Chapter Nine
NINE
“Fliss? Izzy?”
Alessandra’s worried voice rings out from the entrance hall, and I’m not surprised that she’s come looking for us.
Izzy has only just stopped screaming, but now she’s pacing and muttering to herself.
I can’t bring myself to stop her. In fact, I can’t seem to do anything apart from move my head slowly in the direction of Alessandra’s voice, like I’m a puppet on a string.
Alessandra rounds the corner, but she looks really far away.
The corridor seems unnaturally long, and it takes me a second to register that the ringing I’m hearing is in my ears, not an alarm in the gallery.
My vision has gone fuzzy at the edges and my fingers are numb, like they’re not actually attached to me anymore.
I’m going to faint.
“What happened?” Alessandra grabs my shoulders, and the touch jolts my senses, my vision sharpening a little.
My lips don’t want to connect with my mouth, though, so she looks over at Izzy, who is still pacing, tugging at the hem of her shirt as her voice rises in panic.
“Izzy? Can you tell me why you were screaming?”
“I can’t…Don’t make me,” Izzy whimpers before turning wide eyes on me. “Fliss?”
“In there,” I finally manage, squeezing my eyes closed.
Alessandra helps me over to the opposite wall, the one made of glass that looks out on the dark night sky.
I promptly slide down it, landing in a puddle on the floor.
She crouches in front of me. “You are white as a sheet.” I nod, focusing only on sucking in enough air so I don’t pass out.
That’s the last thing we need right now.
“When you say ‘in there,’ do you mean the locker room?” I nod again, mouth dry.
“She’s in there.” Izzy points a shaking finger at the door. “But so are our bags, our phones. We need to call the police.”
“The police?” Alessandra jumps to her feet, on high alert now. Before I can stop her, she strides to the door and punches in the code.
“Don’t,” I say weakly, but it’s too late. From my spot on the floor I can see past her legs and into the room, where Helen’s body is slumped on one of the benches.
“No,” Alessandra whispers, turning around in disbelief.
I put my head in my hands, but it’s no use.
I can still see the wound on Helen’s neck and the blindfold over her eyes.
I scrape my fingernails along my scalp as I hear Alessandra make a call.
On one level I know she must be trying to stay calm for us, but she keeps slipping into Italian as she tries to explain what has happened to the operator, so I can tell she’s as shell-shocked as we are.
I try to erase the image of a stained white shirt and all those little paper cups strewn across the sticky red floor.
“Out of here, now,” Alessandra says firmly, though there’s a quiver in her voice. “We need to get away…We can wait in the café for the police. They’re on their way.”
I gratefully take her hands and let her heave me to my feet, then follow her and Izzy toward the café and kitchen.
Alessandra props the door open with another silver weight, then dials a number on her phone and fires off a string of rapid Italian.
She doesn’t tell us who she’s called, but her voice is so thick with emotion that I know she’s holding back sobs, meaning it’s probably a close friend or family member, maybe a partner.
Izzy slips her hand into mine, though I can’t really feel it. There are wet tracks in her makeup.
Should I be crying right now?
I’m aware that I’m probably in shock, but I don’t cry a lot in general.
Seeing the body seems to have hit me in other ways.
I don’t know how my feet are moving, for example.
I can’t feel anything. With the scene in the locker room playing on repeat in my brain, somehow I manage to make it to the café without screaming.
“Sit.” Alessandra pulls out two chairs and I sink into mine gratefully.
Izzy lands heavily in the chair next to mine. I glance her way, and even though she’s staring straight ahead, her hand finds mine again and she squeezes hard.
“Do not go anywhere,” Alessandra warns. “I will make tea.”
A few minutes pass in loud silence before she emerges with a tray of cups and a silver teapot. “The police are outside. I am going to unlock the front door, but I want you to stay right here. Do you both understand me?”
We nod.
“Okay.” Alessandra takes a deep breath and leaves through the kitchen, though how she can walk back past the locker room is beyond me.
Izzy tries her best to distract me with tea and an ungodly amount of sugar as we sit and listen to the distant, tinny sound of voices on radios and the crackle of static before Alessandra returns with a short, stocky man in a navy blue uniform.
“This is everyone?” the policeman asks, surveying the room.
“Everyone that was still here when we…found her.” Alessandra gestures to the man. “Girls, this is Officer Shaw.”
“So there were other people here tonight?” He pulls a small notepad and pencil from a pocket at his waist.
“Yes.” Alessandra rubs a hand across her face and points to the partition wall that separates the café from the gallery, toward where the portrait hangs. “We had a private showing here this evening. There were around forty people. Perhaps a few more.”
“Do you have a guest list?” asks the officer.
“Yes, everyone who came through the front door signed in for our records. Would you like me to share it?” Alessandra offers.
“That would be a good start.”
“I also have the details of the catering agency.” Alessandra’s breath hitches. “Helen, the…girl in the locker room. She was waitressing here tonight.”
The officer scribbles in his notebook as two women enter the café, one in jeans and a shirt under a gray blazer, the other wearing a smart bottle green shift dress.
They both hold themselves with the air of people in charge.
Detectives, I’ll bet. Shaw glances up at them.
“My colleagues are going to talk to each of you about what happened this evening, but they will want to start with whoever found the victim.”
“Thank you, Officer.” The woman in the blazer speaks up, and her tone is clipped.
I get the impression she doesn’t like being called a colleague when she’s clearly his superior.
Shaw ducks his head as embarrassment flushes his cheeks.
“You can return to the campus station now. We’ll take it from here. ”
“Yes, ma’am.” He gives us one last, pitying look as Alessandra introduces us to the detectives, and then he leaves the café.
“So, who was first on the scene?” the blazer-clad detective asks without bothering to introduce herself. I glance up at her as the other detective takes a seat at the table between me and Izzy. Are we suspects?
“That was me,” I reply, raising my hand like we’re at school. “I’m Fliss.” The detective’s face softens a little as she points to the table farthest from where we’re sitting.
“I’ll talk to you first, then.”
I stand on wobbly legs and follow her, not sure I’ll make it all the way across the café, but I do. She pulls out a chair and gestures for me to sit.
“I’m Detective Romig, and my colleague over there is Detective Youssef,” she says. She’s changed tack now, her voice kind as I sit down. “How are you feeling?”
“Cold,” I mumble through frozen lips. I stick my freezing hands under my thighs, hoping they’ll warm up, but the cold just seeps into my skin instead. “My parents are out of town. Do you need me to have an appropriate adult?”
She raises her eyebrows, and I can tell she’s surprised. “Do you need one?” she asks. This makes me come to my senses a little. After all the books I’ve read about criminal investigations, never mind the true-crime documentaries I’ve inhaled, this is something I know about.
“I know you should have someone sit with you if you’re under eighteen.”
“And you are…?”
“Seventeen. Last month.”
“Then yes, we will provide an appropriate adult.” She pulls out her phone. “It might take a couple of hours to get someone out here.”
I look over at Alessandra. “Can she sit in? I know that in extenuating circumstances you can use members of the public.”
“That’s fine.” Detective Romig keeps a stoic look on her face, but I get the impression I’ve irritated her.
The realization that I do actually know what I’m talking about boosts my confidence a little.
She looks over my head and raises her voice in Alessandra’s direction.
“Ms. Barone, would you join us, please?” Alessandra approaches, worry lines etched into her forehead.
“We need an appropriate adult for this young lady, so could you grab a chair?” Metal legs scrape on the floor as Alessandra joins us, and I brace myself for the initial questioning.
You don’t read Mindhunter or I’ll Be Gone in the Dark as many times as I have and not know that the detectives will already be looking for suspects.
“Okay, Fliss, was it?” I nod. “Can you tell me your full name?”
I lick my lips. “Felicity Anne Keller.”
“And your date of birth?”
“July 23, 2009.”
“Great. Now, I just need you to take me through what happened tonight. Try to remember as many details as you can for me.” I nod. “Whenever you’re ready.”
“I was helping out, waitressing,” I start, my voice shaking.
“Well, I was handing out the canapés.” I pause.
She doesn’t want to hear about canapés; she wants to hear about the crime scene.
Detective Romig just watches my face and waits for me to continue.
I start again, trying to be as coherent as I can.
“When the event was over and everyone had gone home, Alessandra said she’d saved some canapés for us, so Izzy and I went to the locker room to get our bags before we joined her in the café.
We’d put them in there at the start of the night. ”
“Why didn’t you wait until you were going home to get them?”