Page 20 of In the Bones
“So listen, I’ll be recording our conversation, if that’s OK with you. We might need to check back on some of your answers.”
“OK,” said Nicole, though the sudden transition to cop mode was unsettling.
“You’ve given us a lot of useful information already”—here, Valerie glanced at Tim—“so we really just want to ask some questions about your employer. Mikko Helle?”
Mikko and Eva must have finally gotten back from Kingston. What had Mikko thought when he saw the police cars? Had he wondered if they were there for him? Was he in custody already?
“What kind of questions?” Nicole asked. “I really don’t know him very well. We only met on Wednesday, and he and Eva haven’t been around much. They’ve been touring the area.”
“But you spent quite a while alone in his house, is that right?”
There was a burning sensation in Nicole’s throat. When she swallowed, she found it bone-dry. “A few hours, yeah.”
“And during that time, Nicole, did you notice anything unusual?”
“You mean besides the woman in the ceiling?”Shit. “I’m sorry, that was rude. I think I’m still jumpy.”
Valerie nodded. “That’s understandable. You had a bad scare. Let me rephrase the question, OK? Other than the disturbances you’ve already described, did you notice anything out of the ordinary?”
Immediately, Nicole’s mind went to the message. She hadn’t told her sister about that. Hadn’t told Tim yet, either. She’d been worried about how the police might interpret it. Now that she knew why Eva had been acting so strange that morning, Nicole was back to being sure the message was meant forher—and she didn’t need the police wondering whether there was, in fact, a reason why Nicole needed watching.
Knowing what she did about the intruder, though, Nicole realized two things. The first was that the stranger might have left the message. She’d been in the house for several days, right there with Nicole. Hadn’t Shana said some phroggers got off on messing with people? Maybe she’d done something similar to Eva, too. If that was the case, Nicole knew she should tell Tim and Valerie what she’d seen. The more information they had about the trespasser, the better.
The second thing she realized was this: the state police had surely already interviewed Mikko, and there was no telling what he’d said. If he’d admitted to being suspicious of Nicole’s motives for wanting to work for him, and confessed to writing those words in the dust, withholding that detail would only make Nicole look guilty. Better to be honest, at least about this.
“I’m watching,” Valerie echoed after Nicole had explained about the warning in the dust. “And you don’t know who wrote it?”
“I thought it might be Mikko. Like maybe he was playing a prank? But now,” Nicole went on, “I’m thinking it could be Jenny Smith. She was in the house when I found it.”
“Did you tell Mikko Helle about it?”
Nicole shook her head. “I cleaned the dust so I had no proof, and it was my first day. I didn’t want to cause trouble.”
Something happened to the detective’s face. Nicole thought she saw a flicker of annoyance, maybe even anger, but Valerie recovered quickly. “Being on the receiving end of a threat isn’t causing trouble,” the woman said through a tight smile. “It’s the person doing the threatening who should worry.”
Nicole knew what Valerie was getting at. Women like Nicole, and probably even Investigator Valerie Ott, faced an imbalance of power, and that made them vulnerable. Not a day went by that Nicole wasn’t concerned about unwanted attention and unwelcome behavior toward her girls. She told them all the time that revealing clothes weren’t a stand-in for consent, insisting they should be free to wear whatever they liked, but she couldn’t scrub away the memory of Blair confessingshe’d caught a man taking photos up her skirt at the corner market.
Valerie thought Nicole blamed herself for the message that had caused her such distress, and wanted to alleviate her misplaced guilt. Normally, that would make sense. With Nicole at Mikko’s house, though, the message had been warranted, maybe even deserved.
“What about Mr. Helle’s behavior,” Valerie went on. “Was he ever violent with you?”
Nicole flinched. “Violent? No.”
“What about his girlfriend, Eva?”
“She was acting weird this morning, but I’m sure that’s because of the noises. They were freaking me out too.”
“Did you see any weapons in the house?”
“Weapons?” Nicole repeated. “God, no.” What kind of interview was this? What did the police know about Mikko that she didn’t?
“I know these questions sound extreme, but we have to ask.” Propping her elbows on the table, Valerie Ott said, “Listen Nicole, there’s something you should know.”
Earlier, when Nicole had been pulling out of Mikko’s driveway to await further instructions at home, she’d seen two state troopers string yellow police tape around the front yard. The tape had surprised her. Whether from talking to her sister or watching cop shows on TV, Nicole had always associated police tape with accident sites. Hazards. Homicides.
Nicole looked to Tim, whose blue eyes were sad.
“A body,” she repeated flatly when Valerie was done explaining. A secret crawlspace in the unfinished part of the basement that someone had turned into a tomb. Skeletonized remains. Suspected foul play.
