There was a knock on the door. Detective Warren and I both looked up. A woman stood in the doorway, wearing a cinnamon red sweater that showed off wavy locks of stunning reddish brown hair and an even more stunningly curved figure. A TV show cop, I thought instantly. The kind that solved the case, won the male lead, and celebrated both events with a new pair of Jimmy Choos.
I looked down at my nearly flat chest, then fingered my plain brown hair yanked back into a plain brown ponytail, and immediately felt self-conscious.
“Show her?” asked the woman.
“Just started. Come in. Detective O, this is Charlene Grant. Charlene, Detective O. She set up the page, being our resident Facebook expert.”
Detective O and I shook hands. She appeared to be about my age, which surprised me. Then I peered into her brown eyes and met a gaze as flat and frank as D. D. Warren’s. Cop eyes. Must be one of the requirements to graduate from the academy.
“Nice dog,” she said. She peered under the desk, where Tulip was curled up asleep.
“Not my dog,” I said automatically.
The detective stared at me, then at D.D.
“Not my dog either,” D.D. said.
“Well, that explains it.” O propped one hip against the desk. The office wasn’t big; we were now all crowded in, me sandwiched between two hard-edged Boston cops with better wardrobes and bigger guns. Somehow, I didn’t think that was accidental.
“What do you think?” the new detective gestured to the computer screen, voice brusque.
“I’m sorry?”
Detective O glanced at D.D. again.
“Haven’t gotten there yet,” D.D. said by way of explanation. “It’s your baby, so why don’t you do the honors.”
“All right,” Detective O began. “So…Saturday, the twenty-first, will be the second anniversary of Randi Menke’s murder in Providence.”
I flinched, said nothing.
“And the first anniversary of Jackie Knowles’s murder in Atlanta. Given the pivotal date, we thought we’d set up a Facebook page in honor of both victims and see if we can provoke a response.”
“How?”
“Jackie and Randi must have had other friends and acquaintances before you moved into town,” D.D. spoke up. “Did your arrival upset any of these relationships? Maybe displace another girl, create competition, social rivalry?”
I regarded her blankly. “I don’t know. We were eight. I’m not sure I was aware of social rivalries when I was eight.”
“What about as you grew up? You girls became the three musketeers. How did other girls take it?”
I still didn’t understand. “We weren’t mean. At least, I didn’t think of us that way. We weren’t bullies or anything. We just…played together.”
“What if other girls wanted to play?” Detective O asked curtly. “Would you let them?” There was a tone to her voice, almost an accusation. I found myself leaning away. Maybe it was a tactic she often used with subjects, but clearly she’d already found me guilty.
“You mean like in grade school?” I ventured. “Because I have vague memories of jumping rope and playing freeze tag, but lots of kids were doing it, not just us three.”
Detective Warren spoke up. “Let’s try high school. By the time ‘Randi Jackie Charlie’ hit high school, what was the social landscape like? Were you always together, or did you have other friends, other hobbies, sports, after school activities?”
“We weren’t always together. We had different class schedules, of course. And different extracurricular activities. Jackie was active with the debate team, soccer team, and the alpine ski team. Randi was into figure skating and home arts. I did cross-country skiing in the winter, but spent most of my time helping my aunt with her B &B.”
“So you had other friends?” D.D. prodded.
“I guess. There were over a hundred and fifty kids in our class, so we definitely knew more than just each other.”
“Let’s start with Randi.” Detective O took over the conversation again, brown gaze probing. “When she wasn’t with you and Jackie, who were her friends?”
I had to think about it, delve back ten years, and the minute I tried, I could practically hear Jackie’s voice in my head, laughing at my terrible memory. Me, of all people, the cops needed
“Did you like them?”
I shrugged. “I think so?”
“They like you?”
I shrugged again, feeling even more self-conscious. “We would say hi to each other in the halls.” Probably. “Why? What are you looking for?”
“The fourth girl,” Detective Warren said. “The girl who wanted to be friends, too, but none of you let her in. We have reason to believe she’s still out there, and she’s really pissed off.”
IT TOOK A BIT. We had to pour through my high school memories, which was a challenge at best. I know some people can tell you the name of the cat they had when they were four, but I wasn’t one of them. I simply don’t remember things well. Not good things, not bad things. Not twenty years ago, not twenty days ago. If memory was a muscle, then mine had been purposefully atrophied through consistent lack of use.
Plus, Detective O rattled me. The way she asked questions, then scrutinized my answers as if she already knew I had something to hide. I felt simultaneously guilty and remorseful. She was disappointed in me. I was failing her; I should remember faster, answer better, confess all.
Good cop, bad cop, it occurred to me. Both detectives were playing me expertly, but all they had to show for it was a very tired, increasingly confused witness, who honestly didn’t recollect her childhood.
Finally, we Googled my high school, and found an archive with digital copies of old yearbooks.
With a bit of effort, I was able to identify a dozen girls that floated around our trio, some friends of Randi, some friends of Jackie. None were friends of mine. Even reviewing pictures of my Nordic ski team, I didn’t recognize half of the girls’ pictures, couldn’t provide their names.
My world really had been Randi and Jackie. Away from them, I passed the time. With them, the world started spinning again.
I wondered if they would’ve said the same. Had they really enjoyed spending all their weekends helping out at my aunt’s B &B? Were they really excited to take my call at ten o’clock at night because I’d thought of one last thing to say?
Maybe I wasn’t the glue that held us together. Maybe I’d been the anchor around their necks. And that’s why we’d drifted apart when we turned eighteen. They’d been happy to finally get away from me.
The detectives took down names and background info. They wanted personal information on Randi, things only a good friend would know about Jackie. Nicknames, favorite expressions, songs, movies, TV shows, childhood pets.
I could answer all of their questions. I tried to tell myself that meant something. I hadn’t just loved my friends. I’d
Jackie and Randi, I’d remembered.
But it became increasingly difficult to bolster my flagging spirits as the detectives turned my childhood relationships upside down and inside out, leaving me feeling emptier and emptier. As if Randi Jackie Charlie hadn’t been the best part of my life, but maybe just a very unhealthy friendship fostered by an overly needy girl in order to compensate for her mother’s destructive love.
The detectives muttered among themselves, took notes, asked questions, opened more Internet pages and launched more Google and Facebook searches.
I stopped sitting and paced the tiny confines of the office instead.
