Vera
The only places I hate more than hospitals are police stations. They share the same cold arrogance, the same black-and-white,
right and wrong, life and death. They are places of unyielding consequences and limited solutions, rules to be followed even
when the rules are broken and wrong.
I don’t love bringing Ana here. But Payton insisted that we appear to be playing ball. And Payton’s top-tier criminal defense
attorney ex-boyfriend, sometimes lover, Victor, is the kind of man you want on your side. A crackling, no-bullshit intelligence,
tempered by a cool, in-on-the-joke-of-it-all confidence, a kind of easy charm that disarms before he muscles you to the ground.
Ana knows him, but he and I have only just met. Already, I see why Payton likes him (read: keeps fucking him) but won’t marry
him. There’s an edge to him, something dangerous.
Victor opens the door to the station for us, and we step inside. There’s a smell—ink and desperation. I see Regina Hayes before
she sees us—looking drawn with distress, wrapped in some kind of dramatic shawl, her hair as orange as copper wire. As we
pass each other, she and Ana lock eyes and their dislike for each other is electric. I squeeze my sister’s hand. Keep your mouth shut, I think but don’t say, hoping to communicate it through touch. Ana issues a grunt of disdain but controls herself. Her hand is icy cold in mine. She pulls it away.
Detective Bandeau is waiting for us. Then we’re walking back, trailing Victor like baby ducks. A uniformed officer opens a
door for us. We enter the interrogation room and sit, Ana between Victor and me. Bandeau stands in the corner, arms folded.
I don’t like the way he looks at Ana, like he already knows something about her.
“Thank you for coming,” he says, as if we had a choice. “Please have a seat.”
Victor introduces himself and they shake hands. There’s some chitchat about a friend they have in common, someone who volunteers
at the youth center with Bandeau, a word or two about some boxing match. It’s all very male, very congenial. Then it begins.
“So, Ms. Blacksmith, you were in a relationship with Paul Hayes for the better part of nine months, is that right?”
“Yes.”
Instructions from Victor, which echo all the things Agnes told us over the years, include short, truthful (if possible) answers
without any unnecessary elaboration.
“How would you characterize your relationship?”
Ana looks at me, shrugs. “Fun, I suppose. Light. Not serious.”
Obsessive, oversexed, shallow, performative. But I give her a light nod of agreement.
“Nine months is a long time—at your age.” He wears a shadow of a smirk. Ana’s nostrils flare slightly at the dig. “Isn’t it?
I mean, long enough to be serious.”
“My client has answered your question,” says Victor, voice chilly, all the male bonhomie gone. He holds a black leather notebook,
scribbles with a Montblanc held in long lean fingers. A southpaw.
The detective moves on. “When was the last time you saw him?”
“The night we broke up.”
“Why did you break up?”
Ana glances at Victor, who nods. “He was seeing someone else. Wanted to pursue that.”
The detective is also a scribbler, writing in his notebook.
He looks up at Ana. “You must have been angry.”
“It’s never fun to learn your boyfriend is seeing someone else and likes her better,” she says easily. The only tell of her
tension is a slightly bouncing heel. “But like I said. It wasn’t serious.”
“Do you remember the exact date?”
“It was right before the holidays.”
He offers a dramatic wince. “That’s cold. So not angry about it all?”
“Again. Question answered,” says Victor, looking at the detective.
So far I haven’t said a word and I’m quite happy to keep it that way, even though I planned to do all the talking.
“Would you say that’s a fair characterization of the breakup?” Ugh. He’s looking at me, waiting for me to answer.
Ana went completely ballistic, was a total fucking rage case, tearing up her apartment and bombarding me with furious phone
calls. I had to leave a PTA meeting and help her pull her shit together. The afternoon ended with her weeping in my lap like
a toddler who’d finally burned out on her tantrum while I stroked her hair.
“I think so,” I say, looking at her as I imagine a loving older sister would. “As she said, it never seemed serious. I mean
of course Ana was hurt that Paul cheated. No one feels good about that. But it’s not like she planned to marry him.”
I give my sister a sympathetic glance, touch her arm. She smiles sadly, nods. We’re good at this, putting on a little show
of our sisterly bond.
The detective flips through his notebook, clears his throat.
“Paul’s sister, Regina, characterizes the breakup differently.” He makes a show of looking down at his notes again. “She claims you were enraged, that you stalked him, showing up at his place of work, and at the workplace of Amanda Alessi, who
is currently missing. She says that you harassed them both on social media and made threats.”
