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Adrian stuffs the sheet of notepaper into his pocket. And when we enter the kitchen, I see the man at the back door is wearing a police uniform.
“I’m gonna need you to step outside.”
23
The cop is young—he can’t be older than twenty-five—with a buzz cut, dark sunglasses, and enormous arms covered in tattoos. There’s not an inch of bare skin anywhere between his wrists and his shirtsleeves—it’s all Stars and Stripes, Bald Eagles, and passages from the Constitution.
“We were checking on Mitzi,” Adrian explains. “Her door was open but she’s not here.”
“So you what? You just walked inside? Thought you could take a look around?” He offers this theory like it’s preposterous, even though it’s exactly what happened. “I want you to open the door and slowly step outside, do you understand?”
I realize there are two more cops at the edge of the yard, stretching long ribbons of yellow tape from tree to tree. Farther out, deeper in the forest, I can see flashes of movement, jackets with reflective surfaces. I can hear men shouting discoveries to each other.
“What’s going on?” Adrian asks.
“Hands on the wall,” the cop says.
“Are you serious?”
Adrian is shocked—clearly, this is his first experience being frisked.
“Just do it,” I tell him.
“This is bullshit, Mallory. You’re wearing gym shorts! You’re not concealing a weapon.”
But just the mention of the word “weapon” seems to escalate the confrontation. Now the two cops with the yellow tape are walking toward us with concerned expressions. I just follow the instructions and do what I’m told. I press my palms against the brick wall; I lower my head and stare down at the grass while the cop pats my waist with his hands.
Adrian grudgingly stands beside me and plants his palms on the wall. “Absolute bullshit.”
“Shut up,” the cop tells him.
And if I wasn’t afraid to speak, I would tell Adrian the cop is actually being nice—I’ve known cops in Philadelphia who would have you pinned, cuffed, and facedown in gravel in the time it takes to say hello. Adrian seems to think he doesn’t have to listen to them, that he’s somehow above the law.
Then a man and a woman come walking around the side of the house. The man is tall and white and the woman is short and black and they’re both a little pudgy and out of shape. They remind me of my high school guidance counselors. They’re dressed in business attire that’s straight off the racks at Marshalls or TJMaxx, and they both have detective shields hanging from their necks.
“Aw, Darnowsky, come on,” the man calls out. “What are you doin’ to that girl?”
“She was in the house! You said the victim lived alone.”
“Victim?” Adrian asks. “Is Mitzi okay?”
Instead of answering our questions, they separate us. The male detective leads Adrian across the yard while the woman encourages me to sit down at a rusty wrought-iron patio table. She unzips her fanny pack, removes a tin of Altoids, and pops one into her mouth. Then she offers me the open box, but I decline.
“I’m Detective Briggs and my partner is Detective Kohr. Our young associate with the circus tattoos is Officer Darnowsky. I apologize for his exuberance. This is our first dead body in a while, so everybody’s jumpy.”
“Mitzi’s dead?”
“I’m afraid so. Couple kids found her an hour ago. Lying in the woods.” She points to the forest. “You could see her from here, if these trees weren’t in the way.”
“What happened?”
“Let’s start with your name. Who are you, where do you live, and how do you know Mitzi?”
I spell my name and show her my driver’s license and then point across the yard to my cottage. I explain that I work for the family next door. “Ted and Caroline Maxwell. I’m their babysitter, and I live in their guest house.”
“Were you sleeping in the cottage last night?”
“I sleep there every night.”
