“Tessa? Look at me, please.”
She lifted her head and met my eyes. I saw a pain I hadn’t expected.
“You should have told me Reed wasn’t real. You let me talk about him, like he was… maybe you didn’t lie, but you omitted the truth and that’s worse,” she said.
“Yes, I did omit the truth. Sometimes we have to do that in our investigations. And you’re wrong, Tessa. Reed was real, he was just as real as you or I or Sam,” I said. “And don’t ever forget it.”
She bit her lip and then nodded. “He lied to me, too. Reed did. Why didn’t he tell me he was some rich kid? And his dad was mayor of this fantasyland ski town? You know, this place is so unreal compared to the rest of America. You have no idea how many times Reed and I made fun of places like this. It’s so quaint I could throw up.”
Tessa took a deep breath and her eyes welled up again and she made a choked-up noise.
Across the room, Sam’s eyes met mine. “Hey, you guys want a pop? Or some water?”
“I’d love a Sprite, Sam, thanks, and some tissues, too, please. Tessa?” I asked.
She shook her head. Sam left the room.
“Tessa, you’re very upset. Is this all about Reed? Or is something else going on?”
Her gaze fell back to the table and she resumed picking at one of the etchings with her fingernail. Her nails were cherry red and I watched as tiny chips of polish fell into the carving, adding more spots of color to the mosaic.
“Should I have a lawyer present?”
“Well, you certainly could. But you’re not here as a suspect, and this is not a formal interrogation. We’re just two people, talking.”
“I think Lisey may have done something. Something very bad, I mean.”
“Your roommate, Red?” I asked.
At that, she smiled. “I call her that sometimes, too.”
“Why do you think Lisey did something bad?”
Tessa sighed. “I found a ripped-up photograph under her bed. It was my favorite picture of Reed and me. It was taken a few months ago. I hadn’t seen it in ages. I thought I’d lost it, on the road somewhere.”
“Why were you looking under her bed?”
“She had the last of my stash, my pot. I know that’s where she hides it. My back was killing me. Anyway, it’s not just the torn-up picture. There are other things, too.”
“Like what?” I asked.
Sam poked his head up at the window in the door and I gave him a tiny headshake. I didn’t want anything to interrupt Tessa.
“Lisey’s been wearing this T-shirt all summer, this old Ramones shirt that is disgusting but she just keeps washing it and wearing it, washing and wearing. She wore it on Monday and I haven’t seen it since.”
I considered this. “Well, as you said, she’s been washing it. Maybe it’s in the hamper.”
“I checked. It’s not there. It’s just… gone,” Tessa said.
I leaned back and folded my hands on top of my stomach. I understood why some men didn’t mind their potbellies; in a strange way, it was a nice little perch for hands and stray potato chips.
“What are you suggesting, Tessa?”
She stared at me. “Isn’t it obvious? She’s been in love with me for months. She’s clearly upset; what kind of person goes around ripping up photographs? Maybe she…”
I met Tessa’s fierce gaze with one of my own. Destroying a photograph and trashing a T-shirt weren’t much in and of themselves. I thought I knew what Tessa’s next words were going to be but I had to hear her say them aloud. I had to know how strongly she believed in them.
“Maybe she what?”
Tessa bit her lip again and then said in a rush, “Maybe Lisey killed Reed and threw away the T-shirt because it was covered in blood.”
Before I could respond, the interview room door flung open and Finn Nowlin strode in, all swagger and attitude. On his heels was Sam, an apologetic look on his face.
“That’s a very strong accusation, young lady,” Finn said. He dropped a pad of paper and a pen on the table in front of Tessa. “I’m going to need you to write down what you just said, word for word.”
Tessa stared open-mouthed at him and I swore under my breath. I should have known. The bastard had probably flipped the audio switch just outside the door and heard every word we’d said.
“Go on, now, honey. Write it all down, every single word,” Finn said. He squatted at Tessa’s side so he was eye to eye with her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “The sooner you do it, the better.”
Tessa stared at him another moment and then jammed her hands under her thighs and shook her head. Her face grew flushed.
Finn stood. “Tell her, Gemma.”
“Actually, she doesn’t have to write a thing. She hasn’t been read her rights and this is not a formal interview. But Tessa, if this is what you really believe, you’d be helping Reed out a great deal by giving us a statement.”
She stood up so fast her chair shot backward.
“I’m not a rat. I guess I was right the first time. I can’t trust you fucking cops. You pigs have no sense of loyalty.”
She pushed past Sam and went out the door. Finn made as though to stop her but I grabbed his arm and gripped it tight.
“Let her go. She won’t get far.”
Finn turned to me and I let go of his arm when I saw the anger on his face.
“You are a real piece, Gemma, you know that? If we go to court, none of what she told you is admissible. She may have just laid Nicky’s killer in our lap and we can’t do a damn thing about it,” he said.
Sam started backing out of the room, and I raised a hand to stop him.
“C’mon, Finn, the finer details of the law have never stopped you before,” I said. He turned pale.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he said.
“You know damn well what that means. Anyways, we certainly wouldn’t be very good cops if we had to rely on the offhand comments of a twenty-two-year-old girl to catch a killer. Sam, you got my Sprite?”
Sam grinned and tossed it to me and then yelled, “Don’t open it” as I popped the top and soda sprayed all over Finn’s three-hundred-dollar suit.
Chapter Twenty-one
I caught a small break. The one place I needed to visit next was the one place I could theoretically hope to find some peace and quiet: Cedar Valley Public Library. Before I left the station, I grabbed a few of the files on Nicky’s accident three years ago. That’s what we had called it then: an accident.
I had eyeballed the case notes on the investigation yesterday; Finn had been lead, Louis Moriarty, second, and their distinct signatures filled the bottom of each page-standard operating procedure on any documentation. I looked at the table of contents, the first page in the first folder, but saw no mention of the library.
But then, the investigation had been conducted from the start under the assumption that Nicky had gone over the waterfall and died, his body washed down the Arkansas River straight on into the Gulf of Mexico.
There was never a reason to suspect anything else.
I made my way across town to the redbrick building that housed the library. Although it was still early in the day, thunderclouds, dark as charcoal, filled the horizon like ghostly specters, coming in low and fast over the Rockies. Judging from the speed they were moving, and the strange green-blue tint of the sky behind them, there would be rain by noon.
With the windows down, the moisture in the air hit my lungs like a welcome tonic. The humidity was a nice change from the heat we had experienced all week but as I breathed in the cool air, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of dread. Summer storms have a way of bringing more than rain and wind to town.
Before I’d left the station, I’d heard whispers that the Bellingtons planned to hold a memorial service on Saturday for Nicky at Wellshire Presbyterian. At least this time around they’d have a body to bury.
I parked and hurried across the lot, battling wind that blew against my cheeks, teasing up my hair and then releasing the dark strands just as quickly. Inside the library, a kid in baggy Adidas gear answered my questions with a nod. He pointed a finger down a short hallway and at the end of it, at a reference desk cluttered with paperback novels, tape dispensers, assorted stamps and ink pads, I found Tilly Jane Krinkle.