“Of course,” he said. “You’ve told one of our officers that you were home alone all night.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And you don’t recall anything out of the ordinary?”
“Not until this morning when the fire alarm threw us onto the streets.”
Detective Clooney took a few final notes without meeting my gaze or giving any hint that I could leave.
6
Ihad managed to wrap the chat with Detective Clooney without deviating much from my first statement to the police. I returned Victor’s blazer—it always makes me nervous to wear borrowed expensive garments when I’m a well-known stain magnet. I didn’t drop by my own apartment to put on socks, sneakers, and a second, warmer sweatshirt though. Instead, I was now knocking on David’s door. And even if it was a well-practiced gesture, it still felt bizarre.
“Querías hablar,” I told him when he opened the door, letting him know I was there to talk.
“Pasa.” He let me in.
And just like that, I was inside David’s apartment for the first time.
Not really.
Technically, I’d been in his studio apartment many times. Only it had always been late at night, and I have a sort of doctrine: What happens around midnight is all the fabric of dreams.
Since I’d only been there in dreams, and for very different purposes than a chat, I didn’t know how to act or what to say when I crossed David’s front door. There was a smirk on his face as if he saw I was being bashful and thought it hilariously hypocritical of me.
“Can’t find my favorite T-shirt. Did I leave it at your place?” he said, the smirk still on his lips. I was dumbfounded.
“You wanted to talk,” I repeated, this time in English in case he hadn’t heard me the first time. I had no intention of breaking our unspoken rule of never acknowledging what went on between the two of us at night. And I had no plans of returning his T-shirt anytime soon. I was there because he’d seemed quite adamant about his need to talk and even if I pretended I didn’t care, I couldn’t resist him. The thought of him being distressed pained me. And he had looked sort of uneasy when he’d told me he needed a chat.
“Should we perhaps synchronize our police approach going forward?” he finally said.
“Probably,” I conceded. “You’ve talked to Clooney as well, right?”
“Clooney?”
“The detective in charge of this investigation,” I said, impatiently. This visit to David’s place in the middle of the day was taking way longer than I had previously anticipated, and I needed to be out of there.
“Elena, en serio. He’s called Rooney. Could you please not color everything with a Hollywood veneer?”
And there it was. Another one of the many irreconcilable differences that had broken us apart. He wasn’t exactly a showbiz fan.
“Okay, Mr. Serious Reporter. But tell me, why aren’t we using the perfect alibi that we have for last night?”
“Do you think we need an alibi?” he asked.
“You tell me! DetectiveRooneywas all nosey and asking all kinds of questions about Dashing Henry,” I said, feeling sullied just by speaking that name. “I’m a bit confused about something though.”
“¿Qué te tiene confundida?” he asked me in his LA-accented Spanish with notes of Mexican and Porteño.
Tú, I almost blurted out.You are the one who’s confusing me. But I didn’t.
“What was Dashing Henry’s body doing here? Did he live in the building?” I hadn’t asked the cops that because I didn’t want to sound more clueless—or more guilty-looking—than I already was.
“You literally have no idea who lives here, right?” He laughed.
“Nope, and I intend for it to remain that way. But seriously...”
“To the best of my knowledge,” David said, and I knew that was code forI have three sources who’ve confirmed it, “he didn’t live here, no.”
