Paullina Simons - The Girl in Times Square

“Lilianne Quinn?” The man stood up and extended his hand. “I’m Detective O’Malley.” He did not have gout.

She looked up at him. Her handshake must have seemed formal, uncertain, and mushy compared to his, which was casual, certain and un-mushy. Despite the moist heat in the room, his hand was dry.

Lily was usually good with ages, but Detective O’Malley she couldn’t quite place. He moved young—he had a wiry build that came either from sports or from not eating—but his eyes were old. He looked to be somewhere around forty, and somewhere beyond a sense of humor, though that could have been an affect—affecting to be serious in front of her. He had lots of light brown hair, graying slightly at the temples and was wearing black metal-rimmed glasses. His gray suit jacket was hanging evenly on the back of his chair. His nondescript gray tie was loosened, and the top two buttons of his tucked-in white dress shirt unbuttoned. All the windows in the open room were flung ajar and there was a hot breeze coming through in the early evening. He buttoned his shirt after he stood up, fixed his tie and put his jacket back on; Lily noticed the massive black pistol in his holster. “Why don’t we go in here,” he said, pointing to a door that said Interrogation #1 .

He was half the width of his partner though Lily couldn’t tell if O’Malley seemed thin simply by comparison. No, he was definitely thin, and he didn’t look like he had time for sports. His desk was stacked a foot high with files and papers. Maybe he played a little baseball. He looked fast like a shortstop. Did shortstops wear glasses? Perhaps he played soccer? Thus occupying her slightly anxious brain with idle observations and impressions, she followed him, with Detective Harkman panting behind. She hoped the room would be air-conditioned, but she found it to be heated by a whooshing large fan that spun the hot air around her in a clammy vortex. She resisted the impulse of sticking her head out the open window and panting like a Labrador. Her cardigan was too hot for this room, but she wasn’t about to take it off in front of two police officers, leaving herself in a barely-there top.

Detective O’Malley invited her to sit down (she did) and asked her if she wanted something to drink (she said no, though she did). He began without waiting. Drumming a pencil next to his notebook on top of the table, he put up his feet on the chair next to him. “Okay, tell me what you know.”

“Well, nothing.” Lily nearly stammered. What kind of a question was that? “About what?”

“About where Amy is.”

“I don’t know that.”

“Why aren’t you concerned? Her mother is out of her mind with worry. Amy didn’t go to her college graduation. You—didn’t attend either, I take it?”

“Um—no.” She wasn’t going to be telling a stranger, was she, why she had not attended. But the detective knew she was in Hawaii, he knew she couldn’t have attended. Her eyes narrowed at him. His eyes widened in response. They were extremely blue. They seemed to know things, understand things without her opening her mouth. Then why were they staring back at her, expecting an answer?

“Why not?” he asked.

Oh, here we go. “Unlike Amy, I’m not officially graduated.” Lily cleared her throat. “I have some credits still to take.”

“You’re not a senior?”

“Yes. Just not a”—she lowered her gaze to study the complexities in the grain of the wooden table—“a graduating senior.”

“I see.”

She wasn’t looking at him so she couldn’t tell if he saw. Oh, she bet he understood everything. He just wanted to watch her squirm.

“How old are you, Miss Quinn?”

“Twenty-four.”

“Did you two start college late? Amy is also twenty-four.”

“I didn’t start late, I just … kept going.”

He was observing her. “For six years?”

“For six years, yes.”

“And still not graduated?”

“Not quite.”

“I see.” He switched subjects then, as if they were file folders lying on his desk. “So—you didn’t go to your graduation, because you weren’t graduating. Fair enough. But Amy didn’t go either, and she was graduating.”

“Hmm.” That was surprising. Lily had no answer to it.

“Were you and Amy close?”

“We were, yes. Are I mean. Are.” She paused and decided to take the direct approach. “You’re confusing me.”

“Not deliberately, Miss Quinn. So what were you doing in Hawaii?”

“Sunbathing looks like,” said Harkman from behind her.

Detective O’Malley didn’t say anything, but in between the blinks of his eyes, behind his black-rimmed glasses, his flicker of an expression made Lily blush, almost as if … he could see her sunsoaked brown nipples.

Pulling the cardigan closed, she looked down at the table and bit her lip. “My parents. I went to visit my mother.”

“You left when?”

“On the Thursday morning, very early. My flight was at eight. I took a cab to JFK at six in the morning.”

“Was Amy up?”

“No.”

“Was Amy home?”

“I think so. I didn’t check her room, if that’s what you mean.”

“So she could’ve not been home?”

“She could’ve not been, but—”

“So the last time you actually saw her would be …”

“Wednesday night, May 12.”

“Had time to recall some dates since our phone call?”

Lily lifted her gaze. Detective O’Malley’s eyes stared at her unflinchingly from his clean-shaven, calm, angular face, and she suddenly got the feeling that the firm and casual handshake was a ruse, was an affect, that she should be very careful with the things she said to this detective because he might remember every syllable.

“Yes.” She crossed her arms. “Initially I had been taken aback by your phone call.”

“That’s understandable. Did she seem normal to you that Wednesday?”

“Yes. She seemed the same as always.”

“Which is how?”

“I don’t know. Normal.” How did one describe a normal evening with Amy? Lily became flummoxed. “She was her usual self. We drank a little, talked a little.”

“About what?”

“Nothing. Everything. Movies. Finals. Really, just … regular girl things.”

“Boyfriends?”

“Mmm.” Lily didn’t want to tell this detective about her pathetic love life, and since that’s all the boyfriends they talked about, she couldn’t tell the detective anything. “We talked about our mothers.”

Detective Harkman stood behind Lily and every once in a while, Detective O’Malley would glance at him for a silent exchange and then look back at her. Now was one of those times.

“Then you left …”

“And I haven’t heard from Amy since.”

“You never called to tell her how you were getting on in Maui?”

“I did, a couple of times, I left messages on the machine, but she never called me back.”

“How many times would you say you called her?”

“I don’t know. Maybe three?”

“Three?”

“Around three.”

“So possibly two, possibly four?”

“Possibly.” Lily lowered her head. She didn’t know what he wanted from her.

“Does she have a cell phone?”

“No.”

“Do you?”

“No. I can’t afford one. I don’t know why she doesn’t have one.”

“So you called a few times, she didn’t call back, and you gave up?”

“I didn’t give up. I was going to call again. I was even thinking of calling at her mother’s house.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I couldn’t remember the number.”

“Did she tell you of her plans to visit her mother the weekend you flew to Hawaii?”

“I don’t remember her telling me anything like that, no. Did she go visit her mother that weekend?”