Officer Idrissi stood in the doorway, along with a man in his thirties—American, by the look of him—in khaki pants and a light blue button-down.
Amina was holding the door for them, looking uncomfortable. They both strode toward Florence with wide, confident steps. Their shoes tracked mud on the floor, and she saw Amina eye the marks with dismay.
The man she didn’t know stuck out his hand and introduced himself. “Dan Massey. US State Department. I work at the embassy in Rabat.”
Florence looked back and forth between the two men. “What’s going on?” They found Helen’s body.
“Please, let’s sit,” Massey said, extending an arm toward the living room. As they walked past the foot of the stairs, Massey glanced at her luggage.
“Going somewhere?”
“Yes,” she answered without elaborating.
All three of them sat down. Massey placed his briefcase on the table in front of him and opened it. “So, Ms. Wilcox”—he glanced up—“you are Helen Adelaide Wilcox, of Cairo, New York, correct?” He pronounced it the wrong way.
Florence nodded. “Cay-ro, yes.”
“Alright, well, the Cairo Police Department has been trying to get in touch with you for a few days now.”
“I was in an accident.” She held up her cast. “I lost my phone.”
“Do you know what this might concern?”
“Not a clue.”
“A body has been discovered on your property.”
For a brief, dizzying moment Florence thought—Helen? But no, that didn’t make any sense.
“A body,” she said dumbly.
Massey nodded. “It was found in your compost pile”—he pulled a file from his briefcase and checked it—“nearly a week ago now.” He cleared his throat. “Apparently the corpse was quite far along in the decomposition process. Your neighbor’s dog found it.”
“Bentley?”
“What?”
“Is Bentley the name of the dog who found it?”
Massey frowned. “I don’t know the name of the dog, Ms. Wilcox.”
“Well, it’s not important, I guess.” She paused. “Whose body?”
“See, now that is the first question I’d have thought someone who’s just been told there’s a dead body on their property would ask. Not the name of the dog who found it.” He consulted his notes again. “It has been identified as the body of Jeanette Byrd.” He glanced up, watching her reaction. “That name mean anything to you?”
“No.”
“No?” He raised his eyebrows. His face was hard and bony, the pale, freckled skin stretched taut across it. There was hardly enough skin on his forehead to fold into wrinkles. It was not a face that would express mercy easily, she thought.
“No.”
Massey nodded his head. “According to Leslie Blackford of Jackson, Mississippi, the two of you had a conversation about Jeanette Byrd earlier this year.” He flipped through some papers on his lap. “On March first, to be precise. Does that ring a bell?”
Florence shook her head. She had no idea who Leslie Blackford was.
“You are also listed as the emergency contact on Jeanette Byrd’s release paperwork. Pretty odd to list someone you don’t know, isn’t it?”
“Release from what?”
“Ms. Byrd was granted parole from the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility on February twenty-fourth of this year.”
Amina chose that moment to carry in a tray with three cups of steaming tea on it. As if by agreement, nobody said anything while she placed them carefully down on the table one by one. The last one clattered lightly and she left the room with small, quick steps.
Massey continued: “Leslie Blackford is Ms. Byrd’s parole officer. Ms. Byrd apparently missed her first meeting with her. A few days later, Ms. Blackford received a phone message from Ms. Byrd from the landline in your house.”
Florence had been trying to hold an unperturbed smile on her face since Massey’s arrival, but here it began to falter.
Massey went on. “Ms. Blackford called you the next day. Yet you claimed you hadn’t seen or heard from Ms. Byrd.
“Mississippi issued an arrest warrant for Jeanette Byrd on March twenty-seventh, on the grounds that she had violated her parole agreement. She’d missed three meetings with Ms. Blackford by that point. It says here that Detective Michael Ledowski of the Cairo Police Department then met with you at your home to inquire about Ms. Byrd’s whereabouts. You claimed you hadn’t seen her.” He looked directly at Florence. “But you’re telling me you don’t remember your conversation with Leslie Blackford. And you don’t know Jeanette Byrd. The woman whose body was found decomposing on your property.”
