Sullivan's Justice by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg

Carolyn, but she had known her fairly well. She’d seen a lot of her back when Laurel and Neil had first started dating. Carolyn had also seen Laurel around town during her marriage, and assumed she was happy. It was emotionally wrenching to know she was dead. But it was Neil she was worried about. He appeared confident, but underneath, he was emotionally fragile. Because his income had substantially diminished during the past six months, he had begun making drastic changes in his life. He’d only resumed dating Laurel a short time ago. Carolyn had told him how foolish it was to ask Laurel to marry him. Neil could also be stubborn. He’d refused to listen to her. She shouldn’t have called him from the jail yesterday. When she’d called him back around noon to tell him she was all right, he’d been rushing out to pick up Laurel.
    Hank Sawyer placed his hand on Carolyn’s shoulder and she jumped. “Guess you were right about not drinking tonight. How’s Preston? I heard our boy Raphael did a number on him.”
    “He has a few broken vertebrae,” she told him, wincing. “I warned him. Moreno is a scary character. Brad’s lucky to be alive.”
    Carolyn and Sawyer were close friends. He was not only a detective, but a sergeant over at the homicide division. “What are you doing here, Hank?” she asked, trying to appear nonchalant. “The poor woman drowned. I need to talk to my brother. He was terribly upset when he called me.”
    “Looks like we’ve got ourselves a homicide,” he said, chomping on a toothpick.
    Carolyn felt her blood pressure shoot up twenty points. She knew now was the time to keep her mouth shut. Hank was here in an official capacity. Pushing past him into the house, she saw Neil seated at the kitchen table. His dark hair was wet, his eyes red and puffy, and he had one of the gray blankets used by the paramedics tossed over his shoulders. She pulled up a chair beside him. “What did you mean on the phone? Did something happen between you and Laurel?”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “I came home and found her. . . . She was . . . she was floating in the pool.” He stopped and wiped the tears from his eyes. “I tried to save her. She was . . . gone. Why would she go swimming at night during a rainstorm? It doesn’t make sense. All she had on was her underwear. I looked for the rest of her clothes, but I couldn’t find them.”
    “Were you alone when you found her?”
    “Yes,” Neil said. “It was late . . . after eleven. I’d already taken my medicine to help me sleep and gone to bed, then I saw . . .”
    Carolyn looked up. Hank was conversing with a black detective named Mary Stevens.
    She leaned over and whispered in her brother’s ear. “Don’t talk right now. The police are handling this as a homicide. You may be a suspect.”
    Neil’s eyelids flickered in fear. He grabbed hold of his sister’s forearm. “That’s ridiculous,” he said. “I didn’t kill her. Besides, I’m certain she’s been dead a long time. Her body was stiff and cold . . . so cold.” He placed his palms over his face, then slapped them down on the top of the table. “I was in LA most of the day. I wasn’t even here. How could the police accuse me of killing her?”
    “Stay calm,” Carolyn told him. “We’ll get to the bottom of this. You have to do exactly what I say, though. Don’t answer any questions or make any spontaneous statements.”
    They linked eyes; then Carolyn went to speak to Hank. Mary had gone outside where the coroner, Charley Young, was examining the body. “Tell me what you have, Hank.”
    He held up a plastic evidence bag containing the syringe. “We found this in the master-bathroom sink. Is your brother a diabetic?”
    “No,” Carolyn answered, wrapping her arms around her chest. “Is there anything in there?”
    “Looks like it,” Hank told her, pointing at a small amount of yellowish liquid located at the bottom of the syringe.