Catch Me (Detective D.D. Warren, #6)(66)

IT TOOK A BIT. We had to pour through my high school memories, which was a challenge at best. I know some people can tell you the name of the cat they had when they were four, but I wasn’t one of them. I simply don’t remember things well. Not good things, not bad things. Not twenty years ago, not twenty days ago. If memory was a muscle, then mine had been purposefully atrophied through consistent lack of use.

Plus, Detective O rattled me. The way she asked questions, then scrutinized my answers as if she already knew I had something to hide. I felt simultaneously guilty and remorseful. She was disappointed in me. I was failing her; I should remember faster, answer better, confess all.

Good cop, bad cop, it occurred to me. Both detectives were playing me expertly, but all they had to show for it was a very tired, increasingly confused witness, who honestly didn’t recollect her childhood.

Finally, we Googled my high school, and found an archive with digital copies of old yearbooks.

With a bit of effort, I was able to identify a dozen girls that floated around our trio, some friends of Randi, some friends of Jackie. None were friends of mine. Even reviewing pictures of my Nordic ski team, I didn’t recognize half of the girls’ pictures, couldn’t provide their names.

My world really had been Randi and Jackie. Away from them, I passed the time. With them, the world started spinning again.

I wondered if they would’ve said the same. Had they really enjoyed spending all their weekends helping out at my aunt’s B&B? Were they really excited to take my call at ten o’clock at night because I’d thought of one last thing to say?

Maybe I wasn’t the glue that held us together. Maybe I’d been the anchor around their necks. And that’s why we’d drifted apart when we turned eighteen. They’d been happy to finally get away from me.

The detectives took down names and background info. They wanted personal information on Randi, things only a good friend would know about Jackie. Nicknames, favorite expressions, songs, movies, TV shows, childhood pets.

I could answer all of their questions. I tried to tell myself that meant something. I hadn’t just loved my friends. I’d known them. I’d listened, I’d understood, I’d cared.

Jackie and Randi, I’d remembered.

But it became increasingly difficult to bolster my flagging spirits as the detectives turned my childhood relationships upside down and inside out, leaving me feeling emptier and emptier. As if Randi Jackie Charlie hadn’t been the best part of my life, but maybe just a very unhealthy friendship fostered by an overly needy girl in order to compensate for her mother’s destructive love.

The detectives muttered among themselves, took notes, asked questions, opened more Internet pages and launched more Google and Facebook searches.

I stopped sitting and paced the tiny confines of the office instead.

Detective D. D. Warren had framed certificates on the wall. Apparently she had a degree in criminal justice and lots of advanced training in various firearms and forensic courses. The frames were slightly askew, so I straightened them up. They were dusty as well, so I took a napkin and polished them up.

What I needed was Windex to polish the glass. Without thinking, I turned to ask, and found two sets of eyes staring at me. The detectives’ gazes went from the straightened frames to me to the straightened frames again.

“Neat freak much?” Detective Warren drawled.

“Only when I’m nervous.”

“How often are you nervous?”

“Every day of the past year.”

The detectives exchanged glances.

“You went to a public school?” Detective Warren prodded.

“Yes.”

“Who has neater handwriting? You, Jackie, or Randi?”

“I don’t know. Randi had a thing for drawing little hearts over her i’s. Does that count?”

“What about print?”

“Me probably.” I shrugged. “But only because Randi preferred cursive, and Jackie had terrible handwriting, all cramped and rushed. It didn’t do any good to pass notes with her in class—we could never read what she wrote.”

“Wrote like a doctor,” D.D. said amiably.

“Exactly.”

“Do you listen to the police scanner when you’re off duty?” she asked abruptly.

The change in topic confused me. “What? Sometimes. Why?”

“Just thinking, in your line of work, you must like to keep your finger on the pulse of the city. And the things you must hear, the things you must know, being police dispatch and all.”

“You’re dispatch?” Detective O spoke up, finally sounding impressed. She looked me up and down, as if reassessing. “Tough job. I got a friend who does it. Kids are the toughest calls, she says. So much shit going on out there, and so little you can do to help them.”

“True.”

“Does it make you mad?” she continued conversationally. “Because I’m a sex crimes detective and it makes me furious. I mean, the number of perverts out there, and the things they can get away with, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Most kids are too terrified to come forward, and even if they do, system puts them through the wringer. You must hate that. Taking those calls while already knowing that even if the officer shows up and an arrest is made, it’s still gonna end badly for the kid. Just the way it is.”