Page 13 of A Thin Line

“I’m gonna have you give Officer Silva a quick summary of what you just told me.”

I did as told, but I hadn’t finished by the time there was yet another knock on the door. This time it was the female plainclothes officer. “I need you to move to the classroom so I can begin reviewing the footage.”

“Can do,” said the first officer, motioning me with a mere eyebrow to stand. Soon, the three of us were in the hallway. The security guard was back at what I thought of as his post, and Jenna and Piper were once again joined by the male student—but they weren’t talking and I got the feeling they were told not to. Evidently, the cops hadn’t realized the students could easily communicate through our phones if we really wanted to, because they hadn’t confiscated them from us. As we walked down the hall and turned the corner past the vending machines, I wondered what my rights were in this situation. They’d said we could leave but implied that we wouldn’t want to and I thought it best to just get it over with. After all, if I’d refused, they might think I did have something to do with what had happened.

Soon, we entered one of the smaller classrooms, filled with two rows of desks, the walls lined with tables and PC stations for students who needed computer access but didn’t have a laptop or tablet. Officer Silva said, “We might as well get her prints before we finish questioning her.”

The first officer nodded his head, and Silva led me to the desk at the front of the room. “Miss, uh—”

“Miller.”

“Miss Miller, I do have to inform you that you have a right to refuse to be fingerprinted, but we already know your prints will be in the lab, and if you consent to fingerprinting, we’ll have an easier time identifying which prints are yours. If you don’t consent, we’ll find a way to legally encourage you to give them to us, but I do have to let you know that you don’t have to do it right now.”

“No, that’s okay. You can take them.”

The officer put on latex gloves and wrote my last name in a square on top of a card. “What’s your first name?”

“Annalise.”

“Could you spell that, please?”

I did and it wasn’t long before he was getting my fingerprints—taking each one of my digits on both hands, rolling it on the ink pad and then rolling it in its specific square on the card, leaving behind an image of the unique loops, arches, and whorls of the pads of my fingers. Although I didn’t think the fingerprints would prove my innocence, they were absolutely right that my prints would be all over the lab. Aside from Dr. Rakhimov, I had spent more time in there than anyone else. And even though Jenna and I had wiped everything down later in the day, I had no doubt they would find my prints there.

When he was done, he gave me a packet that held a wet wipe to remove the ink, and I was surprised how easily it came off.

Then we sat down again and they resumed questioning me. Soon, I’d caught Officer Silva up to what I’d told the other officer before and I picked up from there. “Dr. Rakhimov paged me for a progress report and, after I updated her, I went to get the programs for the event at the print shop.”

“Where’s that?”

“It’s in this building. If you follow the hallway outside the classroom door and take a right, it’s at the end of the hall near the east entrance.”

“So what happened?”

I needed to make sure they understood exactly what had transpired. “I left Jenna in charge of the lab and hurried to the print shop because they close at five. When I got there, they’d already locked the door, but it wasn’t quite time yet. There was still a student in there and I persuaded him to let me get the programs. Then I headed back to the health and science building and sat at a bench outside so I could talk to my dad really fast.”

Officer Silva raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Meanwhile, the other officer continued taking notes.

I continued. “After that, I headed back to the lab. When I got there, I called out for Jenna, thinking she was in one of the back rooms of the lab, and then Dr. Rakhimov paged me again.”

“You keep using the word paged. What exactly do you mean by that?”

“We were all wearing walkie-talkies on a belt so she could reach us.”

Silva snickered. “Why didn’t she call you on your cell?”

“You’ll have to ask her…but I think she views them as unreliable.” The woman had actually used that word more than once. Every project I’d been involved in where I wasn’t directly under her nose (which was rare) involved using the walkie-talkies. Phone sounds were usually turned off on campus so students didn’t have them ringing or making other noises during classes—and when Dr. R. wanted your attention, she wanted it immediately. Old-fashioned walkie-talkies were her solution.

When he didn’t follow up with another question, I continued. “She wanted me over at the auditorium immediately and said Jenna was already there—which explained why she wasn’t in the lab when I got there.” Silva got ready to ask something, but I knew this was important. “The lab doors were open when I got here—meaning they were unlocked—so I pulled them closed when I headed to the auditorium.”

“What did the lab look like when you left?”

“I only walked a little way in—just inside the first room—and it looked normal, and when Dr. Rakhimov called, I left.”

“To be clear, you didn’t look inside? So the damage could have already been done?”

“Maybe—but the first room, the one that looks like the reception area to a clinic—it was fine.”

Silva looked skeptical, but the other officer kept writing—and I was grateful he was taking down everything I was saying.

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