“Victim of what, Mr. Hendrix?” I ask. “That’s all I want to know.”
But Finch Hendrix just shakes his head as he takes off his hospital gown. His well-defined chest and abdomen are covered in the beginnings of spectacular bruises, his left side taped along his ribs. He makes one attempt to put on his T-shirt, then pauses to take a deep breath. The second time he gets it over his head, but has to stop again and rest, before finally managing to tug it all the way down.
“You know what I think?” I say.
“What’s that?”
“I think maybe you and Keith Lazard finally had it out in Derrick Chism’s car. Lazard got physical, and you took the upper hand. Derrick intervenes on Keith’s behalf. Eventually you picked up a weapon to defend yourself. And accidentally, someone got killed. It was two against one— you have a great case for self-defense.”
“Uh-huh,” he says, squinting at me. “Except none of that happened. I was never in Derrick’s car. Keith Lazard never laid a hand on me. And I sure as hell didn’t kill anybody.”
“Well, you weren’t passed out in the train station for twenty-four hours either, not without anyone noticing. That much I know for sure.”
Hendrix shrugs, gestures vaguely into the air. “All I can tell you is what I can tell you,” he says. “And I don’t know what happened in that car. You want me to guess, I bet it’s some drug thing. Keith probably wanted to buy. Derrick probably tried to talk him out of it, but took him anyway. Derrick can be easy to lean on. They probably ran into the wrong people. That’s why you shouldn’t fucking do drugs.”
He pats his pockets as he looks around for something. Finally he spots a set of keys on a small table near the door, and stiffly makes his way over to pick them up. I watch him reach for them with his left hand.
“Mr. Hendrix, why don’t you just tell me where you were for the nearly twenty-four hours between when you left the house and when you were found passed out and bleeding internally at the train station? Tell me that, and then you can go.”
“How about I just go now? How about I just walk right out that door without telling you anything?”
“There’s an armed officer on the door who will stop you, Mr. Hendrix.”
This is a lie. I can’t stop Hendrix from leaving. There’s definitely more to his story, but nothing that a judge would believe constitutes probable cause to hold him. And so I watch as Hendrix makes his way somehow both arrogantly and gingerly toward the door, taking with him my best chance to make Seldon happy— a real live suspect who doesn’t have a damn thing to do with Kaaterskill.
“Mr. Hendrix,” I call after him as he pulls open the door. “This isn’t over.”
“It is for me,” he calls back over his shoulder. “If you have any other questions, you can call my lawyers. I’ve got lots of them.”
TWO WEEKS （AND FOUR DAYS） EARLIER
I’m sitting on a bench across the street from Stephanie’s office building on the edge of Madison Square Park, watching the lawyers march in and out, gazing at the stately stone facade. Of course Stephanie’s office is convenient and impressive. Nothing for her but the very best.
So much hostility— I know it’s unsavory, not to mention misplaced. My anger has always been like that, with a mind of its own. It can move in so suddenly, too, like a summer storm blackening the sky. Soon it’s impossible to see anything clearly. But never for long. My anger recedes just as quickly, sometimes leaving terrible things in its wake.
It’s hard not to feel bitter about how judgmental Stephanie has been. Even if it is her way of dealing with her own insecurities— to look down on everyone else. Maybe I want revenge for that. But then— that does sound pathetic. And I am many things, but I am not pathetic.
It’s possible Stephanie can’t help lording her perfection over everyone— stunning Stephanie, smart Stephanie, successful Stephanie. Always so unattainable. Always so controlled and focused on her goals. From day one, I found it nauseating, quite honestly. No one is really that perfect anyway. No one is that above everything. In fact, it’s usually those people who are secretly nosing their way through the deepest sewage. You just need to stick around long enough to see their baseness revealed.
Like, for instance, the fact that Stephanie always puts herself and her ambition first— and look at the cost. Who knows what would have happened if she’d been there to answer those calls that last tragic night?