Once she got here, Dana asked to speak with me privately, and even when the room was empty except for the two of us she still leaned in to whisper in my ear that I shouldn’t say anything. Just let her do the talking.
And, really, that’s what I’m trying to do.
“We’ve been reviewing the information we downloaded from your phone—Now, Ms. Vasquez,” Ormoran holds up a hand to quiet Dana’s protest. “You know in Ohio we can search a phone without a warrant if there is concern for evidence being destroyed.” Ormoran gives me an apologetic look. “Which we had.”
She continues, “We have some very talented people in the technical side of our department, don’t we, Miller?”
Miller says nothing, but does condescend to offer a slight nod.
“There’s a lot of ground to cover, no doubt,” Ormoran smiles as me. “You’re pretty active on that thing.”
Miller opens up her notebook. No huge pink purse for her in the interrogation room, apparently.
“Texts, e-mails, tweets, likes, retweets, Facebook messages, notes, to-do lists, voice memos, voice mails,” Miller reads.
“Is there a question you’d like to ask my client?” Dana interjects.
Ormoran goes on. “Dr. Kalson, it’s clear from the messages we read that you and Justin McBride were very close.”
A wave of nausea hits and my vision blurs as I choke it back down.
Ormoran is all concern.
“Allergies,” I offer, before being silenced by Dana’s laser eyes.
“Sure, you’d had a fight recently. That one exchange where you were tracking him down wasn’t the most pleasant thing to read.” Ormoran shrugs, while Miller stares down at her notepad. “But then everybody fights.”
“When did Justin break up with you?” Miller cuts in.
I take a quick sip of breath. My lawyer kicks me under the table.
“My client has nothing to say on this matter,” Dana says with perfect lawyer precision.
Ormoran ignores her and keeps at me, in her calm and tender way. “You see, it turns out we didn’t need his phone all that much—although we’d still like to have it, Dr. Kalson—because his laptop had most of his accounts synced up for social media, e-mail, and everything else. It was the GChats that really helped us out.”
I blink. Justin and I never e-mailed. I only really use e-mail for work. And I don’t know anything about GChat.
“You seem surprised.” It’s a statement from Miller, not a question.
“We didn’t find any messages on that laptop from you, Dr. Kalson. Or to you either. It seems like Justin kept his laptop private from you. Why do you think that is?” Ormoran leans her long torso across the table, and her braids, which are loose today, fall from behind her shoulders. One strand grazes the top of the desk, and I think—just for a moment, I swear—about grabbing it and giving a hard yank.
I flash back to my memories of Justin’s apartment, searching desperately for a glimpse of his laptop or computer. I don’t recall seeing either. Dammit, why didn’t that strike me as odd?
I answer myself. Because your mind was on other things, you slut.
Thoughts are creeping out of those dark corners.
“Don’t answer that,” Dana says to me. “Look, my client is here of her own free will to help your investigation, but if this is going to become a fishing expedition looking to force her to incriminate herself, I’m ending this meeting.”
“You’re right, Ms. Vasquez. We do appreciate your and your client’s time. We just have a few more questions, if you can stay just a little longer.” Ormoran’s smooth as silk, and a dangerous part of me wants to just shut down from this shit show and sink into the soft tones of her voice.
Miller shuffles up into her seat, flips back in her notebook, and starts reading from the page in front of her.
“Two days before the accident, Justin GChats a friend. Quote: ‘I want to break up with Morgan so we can be together, but I’m not sure how to do it.’ The friend writes back a few minutes later, quote: ‘Just tell her and be honest. Morgan will appreciate that. She’ll have to understand.’”
I know the sardonic emphasis on “friend” isn’t accidental.
Every time Miller says “quote” she makes air quotation marks. Now I know why Annie wanted to slug me when I did it.
Dana shifts in her seat, and I look over to see a frown briefly cross her face before she sets her mouth back into legal counsel neutral.
For my own part, the revelation that Justin was talking about breaking up with me has no effect. It’s like taking a leg that’s gone asleep and stomping it on the floor to bring it back to life. It just feels numb. The pricks of pain will come later.
Miller continues, “Justin replies back almost immediately. Quote: ‘You know how she is. She’s so intense.’ Friend—she writes back, quote: ‘Intense?’ And see here—this is. . .”
I interrupt Miller’s recitation. “You don’t need to say ‘quote’ every time. It’s apparent from the context when something you say is a quote.” I almost feel leather patches growing on my elbows. All I need is a pipe and a widow’s peak.
Dana murmurs something under her breath.
Miller ignores everything and keeps reading. “Justin replies to the friend’s question by, quote: (just to annoy me now) ‘She scares me sometimes. I think she could hurt herself if I don’t do it right.’ He means break up with you.” As if I couldn’t follow the logic. It takes all my self-control not to punch Miller in the face when she says that.
“And that’s just one example, Dr. Kalson,” Ormoran says. “His laptop is littered with all sorts of similar conversations over this last week. E-mails, GChats. All with this same friend.”
I think back to the girl who answered the door when I was searching for Justin’s office—I can’t recall her name from the list of students on the makeshift nameplate outside the door.
