Page 53 of Heartsong
“Then I’d prefer to talk here.” Give the cops an inch, they’ll take a mile. That was the unofficial motto of her mom’s myriad of boyfriends. Whether or not there was anything to hide, whether or not you were guilty of anything, no warrant no entry.
One of the detective’s black brows arched slightly as he shifted to pull out his notebook.
“All right. You here alone?”
“Yes.”
He tried to peer around her into the apartment again, squinting. “Thought I heard voices before.”
“I was talking to my cat,” she said. And because he was the best cat in the whole wide world, Captain chose that moment to butt up against her legs. She leaned down to pick him up and hold, putting something between her and the detective.
Ramirez looked from her to Captain and back again. “There was growling.”
“He doesn’t like men.”
At least not human ones. He likes a certain gargoyle maybe even more than me.
The detective had an excellent poker face, Anna would give him that. After another moment, he moved on.
He asked her to go over her story again, and Anna told it just as she had before. Never get caught in lies. Stick to a story. It was kind of shitty that she knew all this and had had plenty of practice, but at least it was serving her and Frey now.
When Ramirez asked if there was anything else she remembered from that night she hadn’t told him yet, Anna offered a few more details about the commandos that’d stormed the museum. The weird smell of the gas. How big the guns they’d had were.
All the while, she held Captain in her arms, grateful for his motorboat purrs. She made her eyes big and rounded her shoulders.
See, I’m just a little woman holding a cat. Harmless.
They stood on either side of the threshold for over fifteen minutes. The detective’s questions were mostly routine, almost banal, but many were the same ones just worded differently, trying to trip her up. Anna stuck to her story, adding detail only when necessary.
Finally, when she thought maybe things were winding down, the detective did manage to catch her off guard.
“And what is your association with Timothy Moorlund?”
Anna blinked, not having heard that name in a while.
“Tim was my mom’s boyfriend for a while. He lived with us for about a year.”
All of her mom’s partners managed to be shitty in their own ways, but not all were criminally inclined. Tim had been different. Small-time cons, check fraud, sticky fingers, that sort of thing. Nothing too crazy until he got greedy and shorted a partner out of their cut. Stupid. That’d been the second time the police had come knocking on her mom’s door.
Her mom had many of her own flaws, but at least she tried to keep on the straight and narrow. Shannon hadn’t been willing to wait for Tim to get out after being convicted to eighteen months in prison, but they also hadn’t been able to afford their apartment without Tim’s ill-gotten contributions. Moving had sucked, especially since it meant another change of schools.
“You haven’t had any contact with him since?”
“Nope. And I wouldn’t even if I knew how to.” The vehemence in her voice wasn’t fake, and she hoped the detective understood how little she ever wanted to do with Tim or any of the other shitheads her mom paraded through her life.
Anna tried not to chew her cheek as a few more notes went into that little leatherbound book.
A few more questions and the detective finally called it quits.
From a pocket he drew a no-nonsense business card with his name, contact information, and SFPD letterhead in blue ink.
“Call me if you remember anything else.”
“Thanks. I will.” She didn’t let go of Captain to take it.
With a final nod, Ramirez turned to go, and Anna quickly shut and locked the door. She watched through the peephole to make sure the detective left.
She let another handful of moments go before she finally breathed again.
