I nodded.
"She wasn"t as nice as everyone is saying she was."
"I didn"t really know her well." I looked at Crawford.
"She didn"t want Vince with anyone else. She was really mad that he took up with her roommate, of all people. She was like that. Jealous."
Crawford waited a minute before asking, "How did she die?"
She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back in the chair, taking a deep breath. "We were in a bar on Broadway when she found us. Vince left like the big chicken that he is . . . was," she said, "and it was just the two of us. I knew that she was sleeping with Ray, and I told her that, but she was still p.i.s.sed off that I had hooked up with Vince. She said it wasn"t right. We left the bar and started walking home."
"Along Broadway?" Crawford asked.
"Yeah." She shot a look at him, but he didn"t respond in any way. "We went through the woods between the apartment buildings and our dorm, and that"s when she told me that Vince was only using me to get back at her." Tears started falling down her face. "That just wasn"t true," she protested.
"I"m sure it wasn"t true," I said, thinking that that was what I was supposed to say.
"Right!" she said, agreeing with me. She cried for a few more minutes. "Vince always told me he loved me. And he gave me this," she said, rolling the diamond necklace between her fingers. "He was really hurt when she broke up with him."
"The breakup wasn"t his idea?" I asked.
She shook her head. "No. It was all her idea." She looked down. She looked like she had something else to say, but she kept silent. Something unspoken hung in the air.
Crawford looked over at me questioningly.
"What else, Fiona?" I prodded her.
She wouldn"t look at me.
"Fiona, if there"s more, we have to know. Anything you tell us could help you," Crawford lied.
"Did you know that Vince is dead?" she asked, changing the subject.
I nodded. I heard Crawford take a deep breath and exhale slowly. I didn"t feel the need to go into any more detail.
"And Johnny"s in jail."
I was surprised that she knew that. "How did you know that?"
"He"s my cousin. My mother"s sister"s son. They called my dad to get him out." She fiddled with the edge of her skirt. "But he couldn"t."
Her parents apparently hadn"t told her the whole story. Crawford led her along with her story. "So, what happened in the woods?"
"I pushed her," she said, matter-of-factly. "And she fell backwards and gashed her head open on a stump sticking out of the ground. I think she died then." She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "There was a lot of blood."
"How did you get the body to my car?" I asked.
"Kathy told me that Ray let her drive his car every once in a while and that he kept a spare set of keys in his desk drawer in his office. I went into his office and took them. I knew he had a BMW, but there was an old Volvo key on the key ring, marked "Al." I figured that was your car key. I also figured you wouldn"t miss that junker too much, so I asked Vince and Johnny to help me get the body and dump it." She paused for a minute. "I wasn"t trying to frame you. I thought you"d be happy to be rid of that wreck. I told Vince and Johnny to take the car and get rid of it. I didn"t think that they"d only go a few miles. How stupid was that?"
I didn"t say anything. Vince and John were certainly not criminal masterminds, that was for sure.
I tried to keep her talking. "Why did you break into my office?" I asked. "Were you just trying to get the paper back?"
She looked at me quizzically and then a mental light went on in her head. "Oh, that was Vince. I told him that I thought I might have given away something in the paper, and he freaked out." She smiled slightly. "How weird was it that we were doing Macbeth?"
"Yeah, weird," I agreed. "When did Vince give you the necklace?" I asked.
She touched it to make sure that it was still there. "A few weeks ago."
"What does the X mean?" I asked.
"It"s my birthday. October tenth. The tenth day of the tenth month."
"And X is ten in Roman numerals," I said. "Clever."
"Well, it"s a heck of a lot nicer than wearing a ten around your neck. That would look cheesy." She shifted again. We sat in silence, looking at each other for what seemed like hours, but what was really only a few minutes.
"So, what do you think I should do?" she finally asked, breaking the silence.
"I think you should give yourself up," I said.
"What"s going to happen to me?" she asked.
I looked at Crawford to provide some kind of explanation. "If you explain everything to the judge just like you explained it to us, I"m sure you"ll be able to work things out," he said. I knew that he was lying, but looking at her, I could tell that she was buying whatever he was selling.
She stood up and smoothed her skirt down and wiped her nose on the back of her hand. "Well, that"s good. I feel much better."
Crawford stood as well. "So, let"s take a ride to the precinct, and we can get everything down in writing and on video."
She looked at him in shock. "I"ve got an awards ceremony tonight."
"I"m afraid you"re going to have to miss it, Fiona," he said gently, taking her arm. It was the first time I had seen him use the sad face with anyone but me.
Fiona shook loose from his grasp and lunged across the table, grabbing the large pair of scissors that I had used on her paper. She turned and stabbed him once in the shoulder, and another time right above his heart, stunning herself and the two of us. She looked at me, dropped the scissors and ran for the door.