“The friend he’s chatting with this whole time is named Annie—that’s your best friend’s name, correct?” Miller’s eyes are on mine for the first time since the interview started.
“What did you say?” I think I’m speaking in a normal voice, but when Dana puts her hand on my arm I realize I must have shouted.
“Okay, we’re leaving,” Dana says, and stands up in her chair, her hand still gripping my arm.
“It was Annie?” I ask. I feel like my brain is on fire.
“Her picture in the GChat avatar is of a white-blond woman with short hair and kind of a punky vibe. She looks very similar to the woman we met at the hospital—the friend who took you home,” Ormoran offers.
“Morgan, we’re leaving. . .” Dana starts to usher me to the door.
“Just wait a minute,” I tell her.
“So, here’s how we see it.” Ormoran’s talking fast now, trying to lay down her Ace before my lawyer escorts me from the room. “We think Justin had planned to break up with you on your drive this past Friday night. That’s why there were no reservations at the Lodge. He was going to talk to you about it while you were both in the car, driving. Talk it over when he doesn’t have to sit across from you, to avoid face-to-face. So Justin starts telling you that he cares for you, ‘it’s not you it’s me’, and you just aren’t having it. You are livid—and we can totally understand that. The man had you thinking one thing, and then he goes and breaks up with you. And maybe he even tells you the truth—that he’s leaving you for your best friend.”
“Mmm. . .” Miller surprisingly joins in.
“Morgan,” Dana says through gritted teeth, but I shake her hand off my arm. “They aren’t charging you, and we need to go. They are playing you.”
“Just go, Dana. You don’t need to stay.”
I think I see a silent smile pass between Ormoran and Miller.
“I’m not leaving,” Dana says. “Not without you.”
Ormoran goes on, “We understand why this type of behavior could just not be tolerated. So you start to let Justin know that this is not okay—y
ou cannot just love someone, plan a romantic getaway, and then decide that is actually the perfect time to break it off and run off with your friend. You do the only thing you could do—you let out all your hurt onto the man who hurt you. Just like you did with Richard.”
I know I should walk away from this; the detectives are baiting me, but I can’t go.
Ormoran’s voice is getting quieter as she’s talking, now that she knows she’s got my full attention.
“You’re pissed—rightfully so, mind you—and letting Justin have it. And at some point, Justin gets scared and tries to call for help on his phone, and you take it and throw it out the window. And when that doesn’t stop him from insisting that the two of you don’t belong together, you are beside yourself.” Ormoran shakes her head from side to side. And I could swear, somewhere beyond the blood pounding inside my head, that I hear her cluck her tongue in commiseration. “So your instincts kick in, and you want to hurt him, just like he hurt you. You see your opportunity as you’re climbing through those windy roads. You don’t want to kill him—course not, you love the man—you just want to teach him a lesson. So you see your chance with that huge tree looming up at the top of the hill. You play it safe, pretending to have calmed down a little until. . . ”
The room goes quiet, Ormoran clearly hoping to conjure up twisted metal and shattered glass with her pause. But all I can think about is Annie.
“That’s enough,” Dana grabs me and forces me out the door.
“Thanks for talking with us, Dr. Kalson. And don’t worry, Dr. Koftura isn’t going to press any charges after she found you sneaking around in her office.” It’s the first time I’ve heard Ormoran’s voice skew sarcastic like her partner’s.
I don’t have time to do much more than poorly mime nonchalance at being caught out, because Dana casts a nasty glance my way, gives my arm another forceful pull, and the two of us are outside in the hallway of the police station, alone.
“What the fuck was that all about,” Dana almost spits into my face, she’s so angry. We’re standing outside the police station, huddled together against the cold, but still avoiding any real closeness with each other.
“I told you I’d represent you if you followed my rules. My rules,” Dana runs a hand over her face. “What did you do?”
I pause, lots of lies tumbling over my lips but none of them sticking their landing. So I start to tell her everything. Finding Justin’s parents, going into Dr. Koftura’s office, and even the messages I’ve been receiving from Justin’s phone. I lay it all out for Dana, and as I do a nuclear winter of emotions crosses her face: anger, resignation, and even, for a brief moment, pride. But as I finish recounting everything, Dana’s face settles into one final reckoning.
Disappointment.
“I’m sorry, Morgan, but I can’t help you,” she says. “I can’t work with someone who won’t follow my counsel. I’m already booked beyond my capacity as it is.” She nods her head towards me, her eyes not cold, but distant all the same. “Good luck to you.”
I watch as Dana walks off, her court shoes clicking as she makes her way down the deserted Youngstown street and back to her office. But I don’t stay too long.
I need to find Annie.
34
My lungs are about to burst as I run from the police station to my apartment. My ribs are still tender, but I push through the pain. As I run, my mind hurls backwards, looking for signs that Annie and Justin were somehow connected.
I tally up the evidence as I pull myself up Wick Avenue’s hill. My legs burn viciously from not having worked them in a real run since the accident.
Annie was friends with Justin on Facebook even before I was.
Annie knew Justin was from Canfield. She said I told her all about where Justin grew up, but I don’t remember telling her any of that.
