“Oh, um, sure. Of course. My baby is sleeping in the next room, so can we talk quietly?”
“Absolutely. Been there.” He smiled with pursed lips. “Mine are grown now, of course.”
I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I knew they were probably just covering their bases, checking in with all Isabel’s friends and acquaintances, but regardless, my face was burning, and I knew my neck and chest were suddenly blotchy. It was like being pulled over: even if I knew it was only for a minor speed infraction or a broken taillight, I suddenly and inexplicably felt as if I had drugs and guns in my car.
“Do you guys want something to drink?” I had no idea how I was supposed to act in this situation. I probably wasn’t supposed to call them “you guys,” though.
“No, that’s okay,” Sherer said. “Thank you.” They each perched gingerly on the breast milk–stained, well-worn sofa. I sat directly across from them in the glider that we had bought a few weeks after Clara was born, when we realized how necessary it was for soothing, even though we’d initially resisted it since it didn’t go with anything else in our living room.
Detective Blaylock, the woman, spoke up this time. “So we’ll start with the basics. When was the last time you saw Isabel before she disappeared?”
I tried to think. What day was it today? Sunday. How long had it been since she disappeared? Three days—two and a half? To my foggy, sleep-deprived brain, this felt like a very difficult question.
“Well, let me think,” I said, trying to sound competent. “I learned of her disappearance this past Friday afternoon. Our moms’ group met, and she wasn’t there. After the meeting we all got a text from Vanessa, that’s a woman in our group, saying she found out that Isabel was missing. So I guess the last time I saw her before that was at our meeting the previous Friday.” I took out my phone and pulled up the calendar. “Friday, September twenty-fifth, looks like.”
“Are you sure?” Blaylock’s response was immediate.
“Yes, I am. Pretty sure.”
“Hmm. That’s a little perplexing,” Sherer said. He was like a caricature of a cop—a little paunchy, with a Brooklyn accent. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d taken a doughnut out of his pocket. “The thing is that one of the reasons we’re here is that we thought—we hoped, actually—that you were one of the last people to see Isabel. That maybe you’d have more information for us.”
“No. Like I said, I haven’t seen her since two Fridays ago. Honestly, I’ve only met her a handful of times and really didn’t know her well.” I could hear that I sounded sketchy, like I was trying to distance myself from her and her disappearance, though I myself had no idea why. I had nothing to hide.
“You can use present tense, Ms. Donnelly. We don’t know that she’s dead.” This felt like a line that Detective Sherer had used before and enjoyed deploying.
“Oh, I know. I just mean before she disappeared.” I tried to recover, though I realized my use of past tense there really was a bad look. “Anyway, I don’t really understand. I’m sure her husband saw her shortly before she disappeared, right? Like, that night? So it’s not like I would have been the last one to see her, even if I had seen her another time between Friday the twenty-fifth and when she disappeared.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Right.”
“Her husband was traveling for work and was just back that night. He did see her, but their interaction was brief. So we need you to help us figure something out.”
“Sure, of course. I mean, I’ll try.”
“Isabel’s Google Calendar had ‘drinks with Jenn D.’ slotted for Thursday at seven p.m., Thursday the first, that is. Ultimately, this was the night she disappeared, at around ten thirty p.m. Did you have plans and she didn’t show up? Or did she cancel? Knowing this is very important for establishing our timeline.”
“No. No. I mean, that’s so weird. We never had plans. Like I said, I really didn’t know her well.” Man, I could not speak in the present tense to save my life. “We’ve never hung out outside of the moms’ group meetings. Definitely never just the two of us.” What the hell? was flying through my head on repeat.
Blaylock tipped closer to the edge of the couch. “Then, do you have any idea why she would have these plans logged in her phone? Is it possible that you had plans and you simply forgot? It would be totally understandable. You’ve got a lot going on.” She smiled and gestured gently to my bomb site of an apartment. She genuinely seemed like she was trying to be helpful. I wondered if she was a mom, too, and could empathize with my messy home and malfunctioning brain.