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Another pause. Then, “We still have questions about your locations during those three weeks we’re concerned with. I did speak to your brother and confirmed you were there on the first weekend in June. Is he on the spectrum?”
Danny wants to ask if she upset Stevie—he’s easily upset when he’s out of his comfort zone—but he’s not going to let her swerve him away from what he wants to tell her.
“Instead of that black sport jacket of his he was wearing a windbreaker with KBI on the front and back. He didn’t have a bullhorn and didn’t need one, he was plenty loud. Not too many people shop on Thursday evening, but everyone who was there had a good listen. And a good look.”
“Danny, you sound a bit paranoid.”
“Nothing paranoid about thirty people watching while you get rousted. I got him to follow me outside when I realized what he was up to. And you know what? There were no questions. Once we were on the sidewalk it was the same refrain—confess, you did it, you’ll feel better.”
“You will,” she says earnestly. “You really will.”
“I called to ask you a couple of questions.”
“It’s not my job to answer your questions, Danny. It’s your job to answer mine.”
“But see, these aren’t about the case. At least not directly. They’re more of what I’d call a procedural nature. The first is this. Would you have come up to me in the IGA wearing your cop windbreaker and making sure everyone heard what you were asking?”
She doesn’t reply.
“Come on, it’s a simple question. Would you have embarrassed me in front of my neighbors?”
This time her reply is immediate, low, and furious. “You did a lot more than embarrass Yvonne Wicker. You raped her. You killed her!”
“What the hell happened to innocent until proven guilty, Inspector Davis? I only found her. But we’ve already been around that mulberry bush and it has nothing to do with what I’m asking. Would you have done it the way Jalbert did, especially when he had absolutely nothing new to question me about?”
Danny can hear party people, very faint. The pause is quite long before she says, “Each investigator has his own techniques.”
“That’s your answer?”
She gives a short, exasperated laugh. “I’m not on the stand. You don’t get to cross-examine me. Since you have nothing substantive, I’m going to end this c—”
“Does the name Peter Andersson mean anything to you? That’s Andersson with two esses.”
“Why would it?”
“He’s a writer for a freebie newspaper called Plains Truth. They printed Ms. Wicker’s name. Is that usual procedure? Giving out the names of murder victims when their next of kin hasn’t been notified?”
“I… they were notified!” At last Ella Davis sounds flustered. “Last week!”
“But the Telescope didn’t have it. Or if they did, they didn’t print it. Plains Truth did. And what about my name? They printed that, too. Is giving out the names of people who haven’t been charged with a crime part of KBI procedure?”
More silence. Danny hears a faint pop. He thinks it might have been a birthday balloon.
“Your name was printed? You’re actually claiming that?”
“Pick up a copy and see for yourself. We know who leaked it, don’t we? And we know why. He has nothing concrete, only a story he refuses to believe. Can’t believe. Doesn’t have enough imagination to believe. The same is true of you, but at least you didn’t give my name to the only rag that would have run it. That’s why I called you.”
“Danny, I—” She stops there before she can maybe say apologize. Danny doesn’t know that was the word on the tip of her tongue, but he’s pretty sure.
She rewinds. “Your name could have been leaked to that paper by any number of people. Very likely by one of your neighbors at the trailer park. Your idea that Frank Jalbert is persecuting you is absurd.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
“Let me tell you what I know about Plains Truth,” Danny says. “I picked one up on my way home from work. It’s my second to last day. I’ve been let go. I have that to thank you for, too.”
She makes no reply.