Ana sits coolly. “Ha, that’s rich. She should talk. Regina and Paul were at each other’s throats about the money he owed her.”
More scribbling. I notice that the detective’s knuckles are raw and remember the boxing gym at the youth center where he volunteers.
I also notice the dark circles of fatigue under his eyes, the shadow of stubble on his jaw. This one has layers. There’s more
to him than meets the eye.
For some reason, I think about Chief Royer, Agnes’s longtime friend and maybe more. I never understood their relationship,
but I had the sense that he protected her when he could, and that she helped him in ways she never revealed to us or anyone.
“The inheritance will all go to Regina now,” Ana goes on into the silence, leans forward. “Isn’t that like detecting one-oh-one?
Follow the money?”
The detective holds her gaze; there’s the tick of a smile, something between them. Like they know each other. But they don’t,
right? She’d have told me.
“Regina Hayes is a wealthy woman in her own right,” he says. “The amount he owed her wasn’t significant.”
Ana releases a snort, leans back in her chair, and crosses her arms. “Except that money is never about money, is it? Especially
between siblings.”
The clock over the door ticks. Victor rustles some papers. “Do you have more questions for my client?”
He glances down at his notes. I wonder if we’re done. He doesn’t have anything on Ana and he’s just fishing.
Then, “How would you characterize your relationship with Kevin Harding? Light? Not serious?”
Shit.
Ana swallows hard, looks down at her nails.
The detective reads over his notes; the silence expands. When did he find out about Kevin Harding? How? I’m certainly not
going to ask.
“Kevin Harding, another ex-boyfriend, claims that you tried to poison him,” Detective Bandeau says when she stays silent.
“There was never enough evidence to bring charges against my client,” says Victor. I’ve briefed him on Ana’s history, and
he’s ready for this line of questioning. “Meanwhile, there was plenty of evidence that Harding was an abuser and a career
criminal.”
“Hmm, yes,” says the detective. “Assault, domestic violence, fraud. Sounds like a nice guy.”
“Love is blind,” says Ana darkly.
“So . . . you loved him?”
Victor lifts a palm. “You don’t have to answer that.”
“I ended my relationship with Kevin Harding after he hit me. He stalked me, threatened me, and harassed me for months.”
Something like anger flashes across the detective’s face. But then it’s gone.
“Until,” he says, voice softer.
Ana sniffs, wipes at her eye with a tissue she digs from her bag. Nice. “Until he fell ill.”
“He was in a coma for three months.”
“That’s right.”
“What happened to him?”
“How should I know? I ended our relationship because he was abusive. I didn’t follow up on his health.”
“And when he recovered did he return to stalking you?”
“No, he moved on to his next victim, I guess.”
Outside the interrogation room a phone rings and rings. The buzzing fluorescent lights, among other things, are giving me
a terrible headache.
“Kevin Harding claims that you tried to kill him. That he now lives in fear that you might come back to finish the job.”
“According to whom?” Victor asks.
“Mr. Harding called our tip line when Paul’s death hit the news. Like Regina, Kevin Harding suspects that Ana killed Paul.”
A tide of blood rushes in my ears. But I know that my bearing is cool, relaxed. I have practiced control over my face and
body language. I force myself to breathe.
“That’s ridiculous,” says Ana, easily. “Men are such children when they don’t get what they want.”
“Agree. It’s preposterous,” says Victor. “My client is an upstanding citizen with no criminal record. There’s no real evidence
to tie her to the illness of Mr. Harding or the death of Mr. Hayes. Just rumors started by a woman who should obviously be your primary suspect, and allegations from
a violent criminal.”
I glance over at Victor, whose face is still as stone, gaze on the detective unyielding.
Detective Bandeau looks at his notes again. “Going back further isn’t it true that your mother was convicted for poisoning
your father?”
Okay. Wow. The detective does his homework.
Victor clears his throat. “Nothing whatsoever to do with my client.”
“And that you went to live with your aunt, Agnes Blacksmith, who was a known—herbalist.”
He leans on the word unpleasantly.
“She was a florist,” I put in.
Victor yawns elaborately. “Again, little to nothing to do with my client and the matter at hand.”
“But it’s fair to say that you come from a line of women who are knowledgeable about plants, herbs, and flowers and their
effects on the human body.”