Read Online Eclipse by Hilary Norman - Free Book Online Page A

himself how
much
of a mess. Anyone could yell loud enough for the neighbors to hear, work themselves up, bury their face in their hands.
    This man was a whole lot calmer now than he had been.
    No tears, no look of devastation.
    Still,
ex
-wife, so who knew what had gone on?
    Nothing so bad, so
terminal
, apparently, that he hadn’t been able to come into her home and find her body.
    Sam glanced at Martinez, knew they were browsing the same page.
    They knew that everyone reacted differently to tragedy.
    Certainly ex-husbands, especially after a lousy marriage.
    Though it would have to have been a real bitch of a marriage for a guy not to be genuinely distraught on finding his ex, the mother of his child – presumably – so brutally and grotesquely slain.
    Delgado’s account was straightforward, so far as it went.
    When his fourteen-year-old daughter, Felicia, had been a no-show at St Thomas Aquinas Middle School – less than two miles away – this morning, someone in the school office had called her home and, receiving no answer, had contacted her father at his office.
    That part of the story had already been corroborated. Felicia had missed school time twice in the previous two days, taken by her mother to doctors’ appointments, but Mrs Delgado was always correct, they said, about seeking permission or informing the school if Felicia was sick.
    â€˜You have a key to this house, sir?’ Sam asked.
    â€˜I do,’ Delgado said. ‘It’s my property, for one thing, but my wife likes – liked – me to keep a key.’ The shake of his head was disbelieving. ‘I tried calling Beatriz, and then I came to see what was up, and . . .’ His mouth trembled. ‘You know the rest.’
    â€˜And you have no idea where your daughter might be?’ Sam asked.
    â€˜If I knew . . .’ He shook his head again. ‘I’m scared to death for her.’
    The haunted look now in his dark eyes looked real enough to Sam, except that killers got
haunted
too, because of what they’d done.
    Especially in crimes of passion.
    And he felt that this man was holding back something.
    It made no sense to figure him for Black Hole. Serial killers seldom spilt blood on their own doorstep, unless, of course, they were in a real tight corner.
    If, say, their ex-wife had found out what they’d been doing.
    Though after a thing like that, they were more likely to flee the scene or maybe commit suicide.
    A killer calling in the crime and sticking around for questioning seemed more than improbable to Sam and Martinez.
    The house was busy now, Crime Scene techs all over, Duval on the phone ensuring that teams in Orlando, Jupiter, Naples and Fort Lauderdale were being kept in the loop.
    This case, though, belonged to Miami Beach.
    Goddamned poison chalice.
    Martinez was asking Delgado about his movements the previous evening and night, and early that morning.
    â€˜You have to be kidding me,’ Delgado said, comprehending what he was being asked.
    â€˜It’s routine, sir,’ Sam assured him.
    â€˜I have no
alibi
,’ Delgado said. ‘If that’s what you’re asking.’
    â€˜It would help the investigation,’ Martinez said, ‘to know where you were, sir.’
    â€˜For elimination,’ Sam said.
    â€˜I was alone,’ he said. ‘At home.’
    â€˜Which is where, sir?’ Martinez asked, ready to note it down.
    Home was a condo in Country Club Drive in Aventura, opposite the golf course. Carlos Delgado an affluent real estate broker.
    â€˜Last evening, I was watching the Heat beating the Boston Celtics, eating pizza. Later, I went to bed. This morning, I already told you about.’
    Martinez asked if he’d had the pizza delivered.
    Delgado shook his head. ‘It was in my freezer.’
    No way of confirming any of it.
    They requested his cooperation with fingerprints and a DNA swab, assured him that these, too, were