Page 134 of Boardroom Ties
Nothing that gets a detective this excited could be good for me.
Kramer’s pen stops moving. He sets it down on top of his folder. Then he folds his hands in front of him and leans forward a few inches. “Now,that,” he says, “is an interesting question, Mrs. Snyder.”
The hair on the back of my neck stands up.
“Why would you ask me that?” he presses.
I scramble. “Because— Because he’s— he’s my husband’s protégé. At the firm. I— I don’t know who else to— I mean, he works for Raymond.Worked.For Raymond. So he’d know what to— I mean, in terms of the firm, and, and the partners, and?—”
Detective Kramer looks at me with a frank,do not bullshit mecalmness. His pressed lips aren’t moving, but I can basically hear him saying,I’ve been doing this job for a quarter-century, I’ve heard every lie a human mouth can make, and yours, ma’am, is not even in the top five hundred of believable.
“Mr. Satyrin,” he says carefully, “was found in your apartment. Standing approximately fifteen feet from your husband’s body, with an unlicensed handgun on the floor at his feet. The serial number had been filed off. Would you like to tell me, again, why you’re asking after him?”
I take a long, slow breath through my nose. I’ve been lying for so, so long—to Raymond, to the world, even to myself. It’s time for all that practice to pay off. I need to summon all my powers of deception right now if I want to make it out of this room.
I smooth my expression and look up at the detective. “I just— I just want to know what happened,” I say in my bestDistraught Widowtone. “If he was there, then… I mean, I have arightto know what happened in my own home, don’t I?”
“Certainly. You have a right to a lot of things.” Detective Kramer taps the folder. “So let me lay it all out for you.”
He opens the folder and turns it around so I can see.
The first photograph is of the master bedroom. Raymond is lying in the bed. I look at it briefly, and then I look away. My first thought isn’t for my own wave of nausea; it’s for the baby suffering right alongside it. She shouldn’t have to see something this gruesome.
Babies don’t know what they’re looking at,I remind myself.Babies are safe inside.
The second photograph shows Matvei’s gun on the floor.
The third is a close-up of my hand. Someone—a gloved someone, a cop—is holding my limp wrist up, palm out. My fingers are dusky with residue. My wedding ring is missing.
“Cause of death is two gunshot wounds to the chest and one to the head, fired at close range,” Detective Kramer recites. “Weapon was recovered at scene. Recovered weapon appears to match the rounds, ballistically, though we’re waiting on full lab. We found GSR residue on your hand, Mrs. Snyder, consistent with someone who recently fired a weapon. We pulled your prints off the grip.” He turns over another page and continues reading. “There was a sleep aid in your bloodstream, but not enough to knock out a woman your size, in our medical examiner’s estimation. Just enough to muddy the waters. It looks staged. Looks, frankly,amateur.”
“That’s not?—”
“We’ve also got your phone, ma’am. Your everyday phone. A forensic analysis revealed searches forcyanide dosage.Untraceable poisons.How long does life insurance take to pay out. Pretty bad look, that one.”
“That’s old,” I whisper hoarsely.
“It’s all in there, Mrs. Snyder. Months and months of it.” He turns another page. “Now, onto Mr. Satyrin. Apprehended at the scene, no alibi for the window of death. We don’t know yet how he got in, but we will. Forensics is tearing the place apart as we speak.”
Detective Kramer settles back in his seat and folds his hands in his lap. “My personal theory, just between us girls? You and Mr. Satyrin had a thing. He’s a good-looking man. You’re a pretty woman. Your husband, by all accounts, had some rough edges. So the way I see it, you and Mr. Satyrin here hatched a plan together. He let you do the honors of firing the kill shot, and then he sent you off to bed to pop your pill and pretend you were out during the whole thing while he finished up. Except we got there first, thanks to a Good Samaritan call alerting us to suspicious activity at the building. So here we all are.”
“That’s not— that’s not what happened.”
But I can’t even argue. What is there to even say?It started like this: Five years ago, my husband killed my sister…The whole thing from there smacks of fiction. It’s just too much in every way. I’m too much. Raymond is too much. Matvei, as anyone who’s ever met him can attest to, is abso-fucking-lutely too much.
So even though I try to speak, not a single word emerges.
Detective Kramer sighs. He flips the folder closed. “I’ll tell you something else, Mrs. Snyder, since we’re being friendly.” He pauses for dramatic effect, then adds, “Mr. Satyrin made bail an hour ago.”
My head jerks up. “What?”
“Bond was set high. Not even a guy making what he makes carries around that kind of money. But he had a friend who wired it in without a moment’s hesitation. Hell, they had him out the side door before the sun came up.” He laces his fingers in front of him again. “Whole thing was real smooth. Whoever his people are, they’regood. Like, scary good.”
The detective is obviously making a lot of inferences about who Matvei runs with. He’s fishing for answers, but I have no intention of giving him any. Besides, I’m too hung up on the simple fact of the first thing he said.
I gawk at him. “He’sout?”
“Sure is.”