Florence shook her head slowly. “I don’t know what to tell you,” she said. That, at least, was true.
Idrissi leaned forward onto his knees and spoke for the first time since they’d sat down. “It’s strange, this. So much bad luck in such a short period of time.”
Florence said nothing.
“I apologize for my English; is that the right word, Madame Weel-cock? The car accident. This…dead woman at your house. It’s called bad luck?”
Florence paled. “Bad luck, yes,” she whispered.
Idrissi continued staring at her. He obviously suspected her of something, but she could tell that he couldn’t quite put it all together. After all, how does one connect a car accident in Morocco with a dead body thousands of miles away? She certainly couldn’t.
She stared back at Idrissi, trying her best to appear unfazed.
Massey cut the tension. “Alright, listen,” he said, relaxing his posture. “I’m not here to interrogate you. I’m not a police officer. But obviously the police in both Mississippi and New York are very eager to speak with you. I’ve come to urge you to return home as soon as you can. Today, if possible. I can help you make arrangements.”
“Can’t I talk to them over the phone?”
“No, Ms. Wilcox. You need to go back.”
“I need to go back? Am I under arrest?”
“I don’t have the authority to arrest you, Ms. Wilcox. I am simply offering a very strong suggestion.”
“There is no extradition treaty between the United States and this country,” Idrissi interjected. “We are not required to send you back.”
“He’s right,” Massey said. “That said, it is not a good idea to stay. Ms. Wilcox, you are an official suspect in a homicide investigation. If you refuse to return home and cooperate, the United States can and will invalidate your passport. You will not be able to travel outside of Morocco for the rest of your life. If you break any laws here, and from what I hear from my friend”—he gestured at Idrissi—“it sounds like you already have, then the Moroccan police can prosecute you at any time, and the US embassy won’t be able to intervene. And let me assure you, Ms. Wilcox, American prisons are much more comfortable than Moroccan prisons.”
Idrissi smiled. “I’d say Moroccan prisons are more comfortable than the electric chair your country is so fond of,” he said.
Massey rolled his eyes.
“Okay, wait, this is crazy,” said Florence. “I didn’t kill anyone.” As soon as she said it, she realized that wasn’t true. But they weren’t talking about the car crash. “I wasn’t even living in Cairo in February, or whenever you say this happened.”
Massey said, “According to your tax returns, you purchased the property at 174 Crestbill Road two years ago, and you’ve listed it as your primary residence ever since.”
Florence stood up and walked to the window. It had started drizzling again.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
It was all slipping away from her. Of course this was how it would happen. Everything had been handed to her, everything she’d ever wanted, and now it was getting yanked away. A joke. The universe’s proffered handshake pulled back at the last minute.
She’d done everything she was supposed to do: She’d worked hard in school; she’d gotten a schol
arship; she’d spent all her free time writing, with little to no encouragement; she’d put in long hours at a pointless job. All for nothing. And then someone like Amanda Lincoln got everything she wanted—everything they both wanted—with none of the struggle. Had it been so absurd for Florence to think that her reward had finally come due, after all this time?
Apparently it had.
She sighed. “Here’s the thing.” She turned around. “I’m not Helen Wilcox.”
Idrissi and Massey exchanged a look.
“Pardon?” Massey asked.
“I’m not Helen Wilcox,” she repeated, gesturing to his file.
Massey neatened the papers on his lap and placed them gently on the table. “Ms. Wilcox, I’m sure you have a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this. You just need to tell the police what it is, and then you can go on with your life. You can even return to Morocco if you like.”
“No, I’m serious. I’m Florence Darrow. I was born in Daytona Beach, Florida, in 1993. You can look it up. Helen was my boss. But she—she’s gone. And I was just pretending to be her for a little while. It was just kind of a joke.”
“A joke,” said Massey flatly.
