at me.
Harry, ever the curious attorney, furrowed his brow and asked, “Weren’t you originally asking for two tickets?”
“Yes,” I said, feeling cross-examined.
“Well, who was the other ticket for?”
“Alex, my female roommate from New Jersey.”
“Oh,” he said, smiling. “But won’t she be expecting her ticket tonight?”
“Oh, my goodness,” I said in an overanimated Southern accent. “Didn’t you hear? They just sold out.” A smile crept across his preppy boy face and I knew I was in for something wonderful.
Behind his desk, Officer Dooley cleared his throat, dragging my thoughts away from the once-romantic Harry and back to the police station.
“Where is the body?” he asked again, trying to get an answer.
“I left him when he began turnin’ blue,” Vivi said. “I slapped him a few times. Well, I had slapped him before, but that was durin’ our—well anyway—he asked me to. But after he stopped movin’, I slapped him really hard and when he still didn’t budge an inch, I ran for help.”
“Did you call an ambulance?” The chubby officer continued.
“When he stopped breathin’, I panicked and ran for Blake.”
Vivi looked lost, like Little Orphan Annie. Harry looked exasperated, but there was something else hiding behind his frustration. At that moment, Vivi picked up on it, too. Then, “Oh, Harry! Are you thinkin’ he could have still been alive?”
“My client did not call an ambulance right away,” Harry answered officer Dooley. “Instead, she called my wife, Blake O’Hara Heart.”
Oh, shit, I thought to myself, now using Vivi’s vocabulary. With his statement, I knew that I would definitely be dragged into the investigation. I also knew that I would never forget my tenth anniversary.
I turned to Officer Dooley. “Yes, Vivi was trying to call me. But my husband, Harry Heart, was the first to speak with her.”
“One moment, Officer Dooley, would you, please? All of this is so sudden that we haven’t had a chance to speak with each other,” Harry said.
While Dooley crossed his arms impatiently, we moved to the back of the little office and I leaned in and whispered to Vivi to keep quiet for a second. That would take a miracle all its own! I then looked at Harry and discreetly said, “You remember that you were in fact the first one to speak to our client after the fact? Remember? I was still at the school.”
“Yes,” he said. Well, Vivi tends to rub off on people, and I was sure Harry was the one thinking Oh, shit in his own head now.
* * *
Clearly, we were all still in a mumbo-jumbo state of shock. We continued to whisper while we watched Vivi fidget.
“But I’m her attorney,” he said, looking at me in desperation.
“But you weren’t at the time,” I reminded him.
“It doesn’t look good, Blake.” Harry’s voice had become firm. He didn’t get angry often, but you knew it when it happened. Harry was feeling trapped.
I heard Officer Dooley tapping his pen pointedly against the desk. So did Harry, who didn’t want this next bit to be overheard.
“Excuse us, Officer Dooley, for one moment. I need to confer with my co-counsel,” Harry said.
“Why don’t I just put my pen down for a second,” Officer Dooley said.
Harry took me by the hand and pulled me just outside the door of the musty little office. Vivi stayed up front with Officer Dooley, still fidgeting uncomfortably, shifting from side to side, crossing then uncrossing her legs.
“Blake,” Harry began, “first and foremost, I am Lewis’s brother. Second, I am now Vivi’s attorney. That, in and of itself, is strange, considering my connection to them both. But the idea that, after the…deed…I’m the first one she calls? Me, of all people, who has the worst possible relationship with Lewis? This screams conspiracy! It shouts premeditation if we have a dead body over there. It further implicates her and jeopardizes her. And when it comes out that I haven’t spoken to Lewis in over six years, it begins to implicate me! Blake, this could put my career in question. My eventual run for the Senate will be shrouded in this controversy.”
Harry stopped abruptly. The depth of the situation had overtaken him.
“Harry, snap out of it!” I said, squeezing his arm. “Lewis had been charged with investment fraud and you distanced yourself from him. There’s no crime in that—it just proves how respectable you are, not wanting to associate with such a person, brother or not. But your cell phone will register the call from Vivi and what time it came in. All of her missed calls to me will register, as well, with the times they were missed. The truth will be easy to prove, so there’s just no point trying to cover it up. Now, I have been her best friend since third grade. Harry, we both know she didn’t do anything. This was all just a terrible, unfortunate accident if anything—and, well, a bit disgusting.”
Harry’s face softened and he gave me a little nod. We both hurriedly returned to Vivi’s side.
Harry cleared his throat and began more calmly, “Vivi McFadden did not call an ambulance right away. She tried to call my wife and co-counsel, Blake O’Hara Heart, and when she couldn’t get her, she called me.”
“Well,” Officer Dooley said, “then I go back to my original question: Where is the body?” Officer Dooley pushed his tiny glasses up his tiny nose and looked pointedly at Vivi.
“I left the body at the Fountain Mist motel and that was the last time I saw Lewis. Dead on the bed.”
“An ambulance was called once we’d managed to talk to Vivi and find out what had happened. It should be there right now,” Harry said.
Officer Dooley looked relieved. “Well, now. That wasn’t so hard, was it? I’ll send an officer and squad cars over now.” Vivi collapsed back into a chair.
I sat with Vivi, holding her hand and looking around at the old room we were in, thinking back to my days as a child and visiting my grandfather in his office just down the block. Nothing changes much in Tuscaloosa. It’s a town that thrives on its rich history. And I loved that. I noticed that the decor at the station hadn’t changed since probably 1945. Cracked leather chairs with cotton seeping from their seats were scattered around the office. Slow-moving, black ceiling fans whirred around the musty, damp air. The large windows were just slightly open and the fragrant late Southern spring floated inside, like slow deep breathing. The room became still. Officer Dooley called in the incident.
“Which room, Ms. McFadden?” he asked.
“Room 106,” Vivi answered. “It was…our room.” The impact of the moment suddenly strangled her and her voice weakened. Harry squatted down on one knee to face Vivi eye to eye.
I walked over to the old water fountain and grabbed one of those pointy paper cups. I filled three, one for each of us, and walked to Vivi and Harry