And then the dumpster fire Miller set raging: Annie and Justin were seeing each other. Messaging each other.
Behind my back.
What if it was Annie who was at the accident? Is she the one who’s been terrorizing me with Justin’s phone?
There is a freight train charging through my head.
I can’t run any more. I do the whole eighth grade gym class routine—hands on knees, bent over and panting. And with my body no longer moving, my thoughts stop their kamikaze routine and find some reasonable footing again. It couldn’t be Annie. She was right next to me, picking at a ham sandwich at Jean McBride’s house when one of the texts came in. She couldn’t have sent them, I remind myself.
Or could she?
Maybe. All dark brain static and symptom checklists aside, I have to be realistic here. Annie could be sending those messages.
If she had help.
I try to take a few steps forward, but my feet trip over each other. There are scraggly holly bushes clinging to life along the crumbling sidewalk, and I promptly vomit the farmer’s breakfast Annie made for me this morning into their skeletal branches.
My best friend was fucking around with my boyfriend. And I had no clue. Not a single speck of suspicion.
If she was with Justin, and I didn’t know, who else could she be with? Who else would want to hurt me?
I try to conjure up a list of Annie’s friends in art school, of her ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends from over the years. What about the kids we shared the group home with? Could any of them dislike me enough to go along with what Annie is doing to me? The thought seems absurd, like a cruel exercise of the imagination. But so does all of this.
I run through the messages I’ve received since the accident. Almost all of them arrived when I was away from Annie—the only two that didn’t were when we were visiting Justin’s mother and afterwards in my kitchen. I’d been alone when all the others had hurled themselves onto my homescreen. And then there’s the rusty Chevy running me off the road after my burrito-run. Annie was so adamant that it was just a coincidence. How did the cops know it was me who left Dr. Koftura’s window unlocked? How did Dr. Koftura know, with such certainty that she’d mention it to the police? Did Annie tell her? Or did Annie tell the cops, and they went and informed Dr. Koftura themselves?
One good thing about downtown Youngstown is that nobody is ever walking around, so at least the sidewalks are totally deserted when I decide to curl up in a ball on the concrete. The ground is so cold it sends a sliver of pain up the side of my thigh and into my chest.
Why? I ask myself. Why would Annie do this to me?
With all the questions ricocheting around in my head, it’s this one that rises to the surface with the sharp bite of recognition.
And the answer is too awful to bear.
She blames me for Justin’s death.
The reality of what this means slams down onto me with such force that everything around me goes silent. All I can hear is that violent buzzing in my ears.
Because losing Justin is nothing compared to losing Annie.
A gust of wind whips itself over the freeway overpass bridge and almost buffets me into the street. I’m thinking, of all things, about Patty and Dave, the couple who wanted to adopt me. Until they didn’t. Until they decided, when it got too hard, that I wasn’t worth keeping.
There’s a metal bar that runs along where the sidewalk and the bridge join, and with the snow that fell last night I should know to avoid stepping on it.
There’s a lot of things I should know to avoid at this point in my life.
That’s the thought running through my head as my foot makes contact with the metal threshold, and for the second time on this godforsaken walk back to my apartment, I am making contact with the slush-ridden concrete. I’ve landed flat on my back, my bag cast askew to my side. I feel a shadow cross over my face from the winter-bright sun that’s still streaming through a gray layer of cloud, much like it did in my bedroom this morning before Annie threw open the curtains.
“Are you okay?” someone says, and a shiver of fear runs down my spine because, for a moment, I actually think it is Annie
. That she’s followed me. But I focus my eyes on the upside-down face peering at me from beneath a woolen cap with a strange Fair Isle pattern in sunset hues. It is probably the ugliest accessory I’ve ever seen.
The woman’s hat is drawn down against the cold, obscuring most of her forehead. There are worry lines in her face that are made more prominent by the stark winter light. Her eyes, which are set a little further apart than would allow for her to be pretty, are a startling color of green with a ring of gold around her pupil. As she leans over me, her inverted face, mouth coming at me first, and then nose and eyes, makes her look like a monster. It reminds me of an experiment I read about in graduate school, where babies preferred to look at images that depicted the array of a normal human face and avoided looking at the inverse of that, with the two eyes at the bottom, and nose and mouth at the top. My professor had explained that this showed how human beings are hardwired to force the world into patterns that are familiar to us, even if the fit isn’t quite right.
The woman reaches out a mitten-clad hand towards me.
“Here, let me help. You took quite a fall, didn’t you?” Her voice sounds hoarse, as though she’s recovering from a nasty cold, or has spent the last twenty years smoking non-stop. I ignore her hand and pull myself up.
“I’m fine.” I try to offer her a smile that is relatively normal. “Thank you for the help,” I manage.
I reach down to grab my bag, but the woman has already rescued it from the puddle of slush and salt that it fell into on the overpass. She gives it a quick brush off with her hand. “No trouble at all. Be careful, now. People drive way too fast on this overpass as it is, let alone when someone is sliding off into the road.”
I take my bag from her and nod in agreement. I can’t manage anything else.
She might call something out to me again, across the buzzing traffic of the freeway below us, but I don’t turn.
It Was Always You Page 18
