Jennifer DuBois - Cartwheel

“Well,” said Ojeda, “you don’t have to remember right this second.”

“As for the victim’s body,” said Velazquez, “the fact that your DNA was on her mouth fits with your account of attempting CPR.”

Andrew cleared his throat, and the whole table turned to peer at him. “Excuse me,” he said. “But shouldn’t that be pretty fatal to the prosecution’s case? That there’s DNA evidence that Lily tried to save Katy, just like she said she did?”

Ojeda looked at Andrew evenly. “It fits with our narrative, yes,” he said. “But the prosecution will find a narrative that also fits.”

Andrew opened his mouth and then closed it again.

“Finally,” said Velazquez, opening another folder. “The bra clasp. This, too, could be easy to explain. Lily did live there. The bra might have even belonged to her, for all we know.” He produced a picture from the envelope and pushed it across the table to her. Andrew leaned over. The photograph was of a white bra with a tiny blue flower at the clasp. “Lily, did this bra belong to you?”

Lily frowned. “I don’t know,” she said. “It might have.”

Velazquez glanced at Ojeda. “You don’t know?”

“Sweetie,” said Maureen.

“No,” said Lily, looking quickly away from the picture. “It wasn’t mine.”

“Did you and Katy ever share clothes?” said Ojeda.

“No,” said Lily faintly. “I mean not that I know of. She wasn’t really my size.”

“No matter, no matter,” said Ojeda, making a note on his pad. “You might have picked it up sometime. Your laundry might have gotten mixed up. You lived together—anything is possible. It’s not surprising that your DNA is on some of her things. And there were irregularities with the evidence collection, anyway. None of the DNA results have been obtained or handled with the rigor they should—that’s not unusual, sadly. Establishing that lack of rigor will be our approach for any results we can’t otherwise work with. But you don’t need to worry about any of that now, Lily.”

Velazquez leaned forward. “The real question here, Lily, is the other suspect. This is the person who committed this murder—that much we know, and the prosecution knows it, too. So what they’re going to try to do is place you there with him. And in order to do that, they’re going to have to say you knew him. In fact, they’re going to want to say you had some kind of a relationship with him.”

In an earlier lifetime—in an earlier week—Lily might have said, “But I didn’t,” as though this counted for something. But now she stayed quiet and nodded somberly, accepting this latest outrage without comment.

“So it’s very important that you tell us now if you knew him, and if you did, what exactly your acquaintance with him was.” Velazquez pushed forward another picture—this one of a leathery-skinned man with a sleepy gaze—and Lily leaned forward to look. Her expression was open and a bit curious, as though she thought it was possible that perhaps she’d known him after all, that perhaps they’d slept together, that perhaps she’d actually done all the things they said she had, and had somehow forgotten.

“Oh. Yeah. That’s Ignacio. He works at Fuego.” Lily looked up, her eyes wide. “They think he did this?”

Ojeda and Velazquez exchanged another glance. “What were your experiences with him?” said Velazquez.

“None,” said Lily. “I mean, hardly any.”

“It’s important that you try to remember this very carefully,” said Ojeda. “If you say you never spent any time with him, never spoke with him, and the prosecution finds evidence that you did—even once—that will be very, very bad for us. I’m sorry, Lily, but that’s the reality.”

Lily looked more closely, and a new faltering look came over her face—whether it was recognition or invention, Andrew couldn’t be sure. “I don’t know,” she said. “He worked there on weeknights, I think. We talked sometimes, I guess. Not very much.”

Ojeda nodded. “I see,” he said. “And was there anything else? Any other particular exchanges with this man? Any other dealings with him?”

Lily shook her head.

“And I’m sorry, Lily, but we have to ask: Did you have any romantic or sexual involvement with him? Anything whatsoever?”

“We can ask your parents to step out for a moment here, Lily, if you’d prefer.”

Lily shook her head again. “No,” she said. “They can stay. There wasn’t anything like that. Like I said, I knew him from work. Just a little.” She put her head in her hands. “Jesus. I remember him staring at her that night.”

“Which night?” said Velazquez sharply.

“The night Katy came to see me at work.”

“When was that?”

“I don’t know.” Lily bit her lip. “A week before my birthday, maybe?”

“A date would be more helpful.”

“Maybe the tenth?” she said hesitantly. “The tenth of February? Around then. And I saw them kissing. Well, I think I did. At my birthday party. On the seventeenth. I think.”

This time, Ojeda and Velazquez did not exchange a glance; perhaps, this time, they did not need to. Velazquez leaned forward. “Lily,” he said. “We will talk about all of that at length, and very soon. But first, I need to ask you another question, and it is very important that you tell us the truth. Do you understand?”

Lily’s eyes grew even larger. “Yes,” she said.

“Did Ignacio Toledo ever sell you drugs?”

“Think carefully, Lily,” said Ojeda quickly. “It would not be a good idea for you to get this answer wrong.”

Lily exhaled heavily, and Andrew could tell that she had been holding her breath. “Yes,” she said.

Maureen drew back, as though recoiling from a gunshot.

“Just weed,” said Lily. “And just once.”

“I see,” said Velazquez. “And when was this?”

“This was the day I was fired.”

“Again, a date please.”

“Maybe the eighteenth.”

“Katy Kellers, you’ll recall, was killed on the twentieth. So this was two days before that?”

“I guess so,” said Lily. “Yes.”

“And Lily, I’m sorry, but I have to clarify: The marijuana that Toledo sold you—was that in addition to the marijuana that you told the prosecution you got from Katy?”

“What?” said Maureen. She turned to Lily. “What are they talking about?”

“Lily,” said Ojeda urgently. “We are not going to scold you. We are here to help you. But in order to let us do that, you need to tell us the truth.”

Lily stared at the table, her eyes wide. “No,” she said. “I mean, no, I never got any from Katy. Just Ignacio. I lied about that before.”

The lawyers looked at each other and nodded. She had gotten this answer right. And Andrew saw how Lily could be persuaded to change her mind. He saw how she could be persuaded to say anything at all.

February

When Lily awoke it was late, the sun streaming in dusty and luxuriant chords through the window. Below her, Katy’s bed was empty and neatly made, and Lily’s suspicions of the night before seemed unwarranted, possibly paranoid. After all, anything that happened with Katy and Sebastien was really none of Lily’s business. She was young, she was open-minded, she was philosophically opposed to reflexive monogamy, and if Katy and Sebastien had had a flirtation—or more—it had nothing to do with her. She was free to go find flirtations—and more!—herself, and maybe she would. Maybe she just would.

And over the next few days, Lily was generally friendlier to both Katy and Sebastien than she’d ever been before. Being warm toward them was actually a relief from the elaborate invisibility campaign she was conducting at home—the only way to avoid inadvertently provoking Beatriz’s wrath again, Lily figured, was to stay far, far out of sight. She stopped watching television with the Carrizos in the evenings, she excused herself from dinners early, she tried to stay out of the house as much as possible. Housework was a difficult negotiation; Lily was afraid of seeming entitled and equally afraid of seeming presumptuous, and so she found herself striking odd balances—like washing her own plates to sparkling by hand and then leaving them near the dishwasher for Beatriz to load with the rest of the family’s. She even began eating less, as though to say that she could not be sure anymore that food was not also begrudged her. She knew that it was all a little much—she remembered adopting similar poses in moments of aggrieved chagrin in childhood, performing ornate shows of brave despondency in the face of such grave injustices as bedtime, and she knew that she should not be acting this way as an adult. But she could not help herself. And at any rate, if Beatriz noticed—or if she felt at all sorry for the way she had spoken to Lily—she did not show it.