Paullina Simons: The Girl in Times Square

Undrunk coffee, uneaten soup, Odessa, August, numb legs, humid heat, noise, feebleness.

And Spencer leaned across the table, and said, “I’m just trying to talk to you, and you’re completely missing my point. Do something besides work and fret. Claim your money, move to another city, give it to the downtrodden, pour it into your brother’s senatorial campaign—anything—” He broke off suddenly, stopped talking, stared at her.

Lily didn’t know how she got up every morning. She had no idea how she was going to make good on her words to Andrew back in spring, when she said she would help him with his campaign.

Spencer was still considering her intently, his mouth mulling.

“What’s the matter?” she said, so tired.

He blinked, came out of it. “Nothing. I have to go. Get back to the precinct ASAP.” Standing up and taking out two twenties, he threw them on the table. “I thought we were a little bit friendly,” he said coldly, “could talk about things.” He walked out, leaving Lily alone at the diner.

The next morning, Friday, August 13, Lily was still asleep when the phone rang. She didn’t pick it up. It was Detective Harkman. He called again five minutes later. She didn’t pick it up.

Half an hour later, her door bell rang. That was just unfair. Through the intercom, Harkman’s voice sounded, “Miss Quinn, can we talk to you a moment?”

Unbelievable. She asked him to wait downstairs, while she quickly (molasses slow) got washed and dressed.

Outside, Spencer and Harkman were both waiting for her. Spencer didn’t look her way. Harkman said they needed to talk to her at the precinct. They drove her back in their patrol car. She sat in the back like a perp.

Back in room Interrogation #1 , she was across the table, but from Harkman this time. Spencer stood in back of her with his arms crossed. She didn’t understand what was going on. Spencer was silent and cold.

“Miss Quinn,” Harkman said brusquely, his little eyes beading into her. “Something Detective O’Malley and I wanted to talk to you about, something we needed to ask you. Just a couple of questions really about a tiny inconsistency.”

Spencer said nothing. Lily wondered why he was letting Harkman question her, as if he were deliberately removing any personal connection between them, as if he were saying to her, fine, you treat me like I’m nobody, I’m going to treat you the same way—like you’re nobody. She felt a pang of guilt. Harkman was asking her something, but she was so flushed with remorse, she didn’t hear.

“Miss Quinn!”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Did you say you worked on your brother’s reelection campaign last year?”

“Yes.” She frowned.

“Did you tell Detective O’Malley that you and your friend Amy both worked on his campaign?”

“Yes, I probably mentioned that. We helped at the Port Jeff office. We got a college credit for it, for our political science course. Why?”

Harkman and Spencer exchanged glances. “In my notes,” and Harkman leafed through some papers, “in my work on the background of this case, I spent many hours calling the numbers on your phone statements. One of the numbers was your brother’s congressional office in Washington.”

“So? I call him there all the time.”

“Yes, yes. It took him a while to call me back; it says here in my report that I had to call him three or four more times before he would speak to me.”

“He’s always like that. I haven’t spoken to him in months.”

“Our conversation was very short. I asked if he frequently got phone calls from your apartment, and he said, once or twice a month, you would call him, and the phone records do confirm that, as well as his phone calls back to your apartment. Sporadically regular, I would say, lasting for twenty to thirty minutes.”

“Yes.”

“We had a very short chat and hung up, but not before I asked him if he knew Amy McFadden, and do you know what your brother said?”

Why did Lily’s heart start to beat so fast? What could he have said?

“He said, Miss Quinn, that he could not recall.”

In a voice that was not hers, Lily said, “Could not recall what?”

“Amy McFadden.”

They sat mutely, Spencer behind her, Harkman panting in front of her, while she herself thought she stopped breathing.

“I don’t understand what you’re telling me,” Lily said at last. “I don’t understand what you’re asking me.”

“I asked him if he knew your roommate, and he said that he really could not recall her. He said it twice. Then he had to go and we hung up. And we thought nothing more of it, because it was nothing, until yesterday when Detective O’Malley came in to the office, and brought it to my attention, this small contradiction.”

Nothing moved on Lily, except her head, which slowly and desperately turned to look at Spencer, her eyes pleading with him to help her, to explain, to make it clear and all right. “I don’t understand what you’re saying,” said Lily in a shaken voice.

“Miss Quinn.” That was Spencer. He finally spoke. His voice was like he did not know her. He came around the table and stood at its edge. “In light of what you’ve told me, it seems peculiar that your brother would say he didn’t recall your roommate when you and she helped him with his reelection. Either he doesn’t recall her, or she helped him with his campaign, not both. Both cannot be true. Either you are not telling us the truth—Amy did not help with his campaign. Or he is not telling us the truth, and indeed he does recall her.”

“Please,” whispered Lily. “I don’t know what you’re saying.” Her palms down on the table, Lily leaned forward, hyperventilation attacking her lungs. “Detective,” she said, trying to breathe slower, to keep her voice calm. She failed. “I’m sorry, I really don’t know what you’re implying … I don’t know what you’re asking me.”

“Could it be true, Miss Quinn,” said Harkman, “that Andrew Quinn does not recall Amy?”

“I guess so, it can be true, yes,” Lily said with breathless panic, placing her hand over her chest to still her heart. It was Impossible! Perhaps an interrogation room was not the place for such exclamations of the soul. Her voice lost its fight and got progressively weaker. She was whispering now. “It can be true.” She was nearly inaudible.

And then the three of them were silent. Spencer watched her, Harkman watched her, and Lily stared at the table. Her whole body felt to be suddenly emptied and re-filled with nerve endings, all shooting electrical anguish into her skin.

“Miss Quinn …”

“Please.” She jumped up. “If we’re done, I have to go. I do, I can’t sit here another minute.” Lily groaned in the middle of room I nterrogation #1 and ran out. Spencer followed her. He stopped her on the street outside the precinct.

“Lily,” he said, slightly panting. “Are you running away from me?”

“Yes,” she blurted. “No.” She tried to push past him but he stood firm in front of her. “Just let me through. We’re done, aren’t we? Let me through.”

Spencer took her by her arms to stop her from moving. She was shaking.

“Please,” she said. “Leave me alone.”

“Lily,” he said gently. He was still holding her arms, he almost brought her to him in an embrace; she was too stirred up to know what it was. “I’m sorry. I am. We’re just trying to find Amy.”

“Oh, giving out traffic tickets on the LIE gives you experience in missing persons, does it?” Lily exclaimed, trying to wrest from him. Her knees were buckling from sadness. “No,” she said, furiously shaking her head. “No!” Even more adamantly. “Whatever it is you’re thinking, there’s a simple explanation.”