Sing

CHAPTER 44.

MONICA

I tried not to fidget, even after they took my phone.

I was raised to think cops believed fidgeting meant lying. I wasn’t lying, much. I wasn’t with the mob or associated with any kind of underground business, which is what they kept implying. I didn’t know anyone they asked about. I was just me. One of the thousands of tall, skinny, struggling artists in this intestinal tract of a city.

“I wanted to look at him,” I said. The guy cop tip-tapped into a laptop, and the lady cop leaned her elbows on the table. The break room stank of stale coffee, non-dairy creamer and sugar glaze.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because my husband’s up on four waiting for a heart transplant, and this guy’s brain dead, with this nice heart, and I just wanted to say a prayer that he died. I know that makes me a bad person.”

I left it there. That was about as much lying as I thought I could get away with. I could have told the truth, but to what end? They weren’t looking for someone who’d screwed with his catheter, their questions told me they were looking for a true assassin.

“That your ring?”

I held my hand out. “The diamond is his sister’s.”

“The other one’s unusual.”

“Quickie marriage to a dying man who I’d really like to see.”

“Wait outside, please.” They let me to a row of chairs they’d set up for people they were questioning. A stocky guy with black hair went in next. Fuck, how long could this take? I couldn’t stop fidgeting. After twenty minutes, I looked at the clock.

Ten minutes to 3am. Did the morning count?

I waited for ten minutes, hands still, suddenly not feeling fidgety at all. When the second and minute hands hit the twelve, I closed my eyes and put my fingertips to my lips. I don’t know how long I held them there, but they pressed my skin until the lady cop came out and handed me my phone and ID.

“You can go.”

I ran like hell.