“Where were you the night Audrey died?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you what I told the police. As far as a timeline, I don’t remember every detail of that night.”
“What do you remember?”
He rubbed a hand across his brow. “I think I was at the arcade. I spend a lot of nights there when I get off work. It’s a good place to keep my mind off stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“I don’t know. Stuff.”
His vagueness was getting on my nerves.
“Were you alone?” I asked.
“At the arcade? Lots of people hang out there.”
“What I mean to say is—were you there with anyone you know, anyone who can give you an alibi?”
“Lots of people were there, but none of them were friends of mine.”
I was getting nowhere, the conversation looping around in circles, which he didn’t seem to mind. Time to shift gears.
“Tell me about your home life, your parents, and your siblings, if you have any,” I said.
“Why?”
“Why not?” I said, looking him in the eye.
He met my gaze head on with a guarded calm that made my instincts sharpen.
“I have one brother,” he said. “He’s older than I am.”
“How much older?”
“A few years. Left home when he was sixteen.”
“Where is he now?”
“I don’t know. Haven’t heard from him in, oh … about nine months, I guess.”
I crossed my arms. “I feel like there’s a story there.”
“There isn’t.”
“And your parents? What are they like?”
“My mom works two jobs, sometimes three. Don’t see her much.”
“And your dad?”
“He doesn’t work.”
“What’s your relationship with him like?”
He turned, staring at a dented toolbox near the car he’d been working on. “We don’t have one.”
“Why not?”
