She Killed Them All to Save Her Sister

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2

Captain Chavez traded a glance with the two officers assigned to question me.

Watching me sit there like I had nothing left to live for, one of them, a woman named Silvia Delgado, spoke up.

"Blanche, calm down. We enforce the law fairly. We won't wrong an innocent person, but we won't let a guilty one walk either."

Eyes stinging, I shouted back at her.

"So instead you wrong me? You wrong my parents?"

"I was back home. A thousand miles away."

"My parents are honest farmers. Forget killing Fred, they've barely even set foot in town."

"Hand them a train ticket and they still wouldn't know how to get to my place. And you actually suspect me? Suspect them?"

Silvia came over and unlocked the cuffs.

"Blanche, don't get so worked up. We're only trying to find the truth, to get you justice. That's why the questioning has to happen."

"Is that so?" I stared at her. "Then go find me the killer."

"This is already my third husband."

"You can't seriously think every husband of mine gets depressed and kills himself just for marrying me."

"You can't be about to tell me I was born under a bad star, cursed to bring death to my husbands."

Silvia frowned.

She didn't know how to explain it either.

She glanced at Captain Chavez.

His eyes still held that suspicion, still weighing me.

"Blanche, so far we don't have enough evidence to prove you're the killer."

"But some things are too much of a coincidence. For one, every husband of yours took out a huge life insurance policy while he was alive, with you as the beneficiary."

"For another, every time one of your husbands died, you weren't there. Either a thousand miles away or overseas."

"Doesn't that seem too deliberate? How do you explain it?"

I slammed my fist down on the table.

"Captain Chavez, what are you getting at?"

"You're saying it was wrong of me to buy my husband insurance?"

"Or that buying him insurance proves I'm the killer?"

"Or maybe you mean that when my husband died I should have been standing right there, so I could say I was the killer and let you incompetent people close the case nice and easy?"

Captain Chavez frowned.

"That's not what I meant at all."

I yelled in his face.

"You can't find the killer, so you throw all this nonsense at me instead?"

He shook his head.

"We want this solved just as fast as you do. Please stay calm and cooperate with us."

I gave him one disappointed look and sat back down.

I breathed slowly for a long moment, then said quietly:

"My first husband took me to buy insurance before we even married. Not just him, I bought it too. Each of us was the other's beneficiary."

"Then he died. I could never get past it, so I bought insurance for my second husband and my third as well. Just to give myself some peace of mind."

"As for why I was away whenever they died, that I really can't explain."

Captain Chavez gave a slight nod at my explanation.

But Silvia asked, "According to the leads we currently have, you and your current husband, before the incident, had—"

"Silvia!"

Captain Chavez barked, cutting her off.

I looked between the two of them, confused.

"What do you want to ask? If it helps the case, I'll answer anything."

Captain Chavez shot Silvia a look.

She nodded, came over to me, and said gently, "It's all right now. You and your parents can go. But don't wander off for a while. We may call you in to cooperate with the investigation at any time."

Silvia drove my parents home.

And I went back with them, all the way to Bayport, a thousand miles away.

When we got home, there were still officers keeping watch inside.

Silvia followed me in and said, "Until this case is closed, for your safety, we'll have someone here around the clock to protect you. You don't mind, do you?"

I knew they still suspected me.

This wasn't protection. It was surveillance.

I turned to Silvia and asked, "Do you think I'm the killer too, just like Captain Chavez?"