I chased a woman into the street, where she was struck by a bus and killed. At least, that’s what it looked like to the dozen or so witnesses. The police interviewed me on the scene. But what was I supposed to say? I didn’t care if I was under arrest or not. I was exhausted. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I’d had a serious adrenaline spike, and once it faded, shock took over. An ambulance was called and I was poked and prodded and wrapped in blanket before being taken to a nearby station and left in a little cell. No bars or anything. Just a closet-sized room with a heavy locking door. I curled up under the blanket with my head against the wall, but every time I closed my eyes, I saw Darren’s face, his expression right before he set himself on fire—like he was legitimately surprised at what he’d done. And when I didn’t see his face, I saw the bus smack into Lily, and I woke.
The clock on the wall tick-tick-ticked and I just wanted my bed. Not that I could’ve gone home. That was a much bigger deal than I expected—not having a home to retreat to, at least not one where I felt safe. It’s an instinct, I think. Regardless of whether you can get back to it, just the knowledge that you have a hole to crawl into is calming. But I had nothing.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
My big idea was to drop everything in Étranger’s lap. Tempt him out and let him explain himself to the authorities. Sort of like calling Mom and Dad. Brilliant, huh? And yet, for some reason I was totally surprised when it failed in the worst way. Lily and Darren were dead, and no one had so much as glimpsed our dark attackers. They just vanished. Along with the chef.
How had it gone so wrong?
I just want it to stop, Lily had said.
A female officer woke me and took me to a locker room where I was told I could clean up. I thought that meant a shower, but there was only a sink and a toilet stall with no door.
“Can I at least have a toothbrush?” I asked as she waited within sight.
They were taking no risks. Once the cops realized I was a person of interest in another murder, I was packed up and shipped off to Detective Hammond, who handcuffed me to his desk while he typed report after report. That’s all there is in police stations. And hospitals. Waiting. Waiting for a complete stranger to tell you if your life is over—or just changed forever. I wondered if that was planned somehow.
“All right,” Hammond said. He sighed deeply as he sat down with a fresh cup of coffee.
I think he’d been talking to Lily’s family in Minnesota. Man, that had to suck. His partner, Rigdon, was nowhere in sight. Probably out investigating shit.
“I don’t suppose I have to tell you,” he said, “that this would’ve all been a lot easier if you had been honest from the start.”
“Yeah, because you all totally would’ve believed everything. It’s totally smart to hand your life over to a giant bureaucracy. No one’s ever gotten a raw deal from the NYPD, right? Especially a foreigner who’s outstayed her visa. You guys are like frickin’ saints or something. Seriously, it’s a travesty the department hasn’t won the Nobel Peace Prize for all—”
“All right, all right.” He waved me off.
Hammond didn’t think I killed Darren. They didn’t have fingerprints from the kerosene can yet, but they did have a receipt on Darren’s credit card that showed he had purchased them. That, along with the state of Lily’s body, and that she was found near his place of business with semen inside her, suggested that the highly edited version of events I had given him was something like the truth.
Murderers, he said, generally don’t wait around for the police after the deed is done. He also didn’t believe there was any way I could’ve decapitated William Bouncerman, who was over six feet, or that I had the strength to dump Luke from the top of the Watchtower construction site, wheelchair and all. After all, the ME’s report suggested Luke was alive and conscious on his way down, or so I was told, which meant he would’ve put up a struggle.
Sometimes it pays to be small.
However, be all that as it was, Detective Hammond said not everyone shared his interpretation, and they were under a lot of pressure to name a killer. Besides, he was still having some real problems with my story.
“Tell me more about this Bastien guy.”
“I already told you everything. Three times.”
“So tell me again.”
The city had no record of anyone named Bastien matching his description. I told Hammond what happened at the theater. I’m pretty sure he thought I’d been tripping. Which, you know, technically I was. But still.
“Potions?” he asked incredulously. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”
“What about the Kingfish?” I retorted. “Did you find him or is that strike three for you guys?”
“You really haven’t given us much to go on. We can’t just arrest him for any reason. Is there anything else? Anything at all?”
I thought about the chef. “I need to pee,” I said.
“Down the hall.”
He uncuffed me. I’m sure he watched me go. He was always judging. I stood in front of the mirror for the longest time with the hot water running. Steam obscured my face—all except my eyes. I had a decision to make. If I gave up the chef, I had no more cards to play.
Hammond was typing when I got back. He nodded to the chair next to his desk. It looked like they’d gotten it from a school library. The odd-colored green fabric was rough. I sat.
“Almost finished,” he said, typing.
I heard the click-clack of the keys. He was a good typist.
“That’s what you said two hours ago,” I protested.
He shook his head at me, like I was a hoot. He finished typing and printed the statement and handed it to me.
“If that sounds good, just go ahead and sign the bottom.”
I held up the printout to speed-read it. It was pretty much what I said. I held out my hand for a pen. He slapped one in my palm. I signed and gave it back to him.
“Are we done?”
“For now. You still have a few things to answer for, so don’t leave the city or a warrant will be issued for your arrest. You’re a foreign national, so it will also be sent to Interpol.”
“Interpol? What am I, Carlos the Jackal?”
“You’re a flight risk,” he said. “That’s what you are.”
He motioned to my shirt, my expensive vintage Captain Caveman tee. There were smears of Lily’s blood on it from when I had untied her.
“Four dead bodies,” he warned. “And counting.” He scratched his scalp with both hands. “You’re right that Rigdon and I aren’t the only ones on this case. These guys of yours are the real deal. You gotta stop with the Nancy Drew bit.”
“Who the fuck is Nancy Drew?”
“How about Scooby Doo? Know who that is? There’s no unmasking here, okay? No old man to complain about you pesky kids. You need to let us find who did this. Believe it or not, we have people here who are good at that kind of thing. Like it’s their job even.”
“Sarcasm,” I said with a nod of approval. “Very nice. Well done, sir.” I saluted weakly.
He chuckled. By then we were both really tired. I figured he hadn’t been sleeping much since a billionaire took a nose dive off a tower.
Tower.
“You guys don’t even know what you’re looking for, do you?” I asked.
His smile faded. “I’m serious.”
“Yeah? Good. ’Cuz so am I. I had a lot of time to think in the clink, and this whole sitting by and letting someone else handle things already failed once. You guys are peeing on all the wrong hydrants.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You believe in magic?” I asked.
He looked straight through me, like his answer wasn’t a given and he was contemplating what to say. He leaned back in his chair with his legs spread, like guys do. It was the most relaxed I’d seen him.
“I had a partner once that did,” he said.
The soft tone in his voice suggested there was more.
“And?”
He shrugged. “She went somewhere I couldn’t follow. After that, things weren’t quite the same.”
“What’s this person’s name?”
“Hari,” he said. “Detective Chase.”
“Is he here?”
He looked at me for a moment. “No. These days she works downtown. But if you want, I’ll see if she has some time to talk to you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? Okay, look.” I sat. “There’s a chef. He was asking about Luke.”
“A chef?”
I nodded. “He came to my flat. He was there.”
“Where?”
“In the basement! With Darren and everything. He saw it all.”
Hammond looked down at the statement he’d spent forever typing, the one I’d just signed. He looked utterly defeated.
“Why you doin’ this? Huh? What is it you hope will happen?”
I pulled on my still-damp hair with a heavy, exaggerated sigh.
He looked at me for a moment. “You’re really not gonna give this up. Are you?”
I made a face like “duh.”
He nodded. “You get full marks for bravery. Not so smart though.” He opened his desk drawer and took out a labeled evidence bag, this one much smaller. He tossed it on top of the stack of files in front of me.
My mouth opened.
“Your door’s busted. Legally, we’re allowed to enter.”
It was my baggie. From inside my wall. The one with the illegal pharmaceuticals. I had been so busy freaking out about finding Lily and everything that I had totally forgotten. I mean seriously, of all the things to worry about.
