Page 5 of The Irish Redemption

“Two years,” I reply hoarsely.

“And in those two years, have you ever seen that man before?”

I can’t think. His face is lost to me, swallowed by that wound and his claw hands. Trying to picture him each time fails, so all I can do is shake my head. “No.”

“According to the books, there was no guest staying in that room, yet you were there today to clean it,” Sarah says. “Is that common?”

I nod and lift my attention to her. “Gerald wants every room cleaned every day.”

“Why?”

I can’t tell her the truth. Gerald has too many people staying there who want to remain invisible or are up to something illegal. I don’t know what to do. If I cover for him, am I covering for the murderer?

“Sometimes we get people that sneak in through the back fence,” I say, reciting the lie Gerald told me when I first started working there. It’sthe only thing I can think of right now. “They break into the rooms, so Gerald has me clean every room every day to check that we don’t have anyone here who shouldn’t be.”

Sarah scribbles on her notepad. “Talk me through that room today. What did you do?”

I sip the coffee and briefly close my eyes. My tears have long dried on the drive over here, but the sting of them clings to my eyelids and the back of my throat.

“I unlocked the door with my key and went inside. The place was a bit of a mess. I figured a guest had checked out recently, so I just cleaned.”

“What did you clean? Tell me exactly, Evelyn.”

“I don’t know,” I say while shrugging. My thoughts are muddled like fog has slipped in between my ears and is hiding the details from me. “What does it matter? I cleaned and then I found a body.”

“Because you cleaned the crime scene, Evelyn.” Sarah leans forward and rests one elbow on the top of her thigh. “Either you’re the murderer trying a very clever tactic to cover your tracks, or you’re just caught up in this by accident.”

“Murderer?” My stomach lurches with the force of a wave. “I didn’t do it! I swear I didn’t kill him, I could never kill him! I could never hurt anyone!” A wave of nausea forces me into silence, and I screw up my eyes, fighting the stomach cramps that follow.

“Which,” says Sarah softly, “is exactly why I need to know every detail of what you did.”

I take her through it all to the best of my ability. I detail everything I remember doing when I entered the room, everything I touched and cleaned including what products I used, and then my discovery of the body. I had dropped my basket of bathroom cleaning products in shock and then picked it back up, only to drop it again when Irealized I was disturbing the pool of blood. Sarah writes it all down and gets me to repeat it several times, then she has me tell the same story to two other detectives who ask their own variations of the same questions.

I repeat it until my throat is dry and my shift feels more like a story than actual reality, but in a strange way, it does help me disconnect from the trauma of discovering a dead man. Constantly repeating the story makes me bored of saying the same thing over and over again, but I can’t tell if that’s a normal reaction to have, and I’m too scared to ask in case it makes me look guilty.

By the time we finish, it’s pitch black outside.

“I can have an officer run you home,” Sarah says as she walks me to the exit.

“No.” I shake my head. “It’s okay, really. I’d much rather walk. Gives me some time to process.”

“Are you sure?” Sarah’s prickly demeanor has softened these past few hours, and her sympathetic smile holds a clearer warmth.

“Yeah. I kind of want to breathe fresh air and just walk, y’know?”

“I understand,” Sarah replies, though I can’t tell whether she does or not.

As a detective, I’m sure she’s seen her fair share of dead bodies. Maybe this is just a regular Thursday for her.

“Take my card,” Sarah continues, sliding a small card into my hand. “If you need anything, please call me. And I’ll be in touch, so make sure you don’t go anywhere.”

“Is that a don’t leave the state kind of warning?” I try to joke, but even as Sarah smiles, the warmth doesn’t reach her eyes.

“That’s exactly what that is.”

“Oh.” I flip her card over in my hands, then nod quickly. “Okay. Thank you.”

“Take care, Evelyn.” She waves me off at the door, turns on her heel, and strides back into the police station.

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