by Terri Thayer
“Come with me.” He pulled me to my feet. My legs didn’t hold up, and he frowned as I collapsed. He let go of me, and I hit the floor hard.
“Who are you?” I said, angrily.
“Sergeant Roy Sanchez, San Jose Police Department. Homicide.” He flipped his badge open for me to see. “I need you to follow me into the conference room down the hall.” He offered his hand a second time but I waved him off. I didn’t want to risk getting dumped again.
My cell banged against my hip bone as I stood. I heard Myra crying, her bleating voice echoing off the tiles. I was glad to move into the quiet of the conference room.
It smelled like bagels and coffee, although the sideboard along the wall to my left was empty. A small refrigerator was tucked underneath. Straight ahead, in front of the windows, was a large mahogany conference table with a dozen chairs around it. I sank into the nearest seat.
“We’re going to need your clothes,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“All evidence must be preserved.”
“Evidence?” What was he talking about? “Why are you treating me like a criminal? I found a woman dead.”
“Yes, and until we find out what happened …”
“She cut herself.”
“Were you a witness to that?” he asked, making notes on his pad.
“No, that’s not what I meant. Look, I’ve never found a dead body before. I don’t know the procedure.”
“Exactly. So please listen to me.” His tone hardened. “Do you have a change of clothes?”
“I have a gym bag in my car,” I allowed. I always carry workout clothes, in the never-ending battle to find enough time to exercise. I tried to remember what was in the bag. I didn’t want to spend the rest of the day in a holey tank top and bike shorts.
“Give me your car keys. I’ll send someone to get your things and you can clean up.”
For the first time, I looked down at my clothes and saw I had blood on my khakis.
“I didn’t realize. I helped Myra stand up …” My voice faded.
Detective Sanchez waited as I took my car keys off a hook on my belt. I described my car. I couldn’t get out of these clothes fast enough. A policewoman came in the room and handed me my bag, escorting me to a restroom and waiting as I undressed hurriedly in a cubicle with the door open. I didn’t look at the policewoman as I gave her my clothes.
The T-shirt in my bag was a wrinkled ball, but an unworn jogging suit, along with clean socks and sneakers, lay alongside.
Once changed into my running clothes, I was left alone in the conference room. I walked the length of the room, trying to assess what was happening. What were the police doing?
Where was Myra? Surely if the police had wanted my clothes, hers would be taken. What would she change into? They would have questions for her, too. She must be going through hell, finding her boss dead. I couldn’t imagine how horrible that would be.
My jumbled thoughts returned to what Sergeant Sanchez had said—that he was from Homicide. Why Homicide? Claire had obviously hurt herself and bled to death.
I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was nearly three o’clock. I’d been alone in this room for nearly an hour. Enough. I would find that policeman, answer his questions, and get out of here.
I strode to the door, pulling it open. