Detective Black cleared his throat. He was wearing navy blue today, a suit that wasn’t new but looked well taken care of. Beth wondered if he pressed his own suits, since he didn’t wear a wedding ring. Or maybe he had a girlfriend who did it for him. If she was pressing his suits, he should definitely marry her.
There was something wrong with her, thinking these thoughts while she was being questioned for murder. Then again, the fact that there was something wrong with her wasn’t news.
“I think we should back up,” Detective Black said reasonably. “We’re all here for a discussion. To clear some things up. Arguing won’t get us anywhere.”
“This entire discussion is egregious,” Ransom said, bringing out his big lawyer words. “There’s nothing connecting my client to this crime, or to the previous murder, or to either of these victims. You’re wasting everyone’s time when you should be finding a killer.”
“We have the notes,” Washington said, his gaze hostile on Ransom. If it were possible, or legal, for Washington to throw Beth’s lawyer out the window, it was clear he would gladly do it. “We could easily eliminate your client as a suspect if she gave a voluntary handwriting sample. And we’d like a psychological analysis.”
They went back and forth, playing their masculine game of one-upmanship as Beth tuned out. She looked at Black, and his eyes caught hers. He sighed a little, letting her see it, waiting for his partner to run low on steam. In return, she shrugged: There’s nothing we can do about either of them. She liked that he didn’t fidget, didn’t smoke or pace; he had no theater about him. His gaze didn’t travel down her body, but it stayed on her long enough that she felt the urge to twitch. Was it lascivious? She couldn’t tell. Maybe, faced with the option of looking at either her or Washington and Ransom, he’d decided that she was the one in the room he’d rather look at.
When there was a break in Washington and Ransom’s arguing, Black leaned toward Beth and said, “Tell me about your father’s death.”
Her world tilted. For a second it was tempting, even easy, to pretend it was just the two of them, talking privately with no one else around. Just her and this sympathetic man, asking her about the day her father died. She could open her mouth and tell him everything that was inside her, all the bad things that she kept locked away.
Then she glanced at the tape recorder, whirring quietly on the table. She looked at Washington, standing with his arms crossed, and Ransom, sitting in the folding chair next to hers. She could smell old coffee and stale cigarette smoke and something stuffy and rancid, like bad breath. And she remembered that day. She remembered the feeling of drowning, of sinking deeper and looking up, knowing she would never swim to the surface.
She turned back to Detective Black, her voice mechanical. “Someone robbed my father and killed him.”
Black was still leaning forward, his upper body angled toward her, as if they were alone. “Whoever did it used the same gun for these murders,” he said. “The ballistics will prove it.”
Beth held still, not looking away. This was another game. They didn’t have the ballistics report, not yet.
“Beth, tell the truth,” Black said. “We’re trying to help you.”
That was where he made a mistake, because she knew he was lying. She looked him in the eyes. “You don’t want to help me,” she said. “No one wants to help me. No one ever has.”
There was a second of quiet, the tape recorder the only sound. Detective Black actually looked surprised. He’d had a good life, she realized. Parents, maybe even grandparents, who loved him. A sibling or two. She could see it all: track team, stern but loving teachers, kisses behind the bleachers with a pretty girl. A few silly drunken experiences that were written off to high spirits, then losing his virginity to another pretty girl. Eventually, the police academy and making detective when he was barely thirty. He had the lean physique of a man who exercised instead of growing a paunch, and he didn’t smoke. He saw bad things, sure, but he was saving people and putting the bad guys away. Saving the world.