Inherit the Bones

Chapter Twenty

It was chaos outside the squad room. Our two receptionists desperately tried to herd the pack of cameramen and reporters-about thirty people in all-into our large conference room, where chairs and a podium were waiting.

I wondered why the chief hadn’t held the thing at the more spacious City Hall pressroom, and then I realized the cramped quarters would hasten the proceedings. Especially if Chavez closed the door-that particular conference room, facing east, grew hotter than hell in the morning.

Indeed, already the extra bodies had caused the temperature in the station to rise uncomfortably. I decided the day couldn’t get any worse and then I saw Tessa O’Leary pushing her way through the crowd, her face red as a tomato.

Sam was behind me and I elbowed him. Together we watched her approach.

“You big fat liar. You liar!” Tessa shouted.

She barreled up to me and spoke in a low voice that was somehow worse than the yell, “You liar. You lied to me.”

I backed up a few inches and lifted my hands up, palms out. “Whoa, Tessa. Take it easy. Do you want to talk?”

She took a few deep breaths and then nodded. She noticed the reporters watching her and the color in her face faded from the angry red to a lighter shade of embarrassed pink.

“Let’s go somewhere a little quieter. This is Sam, by the way. Sam Birdshead, he’s one of my colleagues here in the department.”

I led her to one of the interview rooms off the main hallway. Sam followed us. The room was small and windowless, with a low wooden table and two metal chairs. It smelled of sweat and floor polish, like a gym after a high school basketball game.

I took one of the chairs and motioned for Tessa to take the other. Behind her, Sam leaned against the wall and tried to look inconspicuous. I watched her calm down. Her face was free of makeup and her hair was matted in the back in that bedhead style that is somehow both fashionable and sort of gross at the same time. Dried tears left two faint streaks on her cheeks, and her eyes were bright. She looked much younger than her twenty-two years.

I said, “Now, that’s better. I couldn’t hear myself think out there. What was that you called me? A liar? When did I lie to you, Tessa?”

“I’m sorry I called you that, but I thought I could trust you. I thought you were my friend,” she whispered. She started crying again.

Behind her, across from me, I watched Sam grow uncomfortable. He leaned further into the wall as though he wanted to disappear into it, and I got the impression that he, like most men, wasn’t good with attractive, crying women his own age.

“Tessa, you can trust me. I’m not your friend, I’m a police officer, and that’s better, because it is my duty to watch out for you. My sworn duty,” I said. “What did you mean, I lied to you?”

Tessa fidgeted in her seat and picked at one of the designs carved into the wooden table. Over the years, interview subjects and suspects had etched hundreds of sketches and words and doodles using whatever tools they had: pens, pencils, keys, soda can tabs. “Fuck” and “punk” seemed to be the most popular, but swastikas, happy faces, and gang signs were almost as common.

“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.