Page 42 of Coram House

“I know that you’re a writer whose career really needs a good story.”

It feels like someone snuck up behind me and dumped a bucket of ice water over my head.

“And I know this will make a much better chapter in your book if it’s a murder instead of an old lady who slipped on the rocks. But there’s no evidence we should be treating this death as suspicious.”

Suddenly, it all makes sense. The simmering hostility. The endless questions about what I heard in the woods. She doesn’t think I’m a hysterical witness jumping at shadows. She thinks I deliberately made up some phantom killer in the woods to sell books.

“Thank you for your time, Ms. Kelley,” she says, standing. “If we have any further questions, we’ll be in touch. Officer Parker can show you out.”

I sit there, frozen, while Detective Garcia turns the recording off andleaves. My eyes sting. I blink a few times. Parker clears his throat, but I can’t look at him.

“I’ll walk you out,” he says.

I nod, numb. Parker lifts my coat off the hook and hands it to me. He leads me down a different hall, toward an emergency exit. Gratitude floods me. I don’t think I can walk back through the station, feeling all those eyes on me. Not now that I know what they think of me.

Parker pushes open the door. A blast of freezing air makes my eyes water. As soon as I step outside the police station, I feel better. To my surprise, he steps out after me. “Come on,” he says. “I’ll buy you a cup of coffee. It’s better than ours, but it’ll burn your tongue off.”

I follow him over to the school bus, where cold air mixes with the smell of French fries. A man in a white apron leans out the window and Parker holds up two fingers. A second later the man reappears with two steaming cups. “Thanks,” I say as Parker hands me one. I take a sip and wince.

“Told you it was hot,” he says.

We sit on the retaining wall that separates the parking lot from the embankment that plunges down to the frozen harbor, which is dotted with fishing shacks. It all looks so solid and permanent. It’s hard to believe that just on the other side of Rock Point, the lake is open water and freezing waves. Far out, beyond the ice-fishing shacks, I see something twisted and black. “What is that?” I ask, pointing.

Parker squints and then his mouth hitches into a smile. “Your new friend drove his car onto the lake for some ice fishing the other night.”

I frown in confusion and then it clicks. “The drunk guy?”

Parker nods. “When that didn’t work out, he managed to light it on fire and then stumble back to his house and pass out on the dock.” He gestures with his coffee cup out across the water, to the peninsula that’s the mirror image of Rock Point. “And that’s where they picked him up. Peeled him right off the dock and brought him in.” He shakes his head. “The ice is patchy out there at the break. He’s lucky he didn’t fall through.”

I sip my coffee. It’s still too hot. “So who is he?”

“Some rich tech guy. I don’t know much else. I guess if you canafford to trash a hundred-thousand-dollar car, you don’t need to hand out your résumé.”

But I’m only half listening. The truth is, I’m still stinging from the interview with Garcia. I wasn’t going to say anything, but I can’t help it.

“So what’s her problem with me?”

Parker doesn’t ask who I’m talking about. “She’s just—she has other priorities.”

“Yeah,” I say. “She made that part pretty clear. Listen, Parker.” His name slips easily off my tongue. “Do you think I’m making this up for attention?”

Immediately, I want to take it back, not sure I want to know the answer.

Parker says nothing, clearly considering the question. I realize I’m holding my breath. Finally, he shakes his head.

“No. I don’t.”

It wasn’t quite anOf course there was someone in the woods if you say sobut it’s something.

“But look, she is right. There’s no evidence. Two sets of footprints in the woods. Yours and those belonging to an elderly lady with poor eyesight who went on daily walks in Rock Point, according to her neighbors.”

I feel momentarily stunned. “You know who she is?”

He nods. “It’s not released yet but the obit will be in the paper tomorrow. Her name is Jeannette Leroy. She was seventy years old and lived alone, just across from the cemetery. No family. No money. No sign of a struggle.”

I shiver. It makes it more real. Giving her a name.

“That last part wasn’t in the paper, so I’d appreciate you keeping it to yourself,” he says.

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