did you discuss?” Detective Devereaux asked.
I swallowed. Why did he need to know what we talked about? I tried to recall everything Joe and I said to each other that would have anything to do with his death.
“Let me rephrase,” the detective said. “What was his state of mind?”
I shrugged. “He seemed normal.” I had a feeling I knew where the detective was going with his questioning. I waited for him to ask me outright.
“Was he using at that time?”
“Using?”
“Drugs.”
“I don’t know,” I said quickly. I had an idea he was but I wasn’t looking at him with a joint in his hand. “Maybe.” My neck flushed and I could feel Mom’s stare directed at the back of my head.
“So he may or may not have been using around noon when you spoke with him.”
I let out a noncommittal sound. Why did I feel like I was on trial?
“Did he seem depressed?”
“No,” I said quickly.
The detective’s eyebrows lifted. “You seem sure about that.”
I really wished Mom weren’t in the room. But would that mean they would have to hire a lawyer? Would that make me seem guilty somehow? And I didn’t want Mom to know for sure that I was lying to her about Joe’s extracurricular activities. I decided to come out with it, expecting my parents to question me about it later.
“We were going to break up. Officially. That’s what Joe called me about. He wanted to do it in person, I guess.”
“Who initiated the breakup?”
“Both of us?” I wasn’t sure that was an option in most relationships, but it had been for us.
“So he wasn’t upset about you wanting to break it off with him?”
The detective kept coming back to how Joe was feeling. Did he think the overdose was a suicide? If there was one thing I knew about Joe, it was that he would never willingly end his life. He had too much fun flaunting his wealth and getting away with anything he wanted.
“No, not at all. He wanted to be single for his freshman year of college. And I wanted to be single for my senior year.”
“You didn’t get any idea that he was upset.”
“No.”
The detective scribbled in his notebook again and the silence of the room weighed on my shoulders. I wasn’t ready to look at Mom yet, so, instead, I stared at the scuffed tips of his shoes.
He looked up at me again, his pen poised on the paper. “What time did you speak with Joseph Blair yesterday?”
“Around noon,” I replied.
“The ME puts the time of death between two and four yesterday afternoon,” he said as if he were lining up my story with his.
My mouth dried up like the desert. The question popped into my head again. Could I have saved him if I’d gone over earlier?
A small sound escaped Mom. I couldn’t bear to turn around and see her face. I knew I’d break down if I did.
“When you were in the pool house, did you touch anything?” he asked.
I rubbed my hands against the cushions, thinking of the note burning a hole in my desk drawer. Would I get in trouble for taking it? I didn’t see how it would be relevant to the case. I took a second, pretending to think about it. “No.”
“No?”
“No.”
He licked his lips. “So you didn’t touch the body?”
My mouth popped open and I stuttered through my response. “Yes, I touched him to see if he was sleeping.”
“So you did touch something at the scene.”
I cleared my throat. “Joe. I touched Joe. That’s it.”
He nodded and scribbled something in his notebook. Probably the word “LIAR” in big, bold letters.
The rest of his questions were similar to the ones I’d answered the night before. I stumbled over some of them as I remembered the feel of Joe’s stiff body under my fingertips and seeing his blank expression. I knew without a fact that I’d never forget last night. Every single detail was branded in my memory. My hands fidgeted in my lap.
Mom must have noticed my discomfort. “How many more questions do you have, Detective? My daughter is clearly distraught.”
While Mom spoke, the detective didn’t take his eyes off me. It was as if he were waiting for me to tell him something he didn’t already know.
He licked his lips and flipped his notebook closed. “That would be all for today.” He gave us a curt nod and stood. “I thank you for your time. I will be in touch. I can show myself out.”
I got up too, keeping my gaze on his. I hoped my expression was calm, even though my heart banged in my chest in time with each step he took.
When the door closed behind him, I sat on the edge of the couch, replaying the answers I gave in my mind. Mom sat next to me and wrapped her arm around my shoulder, pulling me to her. Joe’s death was an accident. So why did I have a suspicion that the detective thought I had something to do with it?
Turns out that wasn’t the last I heard from Detective Devereaux. The next day, a phone call from the police station came bright and early asking me and my parents to come downtown to answer more questions.
“I don’t know what else to tell them,” I’d said after Mom told me about the phone call.
“I’m sure they’ll let us know when we get there” was all she’d said.
Kat sent me and the girls a text when she arrived home but her parents weren’t allowing visitors to the house. I assumed they were keeping curious eyes away from the scene of Joe’s death while grieving. I understood completely, while Rachael and Brittany bombarded my phone with texts trying to persuade me to sneak over to the house with them to see Kat. I didn’t think they wanted to appear uncaring; in fact, I think they wanted to support our best friend, but they were going about it the wrong way.
I decided to keep quiet to everyone about going to the police station. I thought Detective Devereaux was going overboard for an overdose, but I didn’t want that comment to get back to Kat and somehow make her more upset. I knew how quickly a comment or story could turn into something else when others decided to put their own spin on it. I’d been the victim of that a few times since the beginning of our friendship.
When we arrived that morning at the station, I expected to see the detective right away. Instead, I was taken down a hallway