I looked at Hammond, mouth still agape. “That’s bullshit.”
“You’ll be out in a couple days.”
“Okay.” I raised my hands. “I know you think you’re trying to help—”
“I am helping. I know you don’t think so, but this is the best—”
“For who? Dude, I’m not a kid. And I’m not absent a father figure.” I waved to a picture on his desk. He apparently had two daughters. “You can’t swoop in and—Fuck, why are dudes always doing this shit? Seriously, sometimes all we really need is for you to fucking back off.”
“Like I said.” He turned back to his computer and started typing. “You’ll be out in a couple days. At most.”
“You can’t do this. Please.”
Nothing.
“What if they get to me in here? You’re killing me!”
People turned.
“No. I’m saving you.” He lifted the receiver of his corded desk phone—a big business job with a panel full of blinking red lights and a bunch of single-button presets—and handed it to me.
“You get a phone call. Dial nine to get out.”
🔑
Jail was different than I expected. There were no bars. That was a little disappointing. When one has the misfortune of going to jail, one wants a tin cup and bars to strum it against. Instead, the room where I was held could just as easily have been a conference space at some towering government agency—except there were no windows. And it had that kind of prickly wall covering that’s uncomfortable to lean against in a thin shirt.
When Shanna and I had been arrested for fighting, we were processed right away and released. Both of us got a piece of paper that had our scheduled court date in big bold print, followed by a stern explanation of all the bad things that could happen if we didn’t show up. The following week, we both got letters in the mail informing us that the charges had been dropped and we didn’t have to appear before the judge after all. But this time I was held. My belongings were bagged and tagged and I was shown to the ladies-only side of the lockup. I half-expected butch lesbians with gang scars to stare me down as I walked a long cell-lined hall. But really, no one looked at me at all. To my fellow inmates, I was just another number—one more case for our handlers to process without incident. They didn’t even see me. I was taken before a judge who didn’t see me either. I was one of a group of about ten other people with drug offenses entering a mass plea. Bail was set in blocks. The whole thing took less than sixty seconds. When we were all done, some people were released while the rest of us were brought back to the holding rooms and left to wait.
Waiting, waiting, and more waiting.
The worst part, really, was the lack of a clock, which at least would’ve given me some sense of progress. No matter how slowly it moved, I would’ve at least been able to see that it was now three minutes later than it had been, and three minutes closer to whenever I’d be released. But there was nothing on the walls. Time passed and I didn’t know if I’d been there two hours or ten. Eventually, after what seemed like forever, I got really tired and slept, which suggested I had been there at least through the night. But then, boredom has a way of stretching time toward the infinite.
“Suzie Lee Song!”
I sat up. The hefty African American woman who butchered my name wore a uniform at least two sizes too small. She stood impatiently by the holding room door. I looked at her expectantly, waiting for whatever announcement was forthcoming.
“You made bail,” she explained, even more impatiently. She waved her hand for me to hurry up. The clipboard she carried suggested I was just one on a long list of offenders whose release she had yet to process.
The first clock I saw was in the hall where the thin older man with the gray goatee handed me my belongings through a window—including Lily’s handbag, which was found at the scene—but neither the clock nor the man were any help.
“What time is it?” I asked.
The clock said 11:30. But which 11:30?
I was allowed to shower and change, after which I had to sign a stack of acknowledgments whose purposes seemed utterly redundant. I was certain there were probably only five or six lines in the whole mess that were really important, but I had no idea where or what they were. I signed and signed and signed again and was finally thrust out a heavy door into the waiting area marked RELEASE in stern lettering. Amid the smattering of worried parents clasping hands and frustrated spouses flipping sullenly through magazines, I saw the Suleiman family. The three of them were clustered together, and they waved me over anxiously, as if now was my time to run and if I didn’t hurry, the relentlessly ticking bureaucracy behind me might change its mind and snatch me back through the one-way door with a big hooked cane, like in a vaudeville act. Cue laugh track.
