Have You Seen Me?(48)
“We’ll have to present this to the coroner and factor it in with other details from the case.” Her face is a blank now, giving nothing away. “But I’m glad you shared this with us, Ms. Linden. Was there anything else you recall?”
“No, nothing,” I tell her. I’m so mentally drained right now it’s hard to imagine summoning another thought even if I had one.
She turns to Nowak. “Chief, do you have any additional questions?”
“No, I think we’ve covered everything. I want to thank Ms. Linden for coming in. It’s much appreciated.”
Corbet concurs, capping her pen and wearing her sympathetic face again.
Nowak shows me out, and when I reach the foyer, I’m dismayed to see that the only one there is the secretary, murmuring into the office phone. With a hand over the mouthpiece, she informs me that Roger has stepped outside. I find him leaning against the building, chin in hand.
“Hey, sorry, I needed some— What’s the matter?” He’s clearly reading the distress in my eyes. “Didn’t it go well?”
“I fucked up big-time,” I say.
“In the interview?”
“No, years ago—by not admitting when I found the body.”
“Hold on,” he says, glancing around, “let’s jump in the car first.”
As soon as we’re seated, I tell him about Jaycee’s leg, how her body must have been in rigor mortis when I stumbled upon it.
“Okay, I’m not quite following,” Roger says. “I know the term rigor mortis, but not how it actually works.”
“When you die, your body stiffens after a certain period of time, and then eventually—at least as I understand it—the stiffness goes away.” I stuff my hand into my purse and produce my phone. “Why don’t you drive—I need to get out of here—and I’ll google it.”
While Roger fires up the engine and pulls the car away from the curb, I summon the info on my phone, twice misspelling the term in my haste.
“Okay, here it is: ‘Rigor is a result of chemical changes in the muscles following death, which cause the limbs to stiffen. It starts in the small muscles right after a person dies, and within twelve to twenty-four hours the body is completely stiff. . . . And then at about twenty-four hours from death, the limbs gradually soften up again. . . .’ Uh, it says if the air is cold, rigor can take longer to form. But I don’t recall it being chilly out that day.”
“We don’t know what condition her body was in when the police retrieved it on Friday, but it sounds like when you found her, rigor mortis had fully set in.”
“Right.” My breathing’s become shallow, and I force myself to inhale deeply. “And that means she’d probably been dead for a day when I came across her. Maybe longer. What I told the police today could help them pinpoint the time of death.”
“But don’t you think they were able to do that years ago? I mean, they rely on other data, too, right?”
“They must, but I’m sure they consider all the factors together—and I deprived them of a key piece of evidence. You said the other day that the mother didn’t report the girl missing right away. Do you know anything more specific about her and the boyfriend’s alibis?”
“I probably did at the time, but not any longer.”
“God, by lying about when I found her, I may have totally fucked up the case. It could have prevented someone from being prosecuted.”
“Ally, first of all, you have to stop saying it was a lie. You were simply too frightened to recall and reveal every detail. And don’t get ahead of yourself. There’s more than a good chance your revelation doesn’t alter an iota of what was determined years ago. Why don’t I try to talk to the chief again tomorrow? Maybe I can get him to clue me in on the original investigation.”
“Okay, but I’m not sure if the other detective will let him breathe a word. She’s pretty tough—and very much in charge.”
“She wasn’t hard on you, was she?”
“I don’t know exactly what you’d call it.” Summoning the encounter in my mind makes my stomach twist. “She seemed sympathetic at first—she even said it was really normal for kids to withhold information—but things started to shift.”
“What do you mean?”
“She asked me a few questions more than once, like she hadn’t been paying enough attention when she first asked them. But I think she wanted to see if my answers matched. And then she wondered if I thought Jaycee had been killed by someone who hadn’t really meant to hurt her. How could my opinion on that possibly matter?”
A car horn blares, and Roger jerks the steering wheel to the right. I’m making it hard for him to concentrate.
“I wouldn’t put much stock in that,” he says. “As far as we know, she probably did some kind of detective training program where they teach you a certain style.”
“I guess. . . . I’m going to have to tell Dad about this sooner or later, aren’t I? Because if my statement makes a difference, it’s all going to come out.”
The idea only adds to my discomfort. This is the last thing my dad needs right now.
“Why don’t you hold off thinking about that for now? I hate the idea of telling him over the phone. I may end up flying out there in a few weeks and I could bring him up to speed in person.”