Crawford put his hand over the shoulder wound and doubled over at the same time. Blood seeped between his fingers, and his white shirt bloomed crimson in seconds. He grabbed the gun from his ankle and pointed it at her back. "Fiona! Stop or I"ll shoot you dead," he said, loudly but calmly.
She skidded to a stop, inches from the door to the stairway. She slowly put her hands up over her head, but kept her back to us. Crawford got up, holding the wound closest to his heart closed with his left hand, aiming the gun with his right. I watched as he walked over to her, grabbed her roughly by the collar of her silk blouse, and dragged her back to the table. He threw her into the same chair in which she had been sitting during our conversation. The chair moved back several inches when her body hit it, and she let out a yelp. She rubbed her left elbow with the palm of her right hand.
"Alison, call nine-one-one," he said, pressing on his shoulder with the palm of his hand. "Tell them it"s a ten-thirteen. My badge number is one-seven-four-three-oh."
Wyatt told me later that a 10-13 meant "officer needs a.s.sistance," and that it would bring every available squad car in a twenty-mile radius to the scene. He held the gun on Fiona, inches from her face. She stared into the barrel, perhaps finally understanding the severity of the situation.
Crawford cursed under his breath, and winced. He was furious with her, and I think it took every ounce of control for him not to blow her head off. The blood was pooling on the floor around him, and I watched him as I made the call. The color was draining from his face, and he was getting weak. After I hung up, I ran back to where they were sitting and stripped off my half slip.
I bent to pick up the scissors. "Leave them. They"re evidence," he commanded, but his voice was small.
I ripped the black nylon slip in two and wrapped it around his shoulder and tried to stop the bleeding. It was only minutes later that I heard the wail of several police cars and the steady bleat of an ambulance siren. I stood behind him and put my arms under his armpits as he slid down in the chair, losing consciousness. His head fell straight back and I could see the thick layer of sweat covering his face. The gun slipped out of his hand and fell to the floor, dropping beside him but inching closer to Fiona.
Fiona and I looked at it. I had Crawford and her chair in my path. She reached down and grabbed the gun.
"It was an accident!" she screamed, the gun waving wildly in her trembling hand.
I took my hands out from under Crawford"s armpits and positioned him so that he wouldn"t fall out of the chair, his head and upper torso resting on the table. If I was going to get killed, I didn"t want it to appear that I had been using his body as a shield. I looked over Fiona"s shoulder and saw through the windows of my office that a virtual phalanx of police officers were running down the stairs behind the building, but I kept my eyes on her and the gun.
"Give me the gun, Fiona," I said, starting toward her slowly.
She was sobbing. "I didn"t mean to do that," she said, pointing the gun at Crawford.
I nodded like I understood. I held my hand out to her. "The police are here."
Her face crumpled, and she let out a gut-wrenching sob. She put the gun to her head.
"No, Fiona!"
The window in my office exploded as three officers, dressed in head-to-toe black and wearing riot gear, burst through the gla.s.s. They were through the windows and by Fiona"s side in seconds. They all screamed simultaneously for Fiona to drop the gun and for me to hit the floor. We both obliged.
Fiona began sobbing as two of the officers surrounded her and pointed large automatic weapons at her. The other officer, a woman, checked all of the offices and called out "All clear!" The main office door opened and Wyatt ran in, his gun pointed into the room. He ran to Crawford"s side and checked his neck for a pulse. "Get the EMTs in here!" he shouted to the door, and, immediately, three EMTs entered with a stretcher. Within seconds, they had Crawford on a stretcher, his shirt off, and an IV in his arm. One of the EMTs set about cutting Crawford"s pants off and I looked away, knowing that he would want me to. After they covered him with a sheet, I took one last look: he was still unconscious and looked about as close to a corpse as someone with a pulse can get.
"Multiple stab wounds, thready pulse, blood loss," one technician shouted into a walkie-talkie, "BP is ninety over sixty." He continued talking as the stretcher was brought to waist height on wheels and removed from the room. The EMT called "Mercy" to Wyatt, who nodded.
Cops swarmed the room. With one of their own on a stretcher and headed to the hospital, the mood was solemn but charged with anger. I was actually worried about Fiona"s safety. Fiona was on her knees with her hands laced on her head, a female cop standing over her with her gun drawn. After a few minutes, Sally Hiney came over, pulled Fiona"s arms off her head, and tightly cuffed her hands behind her back. Sally, roughly twice Fiona"s size, dragged her through the chaos. Fiona turned and looked at me. "I"m sorry," she cried, as another officer by the door joined in hauling her out, lifting her by her armpits so that her feet were a few inches off the floor.
Wyatt bent down and picked up Crawford"s b.l.o.o.d.y shirt and my slip. He held the slip/tourniquet aloft and looked at me, one eyebrow raised. "What"s this?"
