Chapitre 30: Message: XXIX

"I have to admit that your reaction was quite odd, to say the least." Chyler started when the technicians left, taking the head and all their 'crimectibles', as Aria was calling it.

Toussaint was sitting by the kitchen counter, Callaghan was standing with her back to her, making her coffee. Hour was late, but they both knew that the night that was awaiting would not be full of sleep.

"Oh, don't lose your head over it." Aria scoffed, putting the coffee mug in front of her partner. Whatever Chyler wanted to say about the host, she needed to admit that the beverage smelled almost godly. "Weird like weird, she's just the past. I mean, was. Figuratively and now, literally." She shrugged.

"Did you have a prenuptial agreement?"

"You really think I would kill her?" Callaghan laughed so hard that Chyler seriously started wondering if she shouldn't just flee and report her as unstable. Then Aria stopped laughing at once, and looked at her partner with eyes cold as ice. "Yes, we did. If you are so curious, you can check the books, I am wealthier than she would ever be. If she was still alive, that is."

"You don't seem bothered by the fact that you found your wife's head on your own coffee table. A head that someone left there after breaking your window."

Aria glowered at her, opened one of the cupboards, and then took out a big bottle of Jägermeister. Before Chyler said anything, she chugged almost a quarter.

"I am a cop, Citroën." She rolled her eyes, unzipping her hoodie till her sternum, revealing a dark grey T-shirt with an emblem that Chyler didn't recognize. "I am used to massacre."

"You weren't working in crimes."

"I was working under cover, Gâteau de Rois. So believe me, that is not the worst thing I could see."

"And what is?" Chyler raised her eyebrow, but Callaghan just scoffed and took a gulp from the bottle. She wasn't bothering with any sort of glass nor chaser.

"You're here not for those info. So, if you please, give your questions, collect my answers and get the fuck out, so I can stay alone." She huffed. Toussaint swallowed a sigh.

"How were things between you and your wife?"

"I was divorcing her, what do you think, DETECTIVE?" she almost spat the last word. Chyler decided not to get into a discussion.

"If you want me to go, you need to cooperate. Answer."

"She wanted to come back to me, bothering me. She broke into my house. At least she did it more subtly than the idiot who dropped her carcass here." She averted her gaze, as if she was reading the etiquette on the bottle she was holding. "I didn't want to see her. I arrested her. Didn't want to have anything to do with her. That's about that."

"What did she do to deserve that?"

"That's not relevant to the case, Marron."

Chyler sighed. She sipped the coffee with less trust than she should, but then she realized it was baseless. It tasted as if Aria was an actual barista.

"Fine. When was the last time you saw her?"

"Twenty minutes ago when one of the guys was closing the bag."

"Callaghan..."

"Two or three days ago when she broke to my house, when I escorted her to the precinct in handcuffs and left her there." Aria shrugged.

"After that no?"

"No." she shook her head.

"Do you know who might have done that? Did..." she looked at the notes "Lita have any enemies?"

"I'd prefer you call her 'Mendez', it's more suitable for that bitch. And, to be honest, I have no idea. Back in a day when I cared, she had a few people that didn't like her, but she wasn't talking about them too much. Then she probably got into some troubles, but I stopped caring, so..."

"I got it." Toussaint sighed. She could just pull out the card that Aria could get arrested for hindering the investigation, but something was telling her that her partner was not hiding anything. "And you? Why your house? Any idea?"

"I don't know, maybe because she was married to me?" Aria cleared her throat, pouring in another portion of herbal alcohol to moist it. "Didn't ask, didn't care. I'd have to buy a year stock of Lysol to fucking get rid of the stench and stains."

"Are you really all right?"

"Stop asking questions that are not even relevant. That does not concern you."

"It does, actually." She stated, leaning on the counter, and looking Aria into the eye. "It's your wife, Callaghan. Courrier has full right to suspend you from the investigation."

Aria looked at her from over the bottle she raised, stopping it halfway to her lips. That was the very first moment when Chyler saw fear cracking through the indifferent anger that was in Callaghan's eyes on a daily basis.

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