I realized then I was very, very tired, but I was tired the way a traveler is tired after a long journey to someplace new. I had a kind of bubbling exhaustion. And I felt older. Way, way older.
The Suleimans, on the other hand, radiated warmth. Except Samir. But whatever. Abdul totally made up for it. His hand rested casually on his wife’s shoulder. I’m not sure I’d ever seen them touch. For him, that was practically gushing. I stopped a few yards from them. Mrs. Suleiman covered her mouth when she saw what I looked like, my bruises and everything. My lips turned down then. I couldn’t help it. But I choked back the lump in my throat, and with it the tears. I felt like such a failure, a burden on these nice people I barely knew who had only ever gone out of their way to help me, a fellow immigrant, try to find a place in that big mess of a city.
Daria stepped forward and hugged me. I just stood there, arms at my sides, waiting to break down. But I didn’t. My lips quivered. My heart was hollow. But my eyes stayed dry. It was like something had broken in me, some lever attached to my heart had snapped and was spinning wildly without effect.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” I said to her shoulder.
She stepped back and rubbed my arm. “We didn’t do anything.”
She was wearing a beautiful orange-and-yellow patterned hijab.
“We used your money,” Abdul said. “In the safe.”
“Come,” Mrs. Suleiman said. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
I stepped back.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly. “For everything. For the party and for not paying rent and for making you come all the way down here.”
“What are you talking about?” Abdul objected. “You brought us our son. “
“I know this won’t make sense, but I have to go.”
“Go?” he asked. I think he was hurt. Like maybe he wanted me to be the one his son married and then we would all live together as a family. “Go where?”
I gripped the plastic bag full of my personal effects. Detective Hammond was waiting in a short hallway on the other side of the lobby area. He was leaning against the wall, just as he’d been leaning against the door in the interview room where I met him. He had a closed file in his hand.
“I’m sorry,” I said to the Suleimans. “Really. You all deserve better.” I hugged Daria again. “Thank you for cleaning my flat all those times.”
She half-hugged back. “What are you talking about?”
I stepped to Abdul, whose eyes got big when he realized I was going to hug him as well. But I didn’t care. I grabbed him tight. I wanted him to know I meant it.
He patted my back awkwardly with two hands.
I stepped backward away from them. I waved. The three of them waved back.
“Cerise,” Samir called.
He looked so conflicted. He didn’t know whether to be angry or supportive. None of them did.
“Be careful,” he said.
I nodded. But I didn’t look back. I wasn’t being fair. But it was the best thing I could do. Leaving was the safest thing for them.
Hammond led me around a corner, presumably so we could talk in private. I stood in front of him and said nothing. I was probably glowering. I didn’t want to sculpt his head anymore. I wanted to punch it. His eyes darted from right to left, quickly confirming no one was in earshot.
“The evidence against you seems to have been misplaced.”
The baggy.
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
He shrugged. “It’ll take a week or two before your case gets reviewed by someone who can make a decision, but at that point the charges should be dropped. You’ll get your bail money back, too. Minus a fee.”
“Is that it?”
“No.”
He looked to me like he was thinking how to phrase his next statement. I looked at the closed file he was clutching in his hand. I caught the first five letters on the tab at the top, SOBRI. The rest was obscured by his thumb.
“Autopsy confirmed she was pregnant. Father was Lykke Rottheim. Looks like the driver did it.”
Sideburns.
“We have him on camera leaving the country in Miami. His body was found yesterday on a beach in Port-au-Prince. Close to a mil in cash in a suitcase behind a wall in his motel room.”
He was telling me that the case into the death of billionaire Lykke Rottheim was closed and that I was no longer a suspect.
“Higher-ups want it done, don’t they?”
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. He didn’t believe that was the whole story. But he wasn’t sure he believed me either.
I looked up at Detective Hammond. I looked him right in the eye. “Is there a back door to this place?”
He inhaled sharply and stood straight.
“You wanna help catch the real killers?” I asked. “Then don’t make me walk out the front.”
He sighed. He looked at the file in his hand.
He nodded.