose. “Thanks, Nadine, for coming in with me.”
“If you need anything, tag me,” Nadine replied.
“I will, and I’m not going to be shy about it. I love my work. The good guys win. Terrible things happen, ugly things, but the good guys win. I’m going to count on that.”
“I’m going to show you out, Ms. DeLano.”
When Peabody took DeLano out, Eve stayed where she was.
“How well do you know her?” she asked Nadine.
“I’d call us casual friends. She’s been on Now a few times, gives a good interview. She’s not bullshitting about not socializing much. I did meet her kids and her mother—they all came to the studio once. Tight unit. What was your impression of her?”