Page 3 of Love, Lines, and Alibis
“Yes, I live in 10A,” I answered.
“Name?” Her eyes were on her notes.
“My name, you mean?” I couldn’t see how that could be of any relevance.
“No, the name of the guy suspiciously handing water to elderly residents,” the officer answered with a chuckle.
Even though I consider myself witty, I don’t do well with humor directed at me sometimes. Especially if I’m feeling nervous because I’m dealing with law enforcement or some other authority figure. I blame it on my parents.
Everyone had advised them to do it while I was still a young child, but by the time they decided to move to LA from Spain, I was already seventeen. My year of high school in the States was a nightmare. I tried keeping a long-distance relationship with my boyfriend in Barcelona. Spoiler alert: he started going out with my best friend and didn’t even bother breaking up with me. Fortunately, my friend fessed up. College was better, but I was still dealing with culture shock—and heartbreak. Marta, my much younger sister, was five when we moved, and you’d never say she wasn’t born here. But I have a thick accent and sometimes I just don’t get the humor.
“Elena Freire,” I answered the cop’s request.
Of course, should I have chosen to brandish my full legal name, the one that included my mother’s last name, things could have been more pleasant. But I didn’t want to play that particular card. I spelled my name and last name for the officer and waited for her next question.
“Where were you last night?”
“Home,” I said.
“Alone?” Her eyes were still buried in her writing.
“Uh-huh.”
“When did you leave?”
“This morning when the fire alarm started blasting.” I took a sip of water from the bottle David had given me. How could he know that I too would be thirsty?
“Did you see anything or anyone unusual?” the officer continued without making eye contact.
“I mean, there were a lot more people taking the stairs than usual because of the alarm.” My dry brand of humor didn’t land. “I didn’t see anything.”
“Okay. You’ll have to wait for a bit longer, but we’re planning on letting you folks in within the next hour,” the officer said, her manner softening, and she moved on to the next neighbor.
David was still in the middle of things, handing out the remaining waters and being asked, I assumed, what were similar questions to mine by another uniformed officer.
I hoped he didn’t decide to offer any unnecessary details.
4
My toes were almost completely frozen—flip-flops arenotadvisable all year round in California regardless of what you may have heard or seen—when the city’s media team arrived in another black SUV. Something big had to be going on.
Victor hopped out of a city-hall-owned vehicle. “Elena, you look chilled to the bone!” I wasn’t surprised to see him there.
He came to me, forgot about his PDA-avoidance rule, and kissed me. On the forehead, mind you. He took off his tailored Tom Ford blazer and covered my shoulders with it. Even if it wasn’t a heavy-duty puffer jacket, the woolen garment was still warm from his body, and I welcomed any heat I could get just then.
“You’re here on official business?” I asked.
“Yes.” Victor looked around, his expression unreadable.
“What happened?” I insisted, but he could be tight-lipped when dealing with matters pertaining to his job as Public Relations Specialist II at the City of Los Angeles. “Someone said there’s a body.” One of his eyebrows twitched up, briefly unsettling his otherwise composed features.
“We believe there’s been a death in the building, yes,” he said. Why was he so fucking secretive?
As you may have gathered, the nature of my and Victor’s relationship was more than simple acquaintances since we had in fact been dating for almost a year. But the whole thing was still in its early stages—or its late ones—which was why he wasn’t sharing with me something another boyfriend would have no qualms explaining. Before you judge me, and since I know most readers have a deep aversion for the cheating trope, no one had cheated on anyone. I’ll fill you in on the particulars later.
Fortunately, I wasn’t the only Eastern Columbia resident vying for Victor’s attention. My neighbors gathered around him, one extremely competent city reporter among them.
“Who died?” asked David, his journalist hat on.
