“I’m Roland March.”
I hand her one of my cards, pausing to write my mobile number on the back. A ritual of introduction, performed by rote a dozen times a day. She studies the writing, then motions me into a nearby chair currently occupied by a tower of reference books.
“You can move those,” she says.
I get the books sorted and prop my briefcase against the chair leg, its worn sides drooping miserably, the leather spotted with dried water. A gift from my wife years ago. The key long since missing, the lock broken, the flap held down by wraparound straps. Digging inside, I retrieve my equally battered Filofax, another of Charlotte’s gifts.
“Do people still use these things?” the woman says. She reaches forward and snatches it away. “It was such a Yuppie affectation.” She thumbs the snap open to look inside. “I thought everything was digital these days.”
“Excuse me, ma’am.” I hold my hand out politely.
“Sorry,” she says, closing the binder and snapping it shut. “That’s a bad idea, isn’t it? Grabbing things from the police. But it’s not like I took your gun or anything.”
She speaks in a low, gravelly tone I’ve always found strangely attractive, one of those scotch-and-cigarettes voices, minus the foreign accent.
“It’s okay,” I say, opening the Filofax flat on my lap, turning to a fresh page. I take my digital recorder out, too, proving I’m not such a dinosaur. Frankly the Filofax is an affectation, something I found in an old box and decided to put back into service, handier than the usual notepads when it comes to arranging and rearranging pages. Unlike the recorder, it never needs recharging, either.
“Just have a seat for me, ma’am. I need to ask you some questions about the victim.”
“I don’t think I can sit. I can’t stop moving. I’ve been pacing a hole in the carpet. I’ll go crazy if you make me sit still.”
“Suit yourself.”
She eyes the female officer with uncertainty, then lets out a long breath. “I’m sorry, Detective. I’m making a mess of this. Can we start over, please? I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I’m Joy Hill.”
She extends her hand, then pulls it back, uncertain of the etiquette where policemen are concerned.
“What’s the wrong idea you don’t want me to get?”
“I’m making the wrong impression, that’s all I mean. You’re thinking I should be distraught and instead here I am running at the mouth. I can’t help it. I was raised not to show people how I feel. I keep it bottled up until-is it all right if I smoke?”
“If it’ll help.”
She retrieves a pack of Dunhills from the desk, along with a glass ashtray, bringing both to a chair just across from me, finally sitting. She flicks a fresh filter half out of the pack, then pulls it free with her teeth. The lighter’s in the ashtray. A metallic ping, a flash of fire, and then she exhales a column of smoke. A smile comes to her lips.
“What’s funny?”
“I don’t let anyone smoke in the house,” she says.
And yet she keeps a pack handy all the same. “All right, let’s get started. It’s Dr. Joy Hill, right? And you’re a doctor of what?”
“Literature.”
“Hence all the books. You teach where?”
“At UH,” she says. Then, catching my reaction: “It’s a good school, Detective. A good department. People think we’re handing out fast-food diplomas to a commuter population, but it’s not like that at all.”
“You don’t have to convince me. I went there.”
“And studied what? Criminal Justice.”
“Worse,” I say. “History. The victim, Simone Walker, she rented a room from you?”
“Rooms,” she says. “Basically, we drew a line down the middle of the upstairs. I kept the master and my office, and gave her the other bathroom and the guest bedrooms. You probably know about my husband already. No? He met his soul mate a year ago and started fathering her children, but he left me the house.”
“So you knew Ms. Walker from where?”
She glances at the ceiling. “A friend introduced us, I think. This was maybe seven or eight months ago. I was looking for a roommate and Simone wanted to move out on her own. She had marriage trouble, too.”
“Divorced?”
“Not as far as I know. She pretty much operated like a single girl, though, if that’s what you’re wondering. I assume they were legally separated, but it’s not something we ever talked about.”
“What’s her husband’s name?” I ask, my pen poised.
Again she looks at the ceiling. “Jason Young. Walker was her maiden name. She moved her things in around the end of last semester-during finals, actually.”
“Where did she work?”
“Ah,” she says, templing her fingers. “That’s a good question. Simone changed jobs pretty frequently, and for the last month or two I don’t think she had one. I suspected something was going on, but then she confirmed it by asking for money. The whole point of having her here was to make money, not hand it out. Anyway, I said I couldn’t help her. She found other sources eventually.”
“We’ll come back to that,” I say, glancing at my watch. “But I need to know what happened today, the events leading up to your discovery of the body.”
She pauses to think. “I saw her this morning around ten. I was leaving and she’d just rolled out of bed. She told me she was having lunch with a girlfriend, then spending the rest of the day in the pool. I said she was crazy. I mean, it was snowing yesterday. But she’s, like, so what? The pool’s heated.”
“Did she say who she was meeting?”
Dr. Hill stubs her cigarette out, then sets the ashtray on the floor. “She didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. I had an appointment on campus, so I was a bit rushed. Anyway, this was her crash pad, Detective. She liked to play music, she liked to watch TV, and she liked to swim. When she went shopping-which she did a lot-this is where she’d dump her stuff. But mostly she went out. I told her she could have friends over, but she didn’t. I don’t know why.”
I can think of a few reasons. “So you came home at what time?”
“After dark, maybe seven? I parked in the garage and used the door into the backyard. The pool light was on, and then I saw her. I froze.” Her eyes get an unfocused, faraway look. “I kept willing her to move. But she was dead, I could see that. So I went back the way I came and I called 9-1-1.”
“From the garage?”
“No,” she says. “I went all the way around to the front door, let myself in, and then went to the kitchen where I could see her. I don’t know why, but that’s where I called from. To keep an eye on her, I guess.”
“All right, ma’am.” I tuck my pen away and drop the Filofax into my briefcase. “I’m going to ask you to show me where Ms. Walker’s bedroom is, and then we’ll have you wait with the officer awhile. I’m sure we’ll have more questions in a little bit.”
She beats me to the door, only too happy to be up and moving again. We pass the grand stairway and I get an earful of chatter from downstairs, signifying the arrival of more personnel. I recognize one of the voices: Lieutenant Bascombe, my boss. Dr. Hill continues down a white-paneled hallway, pausing at an open door.
“This is her bedroom.”
Inside is a double bed, the covers hanging off the side, two tall dressers, and an overflowing laundry hamper. A stack of cardboard boxes in one corner. A vanity with stickers around the mirror, a blow drier and curling iron with their cords intertwined.
“Her mother lives in town,” she says. “Somewhere around Piney Point, I think. Someone will have to call her. Is that something you’ll do?”
“We can do that.”
In the closet, a score of tightly packed clothing bags hang in disarray. The floor is lined with rope-handled shopping bags of every size and color. On the shelf over the rod, shoe boxes are packed three or four high.
“It might be better coming from you,” she says. “I only met the woman once, but we didn’t get on too well. I’d say she’s a hard woman to like, which is probably why she and Simone weren’t very close.”