“Yeah. I know I shouldn’t have given it to her,” Manuel goes on. “But she was so pretty and nice. Everybody liked her. I couldn’t imagine she wanted the key for anything bad. She said it was really important—something she had to give back to… the people she borrowed it from. Or they’d be angry, she said.”
My blood has run cold. That’s the only way I can think of to explain why I suddenly feel so chilly. “She didn’t say who they were?”
Manuel shakes his head.
“And she definitely said they, plural, like it was more than one person?”
He nods.
Well, that was weird. Unless Lindsay had said they instead of him or her to hide the sex of whoever it was she was talking about.
“So you gave her the key,” I say.
He nods miserably. “She told me she’d give it back. She said she’d meet me by the front desk the next morning at ten o’clock and give the key back. And I waited. I was out there waiting when the police came in. Nobody told me what was going on. They just walked right past me. I was waiting for her, and the whole time, she was inside, dead!”
Manuel breaks off. He’s choking a little, he’s crying so hard. One of the machines that’s hooked up to him by a tube starts beeping. The woman I assume is his mother stirs sleepily.
“If… ” Manuel says. “If—”
“Manuel, don’t talk,” I say. To the woman who has just woken up, I say, “Get a nurse.” Her eyes widen, and she runs from the room.
“If… ” Manuel keeps saying.
“Manuel, don’t talk,” I say. By now Julio is up, as well, murmuring something in Spanish to his nephew.
But Manuel won’t calm down.
“If it wasn’t my fault,” he finally manages to get out, “then why did they try to kill me?”
“Because they think you know who they are,” I say. “The people who killed Lindsay think you can identify them. Which means Lindsay must have said something to you to make them think that. Did she, Manuel? Try to remember.”
“She said… she said something about someone named—”
“Doug?” I cry. “Did she say something about someone named Doug? Or maybe Mark?”
But the beeping is getting louder, and now a doctor and two nurses come rushing in, followed by Manuel’s mother… and the two detectives.
“No,” Manuel says. His voice is getting fainter. “I think it was… Steve. She said Steve was going to be so mad… .”
Steve? Who’s Steve?
Manuel’s eyelids drift closed. The doctor barks, “Get out of the way,” and I jump aside, while she messes around with Manuel’s tubes. The beeping, mercifully, goes back to its normal, much quieter rate. The doctor looks relieved. Manuel, it’s clear, has drifted off to sleep.
“Everyone out,” says one of the nurses, waving us toward the door. “He needs to rest now.”
“But I’m his mother,” the older woman insists.
“You can stay,” the nurse relents. “The rest of you, out.”
I feel horrible. I shuffle out, along with the two detectives, while Julio and Mrs. Juarez stay with Manuel.
“What happened to him?” the younger detective asks me, when we hit the hallway.
And so I tell him. I tell him everything Manuel said. Especially the part about Steve.
They look bored.
“We knew all that,” the older one says—sort of accusingly, like I’d been wasting their time on purpose.
“No, you didn’t,” I say, shocked.
“Yeah, we did,” the younger one agrees with his partner. “It was all in the report. He said all that stuff last night, about the key.”
“Not the stuff about Steve,” I say.
“I’m pretty sure there was a Steve in the report,” the older detective says.
“Steve,” the younger one says. “Or a John, maybe.”
“There’s no John,” I say. “Only a Doug. Or maybe a Mark. Mark was the dead girl’s boyfriend. Well, except she was seeing a guy named Doug on the side. And now there’s Steve. Only there’s no Steve that I know of —”
“We already got all that,” the younger detective says again, looking annoyed.
I glare at them. “Where’s Detective Canavan?”
“He couldn’t get into the city this morning,” the older one says. “On account of the road conditions where he lives.”
“Well,” I say, “are you going to call him and tell him about this Steve guy? Or do I have to do it?”
The younger detective says, “We already told you, miss. We know about—”
“Sure, we’ll call him,” the older one interrupts.
The younger one looks startled. “But Marty—”
“We’ll call him,” the older one says again, with a wink at the younger one. The younger one goes, “Oh, yeah. Yeah. We’ll call him.”
I just stand there and stare at them. It’s clear Detective Canavan already told them about me. It’s also clear he didn’t say anything good.
“You know,” I say truculently, “I have his cell number. I could just call him myself.”
“Why don’t you do that?” Marty, the older detective says. “I’m sure he’d love to hear from you.”
The younger one cracks up.
I feel myself blush. Am I really that big a pain in Detective Canavan’s ass? I mean, I know I am. But I never thought he went around complaining about me to the rest of the detectives. Am I the joke of the Sixth Precinct?
Probably.
“Fine,” I say. “I’ll just be going now.” And I turn to leave.
“Wait. Ms. Wells?”
I turn back to face them. The younger detective is holding out a pen and a notepad.
“Sorry, Ms. Wells, I almost forgot.” He looks totally serious. “Can I have your autograph?”
I narrow my eyes at him. What kind of joke is this?
“Seriously,” he says. “I told my kid sister you hang around the station a lot, and she asked me to get your autograph for her, if I could.”
He looks sincere. I take the pen and notepad, feeling a rush of embarrassment for having been so huffy to him.
“Sure,” I say. “What’s your sister’s name?”
“Oh, she just wants your signature,” the detective says. “She says autographs don’t sell as well on eBay when they’re personalized.”
I glare at him. “She wants my autograph just so she can sell it?”
“Well, yeah,” the detective says, looking as if he can’t believe I’d think anything else. “What else is she going to do with all those old CDs of yours? She says she has a better chance of selling hers if she can throw in an autograph. She says it’ll make her stand out from all the millions of other people selling their Heather Wells collection.”
I hand the pad and pen back to him. “Goodbye, Detectives,” I say, and turn to go.
“Aw, come on,” the detective calls after me. “Heather! Don’t be that way!”
“Can’t we all just get along?” Marty wants to know. He’s laughing so hard, he can barely get the words out.
When I get to the elevator, I turn and tell them what I think of them. With my middle finger.
But this just makes them laugh harder.
They’re wrong, what they say about a crisis bringing out the best in New Yorkers. It so doesn’t.
