The Winter Sister(17)

Falley was quick to shake her head. “There’s no evidence to suggest that,” she said. “We just have to cover all our bases. It’s standard procedure.”

I had a hard time understanding how anything related to what had happened to Persephone could be considered “standard,” but I answered the question anyway. “She never said anything like that.”

“Okay,” Parker said. “But their relationship was sexual in nature. Correct?”

“Detective,” Jill said, her pronunciation reminding me of when lawyers yelled “Objection!” on TV. “Sylvie is fourteen years old.”

Parker looked at Falley, who gave a quick, nearly imperceptible nod, and then turned back to Jill. “That’s old enough, I think.” He swung his eyes toward me. “But you don’t have to answer the question, Sylvie, if it makes you uncomfortable.”

It did make me uncomfortable—not because he was asking about sex, exactly, but because he was asking about Persephone and sex. It seemed like my sister’s privacy had been violated so much already, and now, here was another layer being grabbed at and stripped away.

“I don’t know,” I said. But then I remembered the glow of her cheeks on nights when she’d stumble back through the window and, to my relief, wouldn’t ask me to paint. She’d be smiling in a drowsy, contented way as she got ready for bed, and sometimes, I’d even hear her humming.

“I mean, she never talked about it,” I continued, “but . . . yeah, probably.”

Jill shifted in her seat as Parker nodded and scribbled onto his pad. “Okay,” he said. “Thank you.”

For a few moments, neither detective said anything. One of the light fixtures above us buzzed, sounding louder and louder to me until Falley finally spoke.

“Thank you, Sylvie,” she said. “Unless there’s anything else you think we should know, then that’s all the information we need from you right now.”

When I didn’t say anything, still distracted by the sound of the light (it was kind of like the chorus of bugs Persephone and I always listened to through our open window on summer nights, laughing in our separate beds as we tried to harmonize with them), Aunt Jill slid back her chair. “Thank you for your time, Detectives,” she said. The three of them stood, getting ready to shake hands.

“Wait.” The word punched out of my mouth, reminding me that there was something else. “I—I just have a question.”

Falley sat back down, folding her hands on the table. Then Parker and Jill sat, too. “Sure,” Falley said. “Ask away.”

“Well,” I started, “I know you probably need all her clothes—you know, the clothes she was . . . found in—for evidence and stuff, but I—”

“Actually,” Parker said, sharing a glance with Falley, “that’s something we should talk to you about.”

His tone made me feel uneasy, and I saw Jill’s hands clasp tighter on her pocketbook. “What is it?” she asked.

“Well,” he said, “it’s just that, as you know, Persephone’s body was covered in over a foot of snow. Because of all that moisture, much of the evidence that might have been on her clothes has been compromised. Hair follicles. Fibers. Things of that nature.”

“Compromised,” Aunt Jill repeated. “What does that mean exactly?”

“It means,” Falley interjected, “destroyed. It’s the same with the area surrounding the body. Tire tracks were covered up, and then plowed over. Any footsteps were buried. But—” She leaned forward, setting her earnest eyes on mine. “That doesn’t mean it’s hopeless. There are a lot of other angles we’re investigating this from, and we’ll still be keeping her clothes, just in case. Which means—to answer the question I think you were about to ask—we can’t give any of that back to you. I’m sorry.”

“Does that include her necklace?” I asked. “Or can we have that back?”

Falley tilted her head. “What necklace?”

“The starfish one,” I said.

Our mother had given it to Persephone for her sixteenth birthday. When Persephone had opened it, she’d stared at it for a long time. “It reminded me of the Persephone constellation on our wall,” my mother had told her. “All those stars Sylvie painted you as.” Persephone had pulled the necklace from its box. She’d unclasped it and turned around, holding out each delicate gold end so Mom could put it on her. She’d then walked to the entryway mirror and we’d followed her, admiring how the starfish hung just below her collarbone.

She never took it off after that. She showered in it, went swimming in it during the summer, and often held the pendant absentmindedly between her fingers as we watched TV. Still, the night she had received it, she said to me in the dark as we were falling asleep, “Of course Mom got me a present that had more to do with you than me. She only thought to get me a star because you painted me that way.”

She was always saying things like that, collecting evidence that our mother loved me more than her. I never really understood where she got this idea; sure, my quizzes hung on the refrigerator instead of Persephone’s, but Persephone only got average grades. And yes, I always got to pick the movie we’d see when we’d splurge and go to the plush, air-conditioned theater at Spring Hill Commons, but Persephone always crossed her arms anyway, claiming not to care. Persephone’s favorite theory to go on about, though, was that Mom had been madly in love with my father. Naturally, then, Mom favored me, because I reminded her of the man who got away. None of this was true, of course. Both of our fathers had been little more than flings, Mom had always said, even when we were too young to really know what a “fling” was. She was an independent woman, she’d told us, and she could love us more than a hundred fathers ever could. “Well,” Persephone would whisper to me conspiratorially, “she can love you that much.”