I look around at the commuters with their earphones and paperbacks. ‘My gut tells me it was someone who knew her well.’
He nods.
I remember Scott’s calm manner. ‘My gut tells me to look into the boyfriend.’
‘Scott Sbarra – and?’
‘The young guy who lives in her basement.’
‘YouTuber named Shawn Alexander Bagby. Oh, yeah, that kid’s on my radar all right.’
‘And her friend Violet. Maybe. Probably not. I don’t know. I haven’t met her yet.’
‘Go on.’
‘We’ve never spoken, but KT once mentioned she came on a little strong sometimes. Like an obsessive friend, a little too clingy. It was never sexual – she never came on to KT in that way, never propositioned her – but as a friend she was very intense. Needy.’
He makes a note of this in a small pad with a pencil.
‘This is useful. You got a surname?’
‘Roseberry. Violet Roseberry. I think she had some mental health problems a while back. KT told me she was in a secure hospital for a while. Some place in the Catskills.’
‘Nuthouse in the Catskills?’ he says. ‘Interesting.’
‘Hospital,’ I say, glaring at him.
He makes a note.
‘Anything else, Molly? I guarantee you I will work night and day to crack this case. I will not rest until I help bring Katie’s killer to justice. Is there anything else? Anything bothering you, maybe?’
‘I want to talk to her professor at Columbia. I left a message, told him it was urgent.’
‘Professor Crabtree? Philip Crabtree?’
‘No, I don’t know that one. I mean Professor Groot. Eugene Groot.’
‘OK, rings a bell. Why are you interested in Groot?’
I think back to Scott’s expression when he mentioned the professor. ‘KT said something in passing a few months back. That he’d been very friendly with her, very interested in her work. They had dinner out in some place called Nolita one time.’
‘Did they now?’
‘I remember because I’d never heard of Nolita before and it made me think of Lolita. By Vladimir Nabokov.’
‘Nolita’s down between the Bowery and Little Italy,’ he says.
‘I know. I looked it up.’
He glances down at his pad. ‘Scottie Sbarra, Shawn Bagby, Violet Roseberry, Professor Eugene Groot. You have a feeling in your gut about anyone else? Even just an inkling?’
I consider telling him about Dad. How he hasn’t really reacted or cried about KT. How something feels off. How he sometimes acts like he’s on vacation rather than in mourning.
‘No,’ I say. ‘Just those four.’
Chapter 12
Bogart DeLuca gives me his card. It has a kind of a shield on the back, like he hasn’t quite given up his police career just yet.
It’s cold on the walk back to West 44th Street and my hostel. I get a text from Mum as I open the door from the street. Where are you? I reply Here.
South African students pass me by in single file.
I knock on their door and Mum looks worried. She also looks like she might be taking sleeping pills again. She did this after Grandma died and Dad had to take control of her medication for a while, rationing it out, giving her a tablet before bed each night so she wouldn’t take three all at once to knock herself out.
‘Where have you been, sweetie?’
‘I met KT’s boyfriend.’
Dad stiffens and straightens at the mention of Scott Sbarra. ‘What did he have to say for himself? He hasn’t had the decency to introduce himself to your mother or me yet, or even so much as send a card.’
‘How would he even find you?’
‘Well,’ says Dad, flustered. ‘Did he give you a message to pass on to us? Anything?’
‘No, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t care about her,’ I say. ‘It’s not like they were married, Dad. Maybe we should cut him some slack.’
‘I’ll cut him something,’ says Dad.
‘Paul,’ says Mum.
‘I just want to hear his side of the story, that’s all.’
‘I heard it,’ I say. ‘They studied together the night before at the Butler Library at Columbia. He stayed over and left early the next morning.’
Dad snorts.
Mum says, ‘Did he seem like a nice boy, Molly?’
I shrug. ‘I guess.’
‘Molly has better taste,’ says Dad.
What he means is that I’m a twenty-two-year-old virgin who has never even been on a proper date. I have carefully drafted profiles on three dating apps, one of which Mum even paid the subscription for as a birthday present, and I’ve never matched well enough to meet anyone in person.