The Herd(52)

“Sorry. They said we gotta keep you here.” The cop spoke as he was still scurrying back. Mikki whimpered. “Oh, and don’t—alert anyone. Or touch anything. Just stay here, okay?”

For a while, we all stared into the distance. It was like I’d strapped on a heavy breastplate, making it difficult to breathe. I was the only one not crying, and this struck me as unfair: They hadn’t gone up on the roof. They hadn’t seen the gash in Eleanor’s neck. Instead they’d stayed warm here in the sunroom, staring at me.

At first, they’d been confused—they thought maybe Eleanor was alive up there. Once I’d set them straight, Katie had yelled out, No one goes up there—we’re calling 911. We’d huddled on the floor as the sirens grew louder; each new whoop had made her jump. The cops congratulated us on not messing with the crime scene. Which I liked. I like when authority figures say “good job.”

A little shout and some shuffling, and two men rolled Eleanor out in a body bag spread across a gurney. Mikki stifled a wail. They huffed directions as they navigated the tight corners, and I stared at the black sack, something blazing in my belly like an ember. The score along Eleanor’s neck. The darkness leaking from it, soaking the top of her coat. Someone had taken her, someone who had no right.

I thought of the Fates again, the three of them, sisters who carried torches, whips, and cups of venom to punish wrongdoers on Earth. Relentlessly pursuing murderers, torturing them until they were driven mad. Monstrous, smelly hags with snakes in their hair and bat wings on their backs.

Wait, not Fates. Those were Furies.



* * *



—

The interview room was nicer than I’d expected. Years of TV-watching had primed me for a blank, bare-bones box, a table between us with a ring meant for affixing handcuffs. But this pretty much looked like the meeting rooms I’d rented for sit-downs with my own PR clients. Cream walls, a decent-sized window, rolling chairs, that smooth, generic table.

Still, my heart banged in my chest. Pounding like the big bass drum that’d jolted me up to the roof in the first place. Detective Ratliff appeared and shook my hand warmly.

“Ms. Bradley, I’m so sorry for your loss.” She pulled out a seat across from mine. I was glad it was her. Detective Herrera, the little ham hock of a man who’d shown up at Eleanor’s the night she went missing, gave me bad vibes—something in the cock of his hip, the confident set of his shoulders. He reminded me of the Cambridge cop who’d wandered over when, senior year, a bouncer with white dreadlocks had refused to believe my driver’s license was real. Mikki and Eleanor had made a scene, jabbing their fingers in his face as tears coated my eyes, until the officer had intervened and snatched the ID from the bouncer’s hand. Mikki and Eleanor had been so relieved—finally, an authority figure to set things straight—and their faces crumpled as the cop snorted, This is obviously fake and folded my (state-issued) Michigan driver’s license in his fist.

“We appreciate your giving a statement tonight,” Ratliff said. “I know this must be difficult for you.”

“Well, anything to help you figure out who did this.” A little honk escaped my lips and I cleared my throat to cover it. “Has anyone contacted her parents?”

“We left messages for them. We have someone driving up to their home now.”

“Good. They’re going to be just…devastated.”

She nodded, shot me a sympathetic look. “We’re doing everything we can. Now, can you walk me through what happened, starting with when you decided to go up to the roof?”

I recounted it, careful to get the details right, to mention anything that might be useful, always eager to please. Back in the Herd’s sunroom: Katie and Mikki pressed against the glass, gazing at the street below as I beelined for the stairs.

“I got to the roof and my first thought was how cold it was,” I continued. “I started making my way to the edge—it’s kind of a maze of different sections, which are, like, seating areas when it’s open in the summer. Now all the furniture is in piles.” I saw it again: chair-and cushion-and table-shaped lumps haphazardly stacked against little barricades. How I’d hustled by, the clamor of the drummers echoing off nearby buildings, when something made me stop and glance back.

“I looked at one of the piles and at first, my thought was, ‘Why did someone leave a shoe up here?’ It was kinda sticking out, a boot. And then I realized there were two. So I got a little closer to try and look, and I saw—I realized—”

Something in my throat squeezed and bobbed. I pushed out a deep breath. “I got closer and realized it was a body. For a second I was like, ‘Is a homeless person squatting on the roof?’ But it’s way too cold for that. So I took a few steps around the pile of lawn furniture, and she was there, in this little space between the pile and the partition. I already had my phone out so I turned on the light, and I could see—”

“Where were you standing?”

I blinked. “Right at her feet. I basically shined the flashlight up along her body.” I indicated a sweep over my own torso.

“And you didn’t touch her.”

“I didn’t touch anything. As soon as I got to her coat I think I knew, although I hadn’t consciously processed it yet. And then I got to her face and it was—there was no mistaking it.” My voice wobbled but I breathed again, controlled it. “Her eyes were closed and her skin was so white—it looked like, I don’t know, a dummy that was designed to look like her, or a wax figure or something. And then I realized there was sort of a gash across part of her neck.” I waved my nails alongside my throat. “At first I thought it was a choker? And then I spotted this big stain along the top of her collar. Right underneath it. In the darkness it just looked black, but that’s when I ran back downstairs.” I could still feel the fumbling panic, my feet skittering backward over the wooden slats as my lizard brain hit the air horn: Get away, get away, get away.