“Yes, but this is something different.”
“Okay,” he said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. “So why don’t you tell me what it’s about, then?”
“There wasn’t a tox screen for Anna.”
“What do you mean?”
“I requested Anna’s autopsy report and there was no toxicology information. I called and they don’t have anything on file.”
“You requested your sister’s autopsy report?”
The question had an odd weight to it. It fell heavily between us, reminding me that I’d had to forge my dad’s signature to make the request.
“I meant, my dad requested it. Because I asked him to.” I hurried along, trying to move past the whole forgery issue. “Anyway, the point is that there wasn’t any toxicology information. But my parents told me you said the tests had shown alcohol. Could you have been looking at the wrong report? Did they send you the report for someone else, maybe? Or did my parents get confused—were you basing this all on the bottles in her room?”
I forced myself to stop at that point, to wait and let him reply.
And at first, he didn’t say anything. He only looked at me. Then he took a deep breath and leaned forward against the edge of his desk, settling his forearms in front of him like a judge proclaiming a sentence. “Do your parents know you’re here?”
“I don’t see why that matters,” I said. “I want you to check your file for Anna. I want you to make sure the toxicology report is there, and that it’s for her.”
“It was an accident,” he said slowly. “A horrible, tragic accident. I understand, of course I understand, why you’re so upset, why you’re looking for some kind of loophole or mystery to solve here. But there’s nothing you can do, nothing I can do, that will change what happened. I’m not sure what you’re doing is healthy.”
“I’m not trying to change what happened, I’m trying to understand what happened. Because if she did have alcohol in her system, then I think she went out that night. That she was with someone.”
He looked at me, his face flat. “Okay,” he said. “So what, then she fell coming back in?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe she even fell somewhere else.”
“Somewhere else?”
“I don’t know.”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I really don’t think that’s what happened. And even if she fell coming back inside the house, that doesn’t change anything. I don’t think your parents know you’re here, and I don’t think your dad requested the autopsy report either. I think maybe I should call your parents and ask them to take you home.”
He reached for the phone on his desk.
“Don’t,” I said quickly, remembering their faces across the dinner table, staring at me in horror as I tried, and failed, to explain to them about the bottles. Remembering Mrs. Hayes and her notes. “Please. They—I don’t want to upset them.”
He paused, his hand hovering above the phone. Then he moved it back to rest on his desk again.
“All right,” he said. “I don’t want to make things harder for you or your parents. I know it’s been hard enough for you all.”
“Thank you,” I said. I paused and thought of the autopsy report, of the blank space. Of the call with the toxicology center. “Is there any way you could check about the report?
He stared at me for a long, long moment. I wondered if he was deliberately counting to ten before speaking.
“Look,” he said. “I have a meeting that’s starting soon, but if you really think something went wrong, then yes, I can check later today, and if I find that anything went awry, then I’ll let you, and your parents, know.”
“Thank you,” I said. “And if you don’t find anything?”
“Then there will be nothing to say,” he said. “And maybe you should take that as a sign that you need to find a different way to grieve for your sister. Need to stop forging letters and hiding things from your parents. All parents want is to protect their children, you know. So maybe you should let them for a while.” His eyes briefly settled on the framed picture. Then he looked at his watch, pushed his chair back, and stood up. “I need to go to my meeting, Jess.”
And with that, we were done. And as I walked out of the police station, I started to wonder if he was right—if what I’d been doing made any rational sense at all. If it was crazy that a part of my brain kept coming back to the fact that he hadn’t exactly answered my questions.
CROUCHED BENEATH MR. MATTHEWS’S WINDOW, I was starting to wish I hadn’t come. It was becoming harder and harder to remember what I thought I’d find, watching him like this. To believe that peering into his window, listening to him talk to his cat, would actually accomplish anything.
It had been two days since I’d gone to the police station and talked to the chief. I’d heard nothing from him since, and while I’d held out hope at first that maybe he’d just gotten busy, I was steadily reaching the realization that the call wasn’t going to come. I felt foolish now for going. Felt foolish for being here, underneath Mr. Matthews’s window.
To make matters worse, my left leg had begun cramping up. The best way to get the cramp to pass would be to get up and move around. Still, unobservant as Mr. Matthews was, I thought my prancing around his backyard might draw his attention. So I stayed put, quietly massaging my calf muscles.
Mr. Matthews had been a little off this evening. For one thing, he’d let his tea brew for too long. He hadn’t set the alarm, so it had been steeping for at least ten minutes. He hadn’t gotten anything to eat either, just
