Dead Letters(35)

I’ve been trying to think of any Jasons living in Hector, but the only one I can think of is probably not going to be useful.

“There’s this guy Jason Street? Used to play football for the high school, but I think he’s in a wheelchair now,” I say innocently. Let the cops ask around town for him. Zelda would be tickled. Healy writes the name dutifully in his notebook, and I suppress a giggle.

“And there’s this other guy, I don’t know his last name. He’s always wearing this yellow fleece coat. He’s really into sailing.”

The cop squints at me—perhaps I’ve pushed it too far. “Okay, okay,” he says, nodding. “So you’d had no contact with your sister? You wouldn’t be able to tell us if she’d been behaving strangely in the last few weeks or months? Or if she’d had any disagreements with anyone?”

“Like I said, we hadn’t been speaking. She lived with our mother, who’s…not doing all that well. You’re welcome to come out to the house to question her, but I should warn you, she thinks I’m Zelda and has some difficulty keeping track of reality.” Healy looks at me in confusion. “She has dementia,” I explain. “You didn’t notice?”

“She was heavily sedated the night of the fire. We think she may even have been given extra sleeping aids that night, either accidentally or…” He obviously doesn’t want me contemplating the possibility that my sister was murdered, but it’s very clear that that’s exactly what he’s thinking. Zelda will have them all tied up in knots by the end of the day, no doubt. I wonder what other trails she’s left for them—us—to find.

“I see.” I wait silently for a few beats, expecting him to go on, but he just stares at me.

“You really look just like her,” he finally says.

“Funny thing about twins. Is there anything else I can do for you?” I ask.

“I think those are most of the questions we needed to clear up with you. Now we just need a DNA sample from you. We’re going to be testing the, er, human remains, to confirm that they’re Zelda’s….”

“Do you have any reason to believe that they’re not?” I try to sound hopeful. I know they’re not hers.

“At the moment, no, we don’t. I’m sorry, ma’am.” He pats my hand gently, and I tug my arm away before I can stop myself. He blushes, and I drop my eyes. “I’ll just, well, send our forensics guy in.” He scooches his chair back, his big belly wobbling, and lumbers to the door. “Thanks for your help. Oh, here’s my card,” he says, remembering, and hands one over. “Please call me if you think of anything.”

I nod, ashamed of my rudeness. I don’t quite feel like myself. That’s not how Ava behaves, I chide myself.

The forensic tech comes in a moment later and swabs my inner cheek wordlessly, not making eye contact. He wears gloves, and our interaction is almost robotic. I like that. I like not having to smile at him or let him touch me anywhere without latex between our two skins.

When I’m finished with the DNA swab, I make my way through the police station. The desk guy—Trent—is typing into the desktop computer, and he looks up as I leave. My hand is on the door when he calls out.

“Ms. Antipova? Ava?”

I pause. “What? Do you need me to answer more questions?”

“No, ma’am, it’s not that, it’s just…well, your sister was a really neat girl, and I just wanted to say, well, to say I’m real sorry for your loss.”

“You knew Zelda?” I ask with a smirk. This kid does not really seem like her type.

“We were, uh, friends,” he says, turning a violent shade of crimson, and I understand immediately that they were not just friends. Maybe she hadn’t fucked him, but he certainly thought she might.

“Oh. Well, thanks for your condolences,” I say with a polite nod, turning back to the glass door.

“You really look a lot like her,” he calls after me as I step back outside into the sun. I wave goodbye without turning around. I know.

It’s already getting warm out here. I shut my eyes briefly, to think. Oh, Zelda. Fucking a cop. Is that how you were getting away with the drugs? Were you selling or just using? And if you weren’t selling, where the hell were you getting enough cash to live on? And Paris? Was it me you came looking for, or was it for some other, darker motive? I sigh, unable to ponder any of this in the heat.

Back in the truck, my head is pounding, my hangover catching up with me at last. I want to look at Zelda’s phone, but I’m afraid to, here in the parking lot. Still, I’m too curious to see if what the cop said is true, and I open the Facebook app on Zelda’s phone. The red blip on the world icon indicates that Zelda has indeed been tagged in a new post. An hour ago, someone named Holly Whitaker tagged a photo of Zelda sitting on the deck of Silenus, big sunglasses covering much of her face. My mother is next to her, looking distant and confused, wrapped in her bathrobe and staring out at the lake. The photo is captioned “Fucked-up Family Fun with the Antipovas.” I scour the picture for any clues to when it was taken, but it’s just a summery photo of my mother and sister sitting on the deck. I look at Holly’s page and see a series of photos, all featuring her wearing skimpy get-ups, looking high as a kite. I don’t recognize her from high school. I wonder if she doesn’t know that Zelda’s supposed to be dead or if she’s too stoned to realize how weird the post seems if she does.