"He was bleeding and I needed something to stop it," I explained.
"Good thinking, Nurse McSmartypants." He opened a Ziploc bag and put the shirt in it. He got another bag and put the slip in there, marking both of them as evidence.
I looked at him. I had told Crawford about my alter ego; he must have pa.s.sed this information on to Fred. I let it go. "She killed Kathy Miceli."
As if on cue, I heard Fiona"s voice in the stairwell protesting to someone else. "It was an accident!" she screamed.
I pointed to the paper, still a bit caked with train muck.
Wyatt picked the paper up between the tips of his thumb and index fingers of his gloved hand. "You puke on this, too?"
Instead of laughing, I burst into tears. Wyatt muttered, "Oh, jeez," and took my arm, steering me toward the open door of one of my colleague"s offices, which was on the other side of the office area, and the farthest away from the action.
I fell into the plush office chair in front of the desk and rolled back a few inches. Wyatt pulled up one of the chairs that was used for students visiting during office hours, his immense frame filling it. He leaned in, his hands hanging down between his legs. I think he was waiting for me to stop crying. As a precaution, he took the waste can from under the desk and put it by my feet.
Connie Burns is another English professor and the most meticulous person I have ever met. Her office was neat, orderly, and clean. A full box of tissues sat at the edge of her desk, right next to the picture of her neat, orderly, and clean children. I pulled out six or seven tissues and blew my nose loudly. She would be disinfecting for days.
"You all right?" he asked.
"I"m fine," I said, pulling more tissues out of the box and wiping my eyes. I balled all of them up until they resembled a wad of papier-mache and threw them in the spotless waste can.
"Tell me what happened."
"Where do you want me to start?" I asked.
"Start with why you"re here tonight and end with how my partner ended up stabbed." There was an edge to his voice that told me that given the chance, he might tear Fiona apart, limb from limb. He took a small notebook from his back pocket and from Connie"s desk grabbed a pen that I knew she would never see again.
I started my story. He stopped me a few times for more details, but I finished a complete retelling in under ten minutes.
"That it?" he asked.
I nodded.
He snapped the notebook shut. "That"s a shame," he said, and shook his head. The tough veneer crumbled, and he wiped his hands over his face, rubbing his eyes. He stayed silent, composing himself. I looked away, focusing on Connie"s desk-the datebook, the stack of papers on top of a grade book, and her calendar of meaningless aphorisms. Today"s was from Oscar Wilde: "Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason."
Wyatt looked at me. "You"re friends with Father Kevin, right? Call the padre. Tell him to meet me at Mercy Hospital."
I picked up Connie"s phone; it smelled like disinfectant. I called Kevin and, giving him the shortened version of the horrible story, asked him to meet Wyatt at the hospital. Kevin is used to calls like this; he didn"t ask questions and hung up quickly.
I took a couple of more tissues and blew my nose again. "Can I go, too?"
Wyatt pondered my question for a few minutes. He looked at his watch. "I guess now is as good a time as any." He stopped himself. "Sure. Let"s go."
There was a knock at the door, and Wyatt reached back around him and opened it. A young man, whom I vaguely recognized, stood in the doorway, his blue NYPD uniform throwing me off momentarily. When my head cleared, I recognized him as the skateboarder who called me "ma"am" at the Starbucks a few weeks earlier. I did a double take, and he smiled sheepishly at me.
"Ma"am," he said, and gave me a little salute.
"You"re a cop?"
He gave a little shrug. "Yes, ma"am."
Wyatt laughed. "Derek was on your tail for a few days. Good undercover work, huh?"
I continued to stare at him. With the uniform on, he looked slightly older than the eighteen years I had given him when we first met, but not much. "Excellent undercover work."
Derek cleared his throat. "Detective? We need you."
We left Connie"s office and went back into the main area. Max was standing by Dottie"s desk, her arms folded across her chest, chewing the inside of her mouth nervously. When she saw me, she ran down the length of the office and threw her arms around me. "What the . . . ?" she yelled, at a loss for words. She was so loud that the officers in the room stopped and looked at her. "Are you OK?"
"I"m fine, Max," I said. Never forgetting my manners, even in times of extreme stress, I turned to Wyatt. "You remember my friend, Max Rayfield?" I forgot that they had spent some time together the night before.
He was back to normal. He peered down at Max from behind his gla.s.ses. "Who could forget you, Ms. Rayfield?" he said, rather charmingly and without any sarcasm.
She blushed, something I had never seen Max do. Blushing was my department. "Call me Max."
He held out his hand. "Call me Fred."
"Is that your real name or just what you want me to call you?" Max said, smiling.
"Real name."
I cleared my throat. Apparently, I had become invisible. "I"d like to go to the hospital, Detective."