40. Cass
CASS
The first thing I’m aware of is my mouth.
More specifically, the fact that it feels like it’s never even heard of the term “moisture.” My tongue is a strip of jerky stuck to the roof of a desert. My lips are cemented shut. “Thirst” has a new name, and that name is Cassandra Snyder.
The second thing I’m aware of is the light.
Even with my eyes closed, it’s aggressive. As it pulses through my eyelids in pink and orange waves, I think to myself, I should probably open my eyes, but then I think, No, absolutely not, that sounds like the worst idea of all time.
The third and fourth things I’m aware of are, in quick progression, a man’s odor and a man’s voice. He’s saying my name.
“Mrs. Snyder.”
I groan.
He taps my shoulder. “Mrs. Snyder. Mrs. Snyder, I need you to wake up for me.”
Snyder. Why does that sound wrong? Something about it is jarring, improper, but I can’t figure out why.
Oh, that’s right. I was supposed to leave it behind, wasn’t I? I was supposed to wake up without that ball-and-chain around my ankle. I did everything I was told to do. The pill, the guest room, tucking Raymond into bed… and then… and then…
Matvei.
I sit up so fast the room rolls sideways, and I have to brace myself with both hands flat on the table in front of me to keep from going off the edge of my chair.
I rip my eyes open. There’s a table in front of me. It’s steely, cold, and bolted very firmly to the floor. My hands feel strange. It takes me a moment to realize that there are two reasons for that.
One is that they’re cuffed to hooks embedded in the table top. That’s problematic. We’ll circle back.
The other, weirder reason my hands look unusual is that they’re dirty in a way that they weren’t when I went to sleep.
There’s a faint, dark residue caked under the nails of my right hand.
Based off the copious amounts of true crime I’ve consumed over the years, I’d say it’s gunpowder residue and the forensics powder they use to test for it.
My thoughts are slowly starting to take shape as the sleeping pill’s effects wear off.
I’m pretty sure I’ve been here for a while.
My ass is numb and sore, like I’ve been stuck in this chair for hours.
My clothes are different, too. My pajamas have been replaced with a gray sweatshirt and gray sweatpants, both baggy and too long.
Oh, I think, with a kind of slow, dreamy detachment. Oh, no.
Things have gone terribly wrong.
“Nice of you to join us, Mrs. Snyder,” the voice drawls when he sees that I’m awake.
I look up.
Across the table from me sits a man in a navy blazer with sideburns that haven’t been in style since we fought wars with bayonets and muskets. He has black coffee in a Styrofoam cup at his elbow and a manila folder open in front of him. He looks, more than anything, patient .
That scares the living hell out of me.
“I’m Detective Kramer,” he explains by way of introduction, tapping a badge clipped to his lapel. “We’ve met. You don’t remember. You were pretty out of it when we brought you in.”
“Where—” I start to say, but my mouth is so dry that it sounds more like a chew toy’s squeak instead. I lick my lips and try again. “Where am I?”
“19th Precinct. East Sixty-Seventh. Couple blocks from your place.” He nudges a paper cup of water across the table toward me. “Drink. You’ve had a long night, and the day ahead isn’t looking too easy, either.”
I take the cup with two hands. It’s vaguely milky and tastes like an old swimming pool, but it’s still life-giving. I chug it so fast that half of it sloshes down my front. Some spills on the tabletop, and I think of Raymond last night, knocking over that water glass as the pill took hold of him.
What the hell happened after that?!
“Where is my husband?” I croak.
Detective Kramer watches me carefully, twirling the pen in his fingers. “Mrs. Snyder,” he says at last, “your husband is deceased. He was deceased when we found him.”
“I know,” I say, before I can stop myself.
His pen stops twirling.
I clamp my teeth on my tongue so hard I taste copper. Idiot, idiot, idiot. I’ve been awake for two seconds and already I’m gift-wrapping the case for him. I press my lips together and try to get myself in order.
“You know,” he repeats, neutrally. “How is it that you know, Mrs. Snyder?”
“Because…” My brain latches onto the only reasonable explanation. “Because you’re a detective. And I’m in an interrogation room. And Raymond is a lawyer, so if he was here, he’d be with me.”
He tilts his head, like, Fair enough. “That’s a reasonable deduction,” he concedes, but he writes something down anyway.
I look at my hands again. “Why are my fingers like this?”
“We swabbed you when we brought you in. Standard procedure when there’s a firearm involved. We’ll be sending the swabs to the lab for further analysis, but the field kit gave us a positive result.”
“A positive result,” I echo. “For…?”
“For gunshot residue.”
“That’s not possible,” I hear myself insisting. “I was asleep. I didn’t— I couldn’t have?—”
“Mrs. Snyder, please.” Kramer holds up a palm, though not unkindly.
“We’ll get into all that shortly. But before you say anything else, I’d like to remind you of your rights.
You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.
You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney?—”
“I know my rights,” I interrupt. “My husband was a lawyer.”
“ Was ,” he agrees gently. “Yes, he was.”
I close my eyes again and breathe for a second as I struggle to wrap my head around everything. My thoughts are still murky and indistinct, slowed by the sedative.
Raymond is dead. That much is clear. That part of the plan worked, if nothing else.
But the rest of it has obviously gone haywire. Why am I here? Where is Matvei? Why is there gunpowder residue on my hand? What the hell is happening?!
“Okay,” Detective Kramer says. “If it’s alright with you, let’s just talk for a minute. Not formally. Just you and me. You can stop me whenever you want.”
“I want to know where Matvei Satyrin is.”
I know right away that I just made an incredibly stupid mistake. It could be the drugs in my system loosening my mouth, or the fear, or the isolation, but whatever the cause, there’s no denying it was the exact wrong thing to say.
Nothing that gets a detective this excited could be good for me.
Kramer’s pen stops moving. He sets it down on top of his folder. Then he folds his hands in front of him and leans forward a few inches. “Now, that ,” he says, “is an interesting question, Mrs. Snyder.”
The hair on the back of my neck stands up.
“Why would you ask me that?” he presses.
I scramble. “Because— Because he’s— he’s my husband’s protégé. At the firm. I— I don’t know who else to— I mean, he works for Raymond. Worked. For Raymond. So he’d know what to— I mean, in terms of the firm, and, and the partners, and?—”
Detective Kramer looks at me with a frank, do not bullshit me calmness.
His pressed lips aren’t moving, but I can basically hear him saying, I’ve been doing this job for a quarter-century, I’ve heard every lie a human mouth can make, and yours, ma’am, is not even in the top five hundred of believable.
“Mr. Satyrin,” he says carefully, “was found in your apartment. Standing approximately fifteen feet from your husband’s body, with an unlicensed handgun on the floor at his feet. The serial number had been filed off. Would you like to tell me, again, why you’re asking after him?”
I take a long, slow breath through my nose. I’ve been lying for so, so long—to Raymond, to the world, even to myself. It’s time for all that practice to pay off. I need to summon all my powers of deception right now if I want to make it out of this room.
I smooth my expression and look up at the detective. “I just— I just want to know what happened,” I say in my best Distraught Widow tone. “If he was there, then… I mean, I have a right to know what happened in my own home, don’t I?”
“Certainly. You have a right to a lot of things.” Detective Kramer taps the folder. “So let me lay it all out for you.”
He opens the folder and turns it around so I can see.
The first photograph is of the master bedroom. Raymond is lying in the bed. I look at it briefly, and then I look away. My first thought isn’t for my own wave of nausea; it’s for the baby suffering right alongside it. She shouldn’t have to see something this gruesome.
Babies don’t know what they’re looking at, I remind myself. Babies are safe inside.
The second photograph shows Matvei’s gun on the floor.
The third is a close-up of my hand. Someone—a gloved someone, a cop—is holding my limp wrist up, palm out. My fingers are dusky with residue. My wedding ring is missing.
“Cause of death is two gunshot wounds to the chest and one to the head, fired at close range,” Detective Kramer recites.
“Weapon was recovered at scene. Recovered weapon appears to match the rounds, ballistically, though we’re waiting on full lab.
We found GSR residue on your hand, Mrs. Snyder, consistent with someone who recently fired a weapon.
We pulled your prints off the grip.” He turns over another page and continues reading.
“There was a sleep aid in your bloodstream, but not enough to knock out a woman your size, in our medical examiner’s estimation.
Just enough to muddy the waters. It looks staged. Looks, frankly, amateur .”
“That’s not?—”
“We’ve also got your phone, ma’am. Your everyday phone. A forensic analysis revealed searches for cyanide dosage . Untraceable poisons . How long does life insurance take to pay out . Pretty bad look, that one.”
“That’s old,” I whisper hoarsely.