“You the detective who was here earlier today?” Hugo asked.
“I am.”
“After you left the house, my daughter called me. She told me what you said, and I came straight over. She was catching me up on her life, and that’s when she told me about the abuse. And I … I …”
Tears gushed down his face like a flooded dam after a heavy rainstorm.
“Take a breath for me, Hugo,” I said.
Another nod, and a deep breath in.
“He came home, you see, and I confronted him,” Hugo said. “I’ll be honest, I wanted to wrap my hands around the guy’s neck and squeeze the life out of him.”
“How did he die?” I asked.
“The three of us were all standing in the kitchen, arguing … well, more like yelling at each other. I told him he was finished—at the dealership, with my daughter … it was over. I told him everyone would soon know what he did, and I’d make sure no one within a hundred miles from here would ever hire a scumbag like him.”
Whitlock returned, and we opened the first aid kit, pulling out what we needed to treat Hugo’s wound until the ambulance arrived, which I expected wouldn’t be long. If I was going to find out how Ray died, I had to do it now.
As I dressed his wound, I said, “You didn’t tell me how Ray died.”
“All of this … the house, his job, the car he drives, it’s all in my name. When he realized he was going to lose it all, he grabbed a knife out of the block on the counter, and he stabbed me. Good thing the sucker had poor aim.”
It was a good thing.
But it failed to explain how Ray was dead and Hugo was alive.
“What happened next?”
“He was getting ready to stab me a second time, and I beat him to it. Grabbed a knife and plunged it in where I knew it would do the most damage. When I was younger, back before I got into the auto business, I trained to be a doctor, you see. But I realized it wasn’t for me. Learned a lot, though, and today, I’d say that training came in handy.”
I glanced at Valerie, who was staring at her father, but still hadn’t said a word.
“Valerie, do you have anything to add?” I asked.
“I … ahh … I …”
“She doesn’t,” Hugo said. “My daughter has been through a lot. What do you say we save any further questions until later?”
“Later, meaning, until after you’ve had the chance to consult with your lawyer,” I said.
Hugo grinned. “Something like that.”
The whine of the ambulance could be heard speeding up the road. It wasn’t long before the house was teeming with police. By then, Hugo’s lawyer had arrived, and I had a feeling his version of the story would stick.
As I stood outside with Whitlock, I asked myself why Valerie had called me and why she had asked for help. I assumed she was in shock when her father was stabbed and hadn’t realized his knife wound wasn’t fatal at first. In her desperation, she didn’t know who to turn to, so she’d called me.
Hugo could have stabbed Ray like he said he did, but something in Valerie’s eyes when I looked at her told me his version of the story wasn’t an accurate one.
“A penny for a thought,” Whitlock said. “What do you say?”
“I’ve been thinking about Hugo’s story and whether his version of events is the truth.”
“And what have you decided?”
“After giving it some thought, I’ve decided it is the version I choose to believe.”
I would tell the same version of the story to Foley and anyone else who asked me. As far as I was concerned, justice had been served, not once, but twice today.
THE END
