LITMIR.BIZ

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at last. More than an hour had passed since Officer Mendoza had parked me on the long couch, and I’d answered all her questions, many of them more than once.

      “I need you to stay,” she said. “Detective Booth needs to talk with you.”

      Detective Booth. I had no idea which member of the swarm he was. I also wasn’t sure I wanted to hang around and find out. Could I leave even if Officer Mendoza “needed” me to stay? She wasn’t treating me like a suspect, but—

      Suddenly I thought about Sean. Was he a suspect? It didn’t seem likely that he’d killed his mother, or even possible. On the other hand, all I knew about Sean was two martinis’ worth of self-description. Not a great knowledge base from which to draw conclusions.

      Thanks to my clear view of the front door, I knew Sean was still in the house somewhere. For that matter, so was Marilyn. Paramedics had rolled a gurney down the hall, but they hadn’t returned with a body on board.

      What was going on outside? I wondered. I couldn’t see much even when the door opened, but the sounds of hubbub suggested that a good-sized block party had erupted. Oh, God—and television cameras. The media would probably have no more trouble getting through those gates than the cops had.

      “Would you like some water?” Officer Mendoza asked. I nodded, and she called to another cop to hand her a bottle. As she unscrewed the top, it dawned on me that she was my babysitter. She hadn’t strayed more than five feet from me since she’d arrived. Damn. I probably was a suspect.

      “Detective Booth will be here in a minute,” Officer Mendoza said. “Is there anything else you need?”

      I need to rewind back to three o’clock, I wanted to say. Or better yet, back to last week, when I was blissfully unaware of an unborn baby. “Boring” had never seemed so appealing.

      “No,” I said. “Thanks for the water.”

      It was more like an hour before Detective Booth relieved Officer Mendoza of her spot in front of me. He lowered himself onto the footstool, his long legs forming an A-frame in front of me. He was about forty, I guessed, and he was wearing cowboy boots, khaki slacks, and a short-sleeved seersucker shirt. When he arrived on the scene, I’d lumped him together with the crime scene investigators, though he hadn’t been carrying a camera.

      “How you doing?” he said after introducing himself. It’s the sort of question that usually doesn’t require a serious answer, but Detective Booth stopped talking and waited.

      “Just terrific,” I said, regretting my sarcasm as our eyes met. Damn! The guy looked like my uncle. My father’s younger brother has the same square face and tall, flat forehead. Detective Booth’s eyes were like Uncle Jeff’s, too—a steely blue-gray. He even had the same bristly five o’clock shadow.

      “Tell me what happened.”

      I sighed, realizing that once again I would have to recite the events that had led me to this spot. I knew without asking that “I already told Officer Mendoza” was not going to satisfy Detective Booth.

      “What was in the street when you got here?” Booth asked when I got to the part about following Sean from the V. “Did you notice any vehicles?”

      “Only Sean’s BMW,” I said. “I can’t remember any others, but there might have been a car parked across the street.” I racked my brain for more details but came up empty. “Let me know if you remember anything,” Booth said. He jotted some notes, then nodded at me to continue my story.

      “I was curious,” I said when I got to the part about why I had entered Marilyn’s bedroom. “Especially after I saw the cord.”

      I met Detective Booth’s gaze, and his similarity to my uncle vanished. Uncle Jeff is always friendly and warm. This guy had icicles in his stare.

      “I know I had no business being in Ms. Weaver’s bedroom,” I continued. “But the cord was too weird to ignore. I think anyone in my position would have looked inside that closet.”

      Booth smiled at me in a way that was anything but friendly. “We’re not talking about anyone, Ms. Black. We’re talking about you.”

      I gulped. I’d stayed pretty calm the whole time I was talking to Officer Mendoza, but this guy was making me feel like I had something to hide.

      “Did you touch or move anything?”

      “I touched Ms. Weaver’s arm,” I said, “to see if maybe she was still alive.”

      “What else?”

      “Nothing,” I said.

      “Think,” Booth said.

      “No,” I said, meeting his laser-beam gaze as defiantly as I could. “I touched her arm. Then I called Sean. Then we called 911.”

      Booth kept staring at me. I looked away as unpleasant thoughts flooded my brain. What had Sean told him? Did it match what I had said? Should I tell him what Sean had done when I first tried calling 911? I looked at the detective again. He was still staring at me.

      “Do I need a lawyer?” I said.

      Booth snorted as a mean smile revealed his teeth. “I don’t know. Do you?”

      Damn. I was only making things worse.

      “Tell me the whole story again,” Booth said. “Beginning to end. No detail is unimportant.”

      It was almost a relief to have to start over, and for the bazillionth time, I recounted events beginning with the fund-raiser for the Neon Museum. If Booth wanted the unabridged version, well, he was going to get it. By the time I was finished, he knew about everything from Marilyn’s Prada purse to Curtis’s revelations about Oscar the tortoise. He knew about Colby Nash and my brother’s building project. He even knew that Sean had wanted to introduce me to absinthe. If I had failed to tell him about Sean’s weird behavior with my cell phone—well, too bad. I wasn’t about to make Sean look suspicious without doing a little investigation of my own.

      “So that’s it,” I said triumphantly when I reached the end of my narrative. “Now you know what I know.”

      Booth scratched his head with the end of his ballpoint pen and shook his head. Then he flipped back through some notes. Then he scratched his head again and squinted at me.

      “I must have missed something,” he said. His whole tone had changed, and he seemed genuinely confused. He shook his head again.

      “That really is all I know,” I said. “I’ve told you everything, I swear.” But prickles of sweat were popping out on my forehead. What had Sean told this guy?

      “Would you mind starting over?” Booth said.

      I stared at my hands. Yes, I wanted to say, I do mind. I’ve already told you everything, and I’m sure you heard every word. I didn’t kill Marilyn, and I have no idea who did. My only sin is nosiness, and last I heard nosiness isn’t a crime.

      I sneaked a peek at Booth. He was still looking at me, and when he caught my eye, he winked.

      Flustered, I looked down again. The guy was downright creepy. I wished I had the nerve to get up and walk out, but Detective Booth had me far too tangled in his net of innuendos.

      I sighed. “Where do you want me to start?”

      Before I left the Weavers’ house, Detective Booth had made me repeat my story at least three more times. Somewhere in the midst of one of my soliloquies, Officer Mendoza brought me a slice of pepperoni pizza, and I wondered if Sean had actually managed to call in an order before Marilyn’s body took center stage. As I imagined an unsuspecting pizza delivery boy arriving on a murder scene, I realized how narrow my view of everything was. I was telling Booth more and more, but I felt as though I knew less and less.

      I liked the detective less and less, too, though I kept telling myself he was only doing his job. Or was he? Shouldn’t he be out looking for the murderer instead

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