ROTTEN APPLES

Ava Laerton sat in the steely light of the interrogation room. Her faded brown hair hung in uneven strands over her eyes. She wore a primrose-coloured tank top and a short, black corduroy skirt. Her arms were folded on top one another on the table. She took a moment to pick at her chipped nail polish and looked up as Jim Brass and Catherine Willows entered the room

"Why I am here?" she posed with a smirk. Brass and Catherine stood unmoving on the other side of the table.

"Do you know what happened to your sister?" Brass asked. She shrugged and began picking at her nails again. "You do understand that someone is dead here, right?" he said with an air of severity.

Her eyes flashed and she looked right at his face. "Look, she kicked me out of her place last week. As far as I'm concerned, whatever happened to her happened for the best. I had nothing to do with it."

"How do you feel about it?" asked Brass.

"The same way she would feel if it was me in the morgue."

"But you played no part in it?"

"No," she said in a rebellious tone. "I didn't."

Catherine spoke. "Why did she give you the boot?"

Ava faltered. "Personal reasons."

"What reasons?" Brass asked sternly.

She glared at them. "Sisters sometimes fight. We're no different."

This girl's hiding something, Catherine thought to herself. She took part in this. She knows what happened. "Do the words 'O Forever More, Shadow Velter' mean anything to you?" she asked. Ava shook her head slowly, but her eyes revealed a hidden thought. "Do you recognize this?" Catherine asked as she handed Ava the bag with the golden bracelet in it?"

"No," she said quietly.

"Really," Catherine said, amused with disbelief, "because we found your fingerprints on it. We know you've seen with and held this bracelet and thus that inscription should have meant something to you." Ava bit her lip.

"Who did it belong to?" asked Catherine.

"OK, it was Eve's." she said with a sigh as she pushed her very straight hair behind her ear. "It was a gift to her from her husband Bruce."

"Why didn't you tell us that earlier?" Brass asked.

"I… I…" she stammered.

"You were having an affair with Bruce Romero," Catherine said.

Ava pouted angrily. "Yeah, so I was. And that's why she kicked me out. Blah, blah, blah. So what, am I under arrest for that?"

"No," Brass said. "But you may be for the murder of your sister."

"I didn't murder my sister. I've been at a hotel. I wasn't even up in the mountains this past week."

"Ah, yes," Brass said. "The Dwarves Hotel, right? Did you know that 'Shadow Velter' is the perfect anagram for 'Dwarves Hotel'? I bet you already knew that though, didn't you? The question is, which one of you or Bruce thought it up?"

Ava fidgeted slightly with the strap of her tank top. "Like I said, Bruce bought it for Eve. It's only coincidence that–"

"Uh uh" said Catherine. "There were no coincidences here. You were having an ongoing affair with Bruce Romero. The bracelet was key, and there's no coincidence as to why or how turned up outside your sister's house in the grass. It played a key role in your life with Bruce. You bought it."

"I did not," Ava protested.

"I think you did," Catherine continued. "You did because you made a mistake. Eve didn't like gold; she liked silver. For some reason, you gave it to Bruce and hoped that he would find the anagram of your hotel's name, maybe to avoid having your sister see you two together."

"You can't prove that," Eve said.

"We can," Brass said. "With the warrant we're going to get to search your hotel room."

"I didn't kill her."

"Then you won't mind us looking around your place, then, will you?" Catherine said.

Suddenly, Warrick knocked on the door of the room and called over to Catherine. "I some information on the case. You'll want to know this."

Catherine stood up to leave as Ava asked, "Can I go now?"

"You're going to go with this gentleman here," Brass said, motioning to the officer standing behind her. She looked startled as if she'd forgotten he had been there the entire time. He took her to the door and led her down the hallway, Brass following close behind them.

"What's up?" Catherine asked Warrick once they were alone."

"The records Sara and I collected from the hotel manager confirm that both Bruce Romero and Ava Laerton had spent time there together. The manager also lent us some surveillance tapes of Ava's hotel room's hallway. The video shows who was in her room and when they were in there."

"OK. So, what'd you find?"

"Well, here's the thing. Doc Robbins left a message for me saying that he managed to determine a near exact time of death for Eve Romero. Although he still cannot confidently say what killed her, they found the core of a half-eaten apple in her pocket and did some tests on it."

"How did they miss that?" Catherine said, concerned about the reliability of her coroners.

"No clue. The point is, based on the state of the apple, she stopped eating it between ten o'clock AM and eleven o'clock AM."

"She never got the chance to finish it," Catherine said sadly. "So, you were talking about the hotel videos."

"Well," said Warrick. "The videos confirm that Ava Laerton entered her room alone the night before the murder at around one o'clock AM and she never left it until twelve o'clock PM the next day. She's innocent."

Damn, thought Catherine. "But Bruce Romero wasn't with her?"

"No. And I double-checked with the clerk at the hotel. He didn't see him that day or the previous one."

"Well," said Catherine. "Looks like we'll be needing to talk to one Bruce Romero againvery soon."