Come Find Me(16)

There are no pictures on the walls. But the paint is fading in sections, like something must’ve hung there once.

“Thanks for coming in today,” Crooked Tie says, drawing my focus from the lack of décor to the state of the tabletop (old, worn, in need of a polish). “Kennedy, you’ve probably heard that we’ve been preparing for the upcoming trial.”

There’s this crack running through the surface of the table in front of me, dips and valleys, and I trace my nail through it.

“Kennedy?” Joe says, and then he sighs. “Yes, she knows.”

    “Okay.” Crooked Tie stacks a pile of papers on the table. For a moment, I think the crack in this table must come from him, from doing this day after day. He lays the papers in front of him so I can see a few notes in scribble, in his own handwriting.

“Today we’re just going to walk through how the questions will go. It’s nothing you’re not expecting. It’s basically everything you’ve already said.”

I see the shadow house again for a moment, and then it’s gone. Replaced by fresh paint, fresh carpet.

“Then why do you need me to repeat it?” I ask.

Joe sighs again, but the other man smiles.

“Kennedy, the timing is important,” he explains. “You are important.”

“The police have my statement,” I say.

“Yes, they do,” he says, nodding. He looks down at the papers, readjusting his glasses. “So let’s go over the statement. Can you tell us, once more, where you were on the night of December third and the early morning of December fourth?”

I sigh. “I was at Marco’s house.”

“Marco Saliano,” he says, as if correcting me, or asking.

Then I realize he’s waiting for me. “Marco Saliano. Yeah,” I say.

“Great,” he says, making a check mark, like I’ve just given the correct answer on a pop quiz. “And would that be Marco Saliano at Fifteen Vail Road?”

“Yes.” At least, I was pretty sure that was his address. Since I cut through the fields to meet up with him there, I never really noticed the street signs. I described his house to the police as third on the right from the fields.

    Another check mark. “Okay, so, on the early morning of December fourth, you left your boyfriend Marco Saliano’s house, located at Fifteen Vail Road, sometime after one a.m.”

He pauses, looks up at me, raises his eyebrows.

Apparently, that was a question. “Oh, I guess. I don’t know.”

He frowns, then looks at the paper. “That’s what you said.”

“Exactly, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. You have the statement. The person who made it remembers more than I do by now.”

He blinks slowly, his eyes looking unnaturally large behind his glasses. The pen hovers over the paper. He doesn’t make a mark. “You’re the same person.”

I mentally roll my eyes. “I know.”

He’s getting frustrated, and Joe is fidgeting beside me.

“We need you to confirm it, Kennedy. The timing. On the stand. It’s important. You have to confirm it.”

“I’m sure I meant it back when I said it—isn’t that good enough? I can’t exactly remember now. It was over six months ago.” Just barely. Almost six months, to the day. “Do you remember what time you got home six months ago?”

He sighs and twists in his chair, leaning for his briefcase, and I’m momentarily hopeful that this interview is over. But it turns out he was only rummaging through his bag, because he pulls out a small recording device.

“What’s this?” Joe asks, sitting straighter.

    Joe seems to understand something I don’t, and a sliver of panic works its way through me, from his body language.

Crooked Tie presses a small button with a thick finger. “Sometimes this helps, to listen. To remember,” he says, not looking directly at either of us.

Joe holds out a hand as if to stop him, but it just hovers there, unsure.

A small, robotic voice speaks first, in stilted syllables: December fourth. One-eighteen a.m.

I sit straight, my shoulders rigid. And then Joe’s hand comes down over the device, hitting the button. “Is this really necessary?”

I’m not breathing. There’s not enough oxygen in the room.

Crooked Tie frowns at both of us. “If she can’t remember, then yes, it is.”

He presses the button again, and this time, Joe doesn’t stop it. Suddenly it’s a woman’s voice and not a robot. “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”

The room is silent except for the sound of breathing on the tape. Until suddenly, it’s my voice, filling the room. “Something happened. Something terrible.”

And I’m there again, at the shadow house—

“Ma’am? Can you tell me your name and location?”

More breathing, until I speak again, ignoring her question. “Something happened in the hallway…”

“Miss? Are you in immediate danger?”

“He’s gone. I saw him. He’s gone.”

“Stay on the line. We’ve got officers out to your location right now.”

    Suddenly, the sound of Joe’s chair scratching against the floor cuts through the static of the recording as we wait for someone to speak. The wait is infinite, then and now.