Idrissi cut in: “At the hospital five days ago, you told me your name was Helen Wilcox.”
“Well, not exactly. You just started calling me that and I didn’t correct you.”
Idrissi sighed. “Your credit cards, your driver’s license, and your passport say Helen Wilcox. The rental contract for the car in the accident was in the name of Helen Wilcox. This house”—he gestured around him—“is in the name of Helen Wilcox.” He paused. “You have friends, here, I think. What do they call you?”
Florence looked up sharply. “Have you been watching me?”
“What name?”
Florence threw up her hands. “Helen! Okay? Helen Wilcox! I know, I know how this looks. But I swear, I was just pretending.”
Massey said, “Consider things from our point of view, Ms. Wilcox. Which is more likely—that you lied about your name while you were injured in a hospital bed and among friends and on legally binding documents, or that you’re lying now, when it appears that you might be in a spot of trouble?”
“I don’t care how it sounds. I’m Florence Darrow. I just am.”
“Alright,” Massey said. “Can you show me some identification then?”
“I don’t have any.” Florence shrugged and emitted a shrill laugh. “I know it sounds crazy, but I don’t. It was all in the car when we crashed. It’s probably in the middle of the Atlantic ocean by now.”
“Right,” said Massey, drawing out the word.
“Can’t you check my fingerprints?”
“Have you ever been arrested?”
“No.”
“Then they’re not on file.”
Florence exhaled loudly but didn’t respond. They sat quietly for another moment.
“Wait!” Florence suddenly said. “Wait right here.” She ran upstairs and grabbed Helen’s passport from the top of the dresser in her room. Downstairs, she handed it to Massey triumphantly. “Look, it’s not me. Look closely.” He opened it warily and looked at the picture. He passed it to Idrissi. They both inspected the photo, glancing up at Florence to compare.
“I don’t know,” said Massey, shaking his head.
“It is not clear,” Idrissi agreed.
“Look at her nose.”
“Noses can be changed,” Massey said.
Florence snatched the passport back. She looked at the photo.
“It’s clearly not me,” she said, with dwindling conviction.
Massey held out his hand. She gave it back to him. “It doesn’t look a thing like me,” she said.
“Well, for one thing,” he said, “I can’t think of any good reason why you would have Helen Wilcox’s passport if you’re not Helen Wilcox, but listen, it’s not up to me to determine whether this is you or not. As I said before, this is a matter for the police.” He slipped the passport into his inside jacket pocket.
“Wait—you can’t have that,” Florence said. “Give that back.”
“Ms. Wilcox, given that you are wanted for questioning in a homicide case in the state of New York, I must inform you that I do in fact have the authority to confiscate your passport. I can, however, issue you temporary paperwork that will authorize you to fly to the United States and the United States only. There you will be met by a uniformed officer and brought to the Cairo police department for questioning. Let me ask you again: Is that something you might be interested in?”
Florence didn’t answer. She stared at the table in front of her.
Massey nodded as if she had answered. “Alright, please call me at my office if you change your mind.” He placed a business card on the table. “If not, well, like I said, I can’t compel you. But the United States will not issue you a new passport until this crime is sorted out.”
Massey stood up and started packing his files back into his briefcase.
“What now?” asked Florence, looking up helplessly.
“It’s out of my hands,” said Massey. “You should go home, back to New York. That is my advice. I hope you’ll take it.” Then he pointed at her bags at the foot of the stairs. “And if you plan to leave Semat, I would advise you to keep me apprised of your whereabouts. It will make things easier for you in the long run.”
Florence ignored him. “And you?” she asked Idrissi. She felt a sudden reluctance for him to leave even though his presence in her life had done nothing but unsettle her.
Idrissi shrugged. “I do not know, Madame.” He seemed genuinely at a loss for the first time since she’d met him.
38.
