Abe Cornwall’s car stood parked in front of the building, and when we arrived on the third floor, the coroner was already busy examining the body. Or bodies.
Chase was also there, having arrived before we did.
“So what do we have, Abe?” he asked, nodding a greeting at his wife and her feline escort.
“Both dead,” said the coroner matter-of-factly. “Both shot at close range. Possibly with the gun over there.”
He was pointing to the gun that was in the hand of a woman of slim build, who was dressed in a red dress that was far too revealing for a casual afternoon meeting. It looked more like the kind of dress one would wear to a party. Next to her on the bed, Jeff was lying, the two side by side as if they were peacefully sleeping.
“Murder-suicide?” asked Chase.
“Possibly,” Abe said. “We’ll have to check to see if they both died from shots fired from the same gun—ballistics will tell us—but the scenario is a possibility.”
“They met up for an afternoon tryst, she shot him, then she shot herself,” said Chase. He shook his head. “Sad business. And both still so young.”
Abe cut him a curious glance.“You’re becoming lyrical in your old age, detective. Maybe you should write poetry. Something to fill your evenings.”
“Thanks for the suggestion, Abe, but I think I’ll pass,” said Chase dryly.
“Who found her?” asked Odelia.
“In the kitchen,” said Abe, and jerked his thumb in that direction.
When we followed the coroner’s instructions, we found a blond-haired woman being kept company by a police officer. The woman answered to the name Hailey Harper, and was the roommate of the female victim, who was called Cipriana Cilke. And as far as the officer Odelia and Chase talked to knew, Hailey was also in the same profession, and had shared the flat with her.
Chase and Odelia took a seat at the kitchen table. Obviously Hailey Harper was greatly distressed by the news of her friend’s death, and so Odelia asked if it was all right if they asked her a couple of questions. The woman blew her nose and nodded. Her face was red and puffy and her eyes even redder and puffier. Her blond hair was almost white, and I had the impression it wasn’t her natural color since her eyebrows were a velvety black.
“I don’t understand,” said Miss Harper. “She said she had a client, but I know most of her clients and I’ve never seen this person before. He must have been new.”
“You don’t think Cipriana knew Jeff Felfan?” asked Chase.
“Is that his name? No, I’m sure I’ve never seen him and neither had Cipriana. She was my best friend. We had no secrets from each other. I knew all of her clients and she knew all of mine.”
“You work alone here?” asked Odelia. “I mean you don’t have a, um…”
“Pimp? No, we work without a pimp,” said Hailey. She shook her head. “I don’t understand. She was fine when I left her.”
“When did you leave?”
“Quarter to two. Cipriana’s client was arriving at three so I had time to do some shopping and get back here before he arrived. But when I got back…” She welled up. “I found her… like that!”
“Did you know if Cipriana owned a gun?” asked Chase. He held out a plastic evidence bag containing the gun in question. “This gun, to be precise?”
Hailey stared at the gun.“Is that what he used to…”
“Actually we think it was the other way around,” said Chase. “She shot Mr. Felfan first before she turned the gun on herself.”
But Hailey shook her head adamantly.“Never! She would never do that. She was happy. She was going to leave the business and have a baby.”
“She was pregnant?”
“No, but she had a boyfriend, and she wanted to start a family with him.”
“Who is he, this boyfriend?” asked Chase, and wrote down the name she gave him, and the address. “So the gun? Was it hers?”
“No way. Cipriana didn’t own a gun. She hated guns, and so do I.”
“You’re sure? Maybe she got it to protect herself against difficult clients?”
“Absolutely not. It’s the whole reason we decided to share this flat, and why we never left the other person alone with a client. I mean, not that we were in the room with them, but we made sure we were in the same apartment, just in case.”
“So no gun,” said Chase, processing this information. “And you’re sure Cipriana had never seen Jeff Felfan before.”
“Absolutely. I would know if she had. Like I said, we shared everything and kept no secrets from each other.” She broke down at this point, and wailed, “What am I going to do now that she’s gone!”
It didn’t seem advisable to go on, and so Chase ended the interview, with the caveat that he might need to speak to Hailey again at a later stage.
“Odd, isn’t it, Max?” said Dooley. “This Cipriana woman had never met Jeff before in her life, and yet she shot him and then killed herself. Now why would she go and do a thing like that?”
“Unless she didn’t,” I said thoughtfully. “And in actual fact someone else killed them both and then staged the scene to make it look like a murder-suicide.”