No One Will Miss Her(64)

I turned back to see the detective watching me, his eyebrows raised.

“It was self-defense,” I said.

“We’ll cover all of that, Mrs. Richards. But we’d like to talk to you down at the station.”

“Shouldn’t I have a lawyer with me?”

“This is just a casual chat. You don’t have to make a statement. But CSI will be inside your house for a while yet, so come on. Let’s go somewhere more comfortable, yeah? You can ride with me.”

He gestured, and I followed, shuffling in Adrienne’s too-tight shoes. I left the blanket where it had fallen, even though the night was cold and I already missed its weight over my shoulders. I wondered if Geller would want me to be so cooperative, but it was too late to ask. If I called him again tonight, it would be because I’d been arrested.



The police station was only a short drive away, but I was disoriented within a few blocks as we left Adrienne’s neighborhood behind. I craned my neck in search of a landmark but saw nothing, and a claustrophobic knot formed in my gut. In the sunshine, surrounded by other people, the anonymity of the city had felt like freedom; now the miles of empty streets made me feel trapped and exposed, lost in a sea of samey brick and shuttered storefronts, empty lobbies behind plateglass windows that glowed pale below the streetlights. Then the road curved, and a crop of taller buildings came into view.

“Here we are,” said Fuller, and I said, “Mmm,” because I didn’t know which of the buildings in front of us was “here,” and maybe I was supposed to. The station was massive, a fat brick box with a single row of narrow windows slotted into the side. It looked more like a fortress than a jail, designed to keep people out rather than in. Fuller led me through the doors, past a security desk with a yawning officer sitting behind it, into an elevator where he pressed a button and we rode in silence to the sixth floor. When the doors opened, we exited and turned right down a long corridor where doors opened on either side into empty rooms.

“We’re a little short-staffed tonight,” Fuller said conversationally. “Every time we beat out the Yanks for a championship, some folks get a little too excited and try to burn the city down.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Not a baseball fan, huh?”

“Oh,” I said again. “Baseball. No. Not really.” The truth for Adrienne, a lie for me. Watching baseball was one of the few things Dwayne and I had always done together, and still did; he hadn’t thrown a ball in years, but he liked yelling at the TV, particularly when one of the umps was being stingy about the strike zone. If not for the events of the past couple days, we would have been watching the game tonight, and it was strange to realize that I’d missed it. That the world had continued on as usual while I was burning it all down.

“Can I get you a coffee?” Fuller asked.

“No, thank you.”

I wanted one more than anything, not for the caffeine but for the warmth of the cup, the familiar, comforting bitterness of that first sip. Coffee was coffee, no matter how far you’d traveled, no matter who you were. But I’d seen a movie once where they tricked someone that way, took the cup and used it to analyze his DNA. I didn’t know if it was real, or even what they’d do with my DNA if they had it, but that survivor’s voice inside my head—a voice that was starting to sound more and more like Adrienne herself with every passing minute—told me I was better safe than sorry.

“If you change your mind,” Fuller said, and then turned away without finishing the sentence. He pointed down the hall to a line of chairs. “Sit tight for just a second, Mrs. Richards. I appreciate your patience.”

I cleared my throat.

“Adrienne,” I said. “Please call me Adrienne.”

It’s what she would have said.



I didn’t have to wait long before Fuller returned with another officer, this one in uniform and looking like he might have graduated high school sometime last week. He looked at me, and I felt the hairs on my neck stand on end. There was a strange expression on his face, expectant, like maybe we were supposed to know each other. A ripple of panic ran up my spine: Did Adrienne have friends in the Boston police department? Or worse, more than friends? It suddenly occurred to me that Dwayne might not have been the only side dish on Adrienne’s plate; for all I knew, she’d fucked this baby-faced beat cop and all his friends.

“Officer Murray is going to join us,” Fuller said.

“Hi,” I said.

“Nice to meet you,” said Murray, and I felt my whole body relax: He doesn’t know her. The emotion must have shown on my face because the younger cop shook his head, chagrined. “I mean, not nice; I didn’t intend—”

“Never mind, Officer,” Fuller said. He pointed, and we filed into a room that seemed designed to make people want to tell the cops what they wanted to hear, just so they could leave. It was bare and much too bright, with a smeary window that looked out on the hallway. The only furniture was a metal table and chairs, and there was a camera mounted high in one corner. Adrienne’s voice piped up in my head again: Nobody looks good from that angle.

I shuddered.

“All right, Mrs. Richards,” Fuller said, and sat down in one of the chairs. Murray, either very polite or just pretending to be, pulled out a chair across the table from Fuller and motioned to me to sit. I did.