The first thing Florence did after the men left was Google Jeanette Byrd. She found an article from 2005 in the Mississippi Clarion-Ledger. A local seventeen-year-old girl with that name had been found guilty of killing a man named Ellis Weymouth in a motel room in Hindsville, Mississippi. The paper said that she had always maintained her innocence, but the alibi she’d given—that she’d been with a friend all night—had fallen apart when the friend changed her story. They didn’t mention the name of the friend because she was a minor, but Florence could guess it: Helen Wilcox.
Jeanette Byrd was Jenny. Ruby, from the book.
So she’d been paroled in February. Then what? After fifteen years in prison, she’d gone to find her old friend Helen? That was plausible, but it didn’t explain how she ended up in the compost pile. Helen was selfish and a narcissist but she certainly wasn’t a murderer.
Florence stopped herself.
Certainly? She wasn’t sure she could describe Helen, whose moods were as variable as the weather, who even Greta had called volatile, as “certainly” anything.
According to Massey, the corpse had been in the compost pile on Crestbill Road since February. That meant that the entire time Florence had been living there, Jenny’s body had been decomposing just yards from where she slept. She’d thrown banana peels on top of it.
What else had he said? That Helen had lied to both Jenny’s parole officer in Mississippi and a local Cairo police officer. Florence’s mind flashed to the overweight officer hitching up his pants in Helen’s driveway and Helen staring him down from the bottom step. She’d watched the whole conversation.
There were two possible explanations, as far as Florence could tell. Either Helen had been covering for Jenny, or else she had, in fact, killed Jenny—and Florence had been living with a murderer for weeks.
She shut the laptop, but didn’t otherwise move. She felt weighed down by a crushing lethargy. The need to leave Semat that she’d felt so urgently earlier in the day had dissipated. Now she wanted nothing so much as to sleep. She craved oblivion.
She couldn’t leave anyhow. She had no passport. The only identification she had in her possession was Helen’s driver’s license, and she obviously couldn’t be Helen anymore—Helen was wanted for murder. But she had nothing proving she was Florence. She was no
one. She was nothing.
She pushed herself up and retrieved the whiskey bottle from the dining room. She poured a splash in her empty teacup and sipped it slowly. Outside, the leaves continued to drip.
Eventually, she knew, she would be able to convince whoever needed convincing that she was Florence Darrow. There were people she could call. There were documents they could dig up. But she felt no relief at this idea. Instead, she felt bereft. She hadn’t grieved after Helen’s death, but now she felt the loss of Helen’s identity keenly.
Besides, she would still have to explain Helen’s disappearance and all of the lies she’d told since the crash. She may not have murdered someone and shoved them in a compost pile, but she had killed someone, even if it was by accident. She was a criminal too. And somebody, somewhere, either in New York or Morocco, would make her pay. She was sure of it. That was the thing about being Florence Darrow: She always paid.
She wondered briefly whether she could transfer all of Helen’s money to Florence Darrow before she took up her old identity again. Or even a numbered account. How did one do that? But then they’d charge her with theft. Not identity theft, just plain old theft.
At some point, Amina came in and asked if she wanted dinner. Florence shook her head. When Amina turned to leave Florence called out, “Wait—Amina, do you know my name?”
“Your name, Madame?”
“Yes, my name.”
“Madame Wilcox, n’est-ce pas? It is on the paper.”
“You’re right. That is what’s on the paper,” Florence said with a resigned sigh. “Amina, do you ever feel like…like you’ve made so many mistakes you’ll never find your way back? And you’re not even sure if you want to go back?”
“Back to…the United States?”
“No. Never mind. I’m not making any sense. I’m sorry, Amina.”
“Amira,” the older woman said, patting herself on the chest. “My name is Amira.”
“Amira? I thought it was Amina.”
Amira shrugged.
“I’m sorry,” Florence said as Amira walked back to the kitchen.
She sighed. What had she thought Amira was going to offer her? A solution? Redemption? If she wanted either of those, she’d have to find them herself.
Who is Maud Dixon? Page 21