With Malice (17 page)
Authors: Eileen Cook
“So the reason it matters is the blood on it is Simone's.” The detective laced his hands together on the table. “The autopsy shows she was stabbed.”
The word hit me between the eyes, as if he'd suddenly spun around and whacked me with a hammer. Stabbed? Not possible. First they were saying I caused the car to crash on purpose, and now they were saying that I'd stabbed her?
“This is bullshit. That information wasn't shared with us,” Evan said.
Detective Alban shrugged. Detective Marco leaned back with a smile. For a guy with major skin issues, he seemed pretty confident. I kept glancing back at the knife; my eyes were magnetically drawn to it. Even when I looked away, I felt my gaze being pulled back. It was a regular kitchen knife. Something you'd use on a steak, to cut up meat. The word
meat
kept repeating in my head. It made me lightheaded. There were too many things happening at once. Finding out I'd slept with Nico, that Simone had been stabbed. My chronic headache, which had been getting better, returned with a vengeance. I could feel the blood pounding in my skull.
“We are sharing the information with you now.” Detective Alban nudged the knife so it slid closer to me. “We have found prints on the knife.”
Evan looked like he wanted to spit nails. “I need to speak to my client's father,” he said, standing. His chair screeched on the tile floor. He took my dad by the elbow and marched him to the door. He spun around. “Say nothing,” he barked at me.
I started to nod, but that made my head hurt worse. I wanted to rest on the table and close my eyes.
“Are the prints going to match yours?” Detective Alban asked.
“Don't talk to him, Jill,” my mom said. She was twisting the strap to her purse like she was wringing out wet laundry. I wanted to tell her I knew I had a head injury, but I hadn't forgotten Evan's instructions from two seconds ago to shut my mouth.
Detective Marco said something to Alban in Italian, and they both chuckled. Alban pulled a small box from his bag and flipped it open on the table. It was an inkpad. He tapped a stiff card on the table and placed it carefully next to the pad. The paper was cream colored and was broken into five equal-size squares outlined with thin dotted blue lines. Alban pulled out a thick metal fountain pen and wrote my name across the top of the card.
I shot a glance at my mom, but she looked as scared as I felt. We sat in silence, each second seeming to grow larger until it consumed the one that came before. It felt like hours before my dad and Evan came back into the room. My dad's entire head and neck were purple. He looked like his blood pressure must be setting new records.
“They can compel us to give them your prints,” Evan said.
Detective Alban clapped his hands together as if he were a cruise activity director trying to encourage us all to do some stupid game. “Lovely.” He reached for my hand, but I snatched it away and buried it in my lap.
“You have to let them,” Evan said. I could see his jaw grinding down. “However, it would have been the professional, the gentlemanly thing to have given us a heads-up that this was the plan.”
Detective Alban forced his face into a fake sad expression that you saw on newscasters' faces when they spouted off about some tragedy before breaking into a huge smile to announce that tomorrow's weather included sunshine. “We have no intent to be upsetting. Perhaps we do not understand how you do things.”
Evan's expression broadcast what he thought of this excuse. “Take her prints and then we're done here.”
“We still have some more questions for Miss Charronâ”
Evan sniffed dismissively. “Too bad. We don't have to make her available for questioning. This was a courtesy meeting.” His tongue ran over his lower lip. “I think we can agree we're done with niceties.”
“All we're wanting is to clear up what happened. If Miss Charron would not hurt her friend as she says, wouldn't she want this to be resolved?”
“I told you, I didn't hurt her. I wouldn't.” My voice was too loud for the small room.
Evan reached over and touched my arm. His expression made my mouth click shut. “That ham-fisted kind of manipulation might work if she were here alone, but I'm not going to let you get away with it.” He pointed at the inkpad. “Let's finish this.”
I took a sip of the water, trying to stall. I didn't want them to take my prints. It felt too . . . criminal.
“You have to do this,” Evan said softly to me. “It will be okay.”
My hand shook. Everyone in the room seemed to be staring at it as I reached across the table. Detective Alban took it and separated my index finger, pressing it onto the pad, then rolling it from left to right on one of the squares of paper. The ink was almost sticky, and in the silent room, there was a sound like peeling adhesive as my finger moved across the paper. He repeated it with each finger before handing me a Wet Wipe and motioning for me to give him my other hand. The other detective whipped out a fresh card for the prints.
I didn't say anything, because if I did, I would start crying. I couldn't believe this was happening. When they were done, the cards were tucked back into the briefcase. Detective Alban made a big show of collecting his things. Tapping the papers on the tabletop to make them straight and square before putting them back in the file.
“We'll let you know the results as soon as we have them.”
Evan nodded curtly.
“We'll be staying in town a bit longer.” Detective Alban turned to my parents. “I also have a daughter. I know this must be difficult. Perhaps you should think other than Mr. Stanley. Have your daughter talk to us. We can clear this up.”
“We'll take our lawyer's advice over some greasy foreigner's,” my dad said.
Detective Alban looked pleased, as if he were flattered by the idea of being called greasy.
“You got what you came for,” Evan said. “You can return to Italy.”
Detective Marco leaned forward. “We come for justice for the girl. We no have that.”
I'd told Anna I needed to be alone. I knew she wanted to know what had happened in the meeting, but I wasn't ready to talk about it. As soon as she was gone, I went into the bathroom and washed my hands over and over, trying to get the ink stains off my fingers. I couldn't get rid of all of it; there was still a faded gray tint on my skin. Great, now I was Lady Macbeth.
Out, damned spot.
I sat on my hands so I couldn't see them. I stared at the clock and tried to do the math for the time change, but I couldn't figure it out. Screw it.
I dialed the number I'd memorized. It rang forever before a sleepy voice picked up.
“Pronto.”
“Nico?” I asked. He was silent. “Um, I'm trying to reach a Nico Landini. Is this him?”
“Jill? Is this you?” Nico sounded awake now.
I nodded and realized he couldn't see me. “Yes,” I whispered. His voice was warm and thick, like poured honey. It seemed to echo in my chest, but I couldn't tell if I found it familiar or if I only wanted something to be.
“Are you still in the hospital,
bella
?”
“I'm in the rehab center. I was in a car accident,” I whispered.
Nico was silent for a beat. “Yes, I know.”
“I met with the Italian police today. They say Simone was stabbed,” I said. My fingers dug into the blanket as if I could pull each of the fibers apart.
“Are you all right?” Nico asked. “Should we be talking?”
“I have to ask you something. They're implying we slept together. Did we?” I held my breath. He was quiet, and I wished I could see his expression. I didn't want to ask if he was still there.
“You don't remember?”
“If I remembered, do you think I'd be asking?” I snapped.
“Yes,
bella,
we were lovers,” Nico said softly.
Black dots appeared in the corner of my vision. What the detective had said was true. I'd lost my virginity and I hadn't even known.
“Oh,” I said in a small voice.
Nico sighed. “Oh,
bella.
I had heard you did not remember, but I didn't know you had forgotten all. I wish I could see your lovely face. To hold you. To make this better.”
I ignored this and barreled on. “I need you to fill me in on what happened. If we were together, if we had this big passionate affair, then you owe me that,” I said. Maybe if he kept talking, it would shake something free. “I need you to tell me if I talked to you about Simone.” The list of questions I had for him started to pile up in my throat. A traffic jam of words.
Nico's voice hardened. “I have had to speak to the police. They are wanting to know my role in all of this. I have had to get a lawyer. I must take care of myself. I think it is not good for either of us to speak.”
I'd wanted to feel some rush of affection for this guy, but I felt nothing. He was a coward. He wouldn't even try to help me; he was too busy covering his own ass. “I
need
you to help me,” I said. “They're trying to blame me for Simone'sâ” The word was gone. “For her dying. If you and I were together, I must have talked to you, maybe said something.”
“I am sorry. I cannot help,
bella.
” Nico paused.
“But if we were sleeping together, we must have cared for each other. You owe me that.”
“I do care for you. But there's nothing I can do. I wish you the best.”
I thought he was pausing, figuring out what to say next, but then I realized he'd already hung up. I tossed the phone onto the bed in disgust. I really could pick them.
I hoped I hadn't killed Simone over this guy, because he clearly wasn't worth it.
Dr. Weeks leaned back in her chair, putting her feet up on her desk. The socks that peeked from the bottom of her pants had tiny blue robots on them. “Are you more upset that you slept with this Nico or that you don't remember him?”
“Can I be equally upset over both things?”
She nodded. “Of course. But you do realize that while I'm not advocating premarital or teen sex, it's not exactly unheard of, either. It sounds like you liked this young man; you asked for condoms, so you were practicing safe sex. I think you need to make sure you don't confuse being upset that you found this out in front of everyone with being upset that you did it at all. Even if it was your first time.”
“My dad is disappointed in me.” I picked at a loose thread on my jeans.
“I doubt that. Your dad was young once too.”
“He told me he was disappointed in me. He said”âI paused, letting his words replay in my head for the one-millionth time since the meetingâ“that he thought I was a better person than someone who slept with a man she'd just met.”
Dr. Weeks sighed. “We all say things we don't mean. Parents, dads in particular, can be a bit sensitive where their daughters' sex lives are concerned. It's natural for him to be upset, just like it was natural for you to want to sleep with an attractive man you had strong feelings for.”
“I can't believe I fell for him. He's a jerk.”
“You won't be the first young woman who discovers that someone she dated failed to live up to her internal fantasy of who she wished that person to be.” Dr. Weeks tossed me a Hershey's Kiss.
I peeled off the foil and considered what she'd said. If I had been able to imagine that Nico was a better person than he was, was it possible I was also doing that for myself? Maybe I only wanted to believe I was the kind of person who would never do something to Simone. Maybe I didn't want to believe what I might be capable of doing.
