“Please,” the voice said. “Please.”
It isn’t real, Beth told herself as she dry-swallowed the pill. She’s been dead for so long. It isn’t real.
“Please,” the voice wailed in the hall. Something jerked the doorknob hard, the click loud, but the lock held.
Beth Greer pushed the covers down and slid under them. None of this was real. The pill would kick in, and all of this would be gone in the morning, like a dream.
She closed her eyes and waited for sleep as outside in the hall, her mother wept and wept.
CHAPTER EIGHT
October 1977
BETH
The man sitting across from her put a cassette in the tape recorder on the desk and pressed the button. “It’s the twentieth of October, 1977,” he said as the tape turned. “My name is Detective Joshua Black, Claire Lake Police. Present are Detective Melvin Washington of the Oregon State Police and Elizabeth Greer. We are in the Claire Lake Police Department interview room. Miss Greer, do you agree to this interview being recorded?”
Beth kept her hands still in her lap. “Yes, I do.”
“Please state your age for the record.”
“I’m twenty-three.”
“And you are here voluntarily and are not under arrest. Is that correct?”
“That’s correct.”
Detective Black paused for a second, then nodded. He was in his early thirties, with thick brown hair worn just long enough to curl. She recognized him from the newspapers, especially the photo in the paper the morning after the first murder. It was taken from across the road from the murder scene and showed a car parked at the side of the road, a body under a sheet on the ground near it. Standing next to the car, wearing a dark coat, frowning at the ground, had been this man, who was sitting across from her now. She’d recognized him when he came to the door with his partner and asked her to come to the station. He was good-looking and clean-shaven, unlike his partner, Detective Washington, who stood leaning against the wall behind him, glaring at her from behind his heavy mustache.
Beth crossed her arms over the buttons of her blouse. It was cold in here, and she’d already noticed Washington giving her the once-over.
“Okay,” Detective Black said. “Miss Greer—”
“My name is Beth.”
He blinked, then said, “Okay, then, let’s get started. Can you tell us your whereabouts on the evening of October fifteenth, five days ago?”
“I was home.”
“Take your time and think. Are you certain?”
“Yes, I’m certain.”
“Are you sure about that?” This was Washington, his gaze fixed on her. His fingers drummed impatiently on the leg of his pants for a second, then stopped. “What were you doing, exactly?”
Beth tried not to flinch. “I was drinking,” she said.
“Alone?”
“I don’t know.” She was messing this up, her nerves scrambling her thoughts, making her doubt herself. “Yes, I was alone. I was drinking.”
Washington’s eyes narrowed in disapproval. Beth was used to that look. Everyone gave it to her—strangers, grocery store clerks, the neighbors in Arlen Heights that she had the misfortune to cross paths with. It was a look that said, You’re twenty-three and one of the wealthiest people in town, you have everything, and all you do is drink and party. You ought to be ashamed. No one cared that her parents were dead, that rich didn’t mean happy. No one cared that she lay awake nights, alone in the Greer mansion, imagining noises in the hallway and wondering what was real. The alcohol made all of those feelings go away, at least for a while. Beth was numb to that look, just like she was numb to everything else in her life.