“Then yes, we will provide an appropriate adult.” She pulls out her phone. “It might take a couple of hours to get someoneout here.”
I look over at Alessandra. “Can she sit in? I know that in extenuating circumstances you can use members of the public.”
“That’s fine.” Detective Romig keeps a stoic look on her face, but I get the impression I’ve irritated her. The realization that I do actually know what I’m talking about boosts my confidence a little. She looks over my head and raises her voice in Alessandra’s direction. “Ms.Barone, would you join us, please?” Alessandra approaches, worry lines etched into her forehead. “We need an appropriate adult for this young lady, so could you grab a chair?” Metal legs scrape on the floor as Alessandra joins us, and I brace myself for the initial questioning. You don’t readMindhunterorI’ll Be Gone in the Darkas many times as I have and not know that the detectives will already be looking for suspects. “Okay, Fliss, was it?” I nod. “Can you tell me your full name?”
I lick my lips. “Felicity Anne Keller.”
“And your date of birth?”
“July23, 2009.”
“Great. Now, I just need you to take me through what happened tonight. Try to remember as many details as you can for me.” I nod. “Whenever you’re ready.”
“I was helping out, waitressing,” I start, my voice shaking. “Well, I was handing out the canapés.” I pause. She doesn’t want to hear about canapés; she wants to hear about the crime scene. Detective Romig just watches my face and waits for me to continue. I start again, trying to be as coherent as I can. “When the event was over and everyone had gone home, Alessandra said she’d saved some canapés for us, so Izzy and I went to the locker room to get our bags before we joined her in the café. We’d put them in there at the start of the night.”
“Why didn’t you wait until you were going home to getthem?”
“I wanted to text my dad. He works here, but he went on his honeymoon today. He set up the showing tonight, so I wanted to let him know it went well.” I blanch, realizing I can’t send that text now. I don’t think this really qualifies as “went well.”
“Okay.” The detective scribbles some notes. “So what happened next?”
“When we got to the locker room, I put in the code—it’s not a very good code, so anyone could have guessed it—then I opened the door and we…we saw Helen. She was slumped on one of the benches.”
“And do you remember anything in particular about the scene?”
I close my eyes, forcing myself to dredge up as many details as possible, even though I’d rather erase them. I take a deep breathand reel them off as quickly as I can. “Helen was a white female with dyed-blond hair and dark, possibly brown eyes. She was roughly five foot six, because she was about three inches smaller than me, and she was around twenty years old.” Detective Romig opens her mouth and I’m sure she’s going to ask how I know this, but I carry on. I’ve got it covered. “I spoke to her when we were working earlier, and she told me she was going into her final year at Blackwood. There was some kind of wound on her neck and there was a lot of blood, it was all over the floor. Some paper cups from the water dispenser had been knocked over and were scattered over the blood. Helen was wearing her Top Class Catering uniform, and the locker doors were all closed. Oh, and there was something wrapped round her eyes, and it kind of draped down.” I gesture at my own shoulders. “The belt from a jacket, maybe?” I pause—there’s something about this that bothers me, but I can’t put my finger on it, so I plow on. “There was a beige trench coat on the rack next to the door earlier, but now that I think of it, it wasn’t there when we found her.” I suck in another breath as I open my eyes, aware that I’ve probably just said all that way too fast for her to write down. Detective Romig is stony faced but flushed. She wasn’t expecting that. “Is she dead?” I ask, before she can reply.
“I’m sorry?”
“Helen. Is she really dead?”
“I’m afraid so.” Detective Romig scribbles in her notepad so furiously I’m surprised she doesn’t carve a hole in it.
“Then this is probably a murder, right?” I ask. She looks up and locks her gaze on mine, so I elaborate. “The cups could indicate a struggle, but I don’t think that was Helen. I think thekiller knocked them over on the way out, because they were on top of the blood, meaning the attack took place first. I told you the locker doors were all shut, so that would suggest she didn’t interrupt a robbery. It wasn’t”—I search for the least offensive words—“anassault, as far as I can tell. Unless it was supposed to be, and it went wrong? Like the attacker was interrupted in some way? Then if you take into consideration the posing of the body—”
“Wait.” Detective Romig’s dark eyebrows rise right over the thick frames of her glasses. “What makes you say she wasposed?”
“The belt wasn’t restraining Helen in any way, and it wasn’t on her mouth to stop her from screaming for help…” The detail that escaped me before comes now, and I fail to hide my excitement at making the connection. “The belt didn’t have blood onit!”
“Excuse me?”
“The ends of the belt would have been soaked if they were draped over her shouldersbeforethe attack. But I can tell they weren’t—they were fairly clean—which means she was positioned like thatafter…” My words grow quieter under Detective Romig’s gaze until I finally trail off. Her eyebrows stay somewhere around her hairline as she writes a few more notes.
“You seem very educated on this, Felicity.” I note her formal tone, the use of my full name. Her attitude has totally switched again, so I hold my tongue rather than tell her I’m borderline obsessive about true crime. I’ve probably already implicated myself as a suspect. “Can you tell me anything else?”
“Just that after we shut the locker room door, Alessandra heardIzzy scream and ran to see what was going on. She opened the door and saw Helen too. Then she closed it, and we came back here while she rang the police. That’s all.”
“Good, thank you.” I can almost see the steam coming off her pen as she catches up. “You can go back to Detective Youssef now. She’s going to ask for your fingerprints while I talk to your friends, but I suppose you already know that.” She gives me a tight smile and looks over my shoulder. “Alessandra, is it? We can take your statement now.”
I push my chair away and walk back to the table where Izzy and Detective Youssef are sitting. I make sure she knows I’m offering my fingerprints willingly, and once that’s done I sit and wait in silence while Alessandra and Izzy are interviewed. Exhaustion hits eventually, but it doesn’t stop my brain from racing through the facts.
The detectives might not be sharing their thoughts, but everything I saw tonight points toward the fact that Helen was murdered.
TEN
The detectives let us goafter they’re finished with all three of us, but the gallery has turned into a literal crime scene. I’ve only ever seen people in those disposable white all-in-one suits on TV, and even though I feel sick when I think about Helen, it’s strangely fascinating to watch something like this play out in real time. I don’t say that out loud, though.
“Please call me when you get home. I believe your father left you my number for emergencies,” Alessandra says as the taxi she ordered for us pulls up. The police will have our phones until the morning at least, because the lockers are part of the crime scene and can’t be disturbed yet. Thankfully Dad’s ancient apartment still has a landline.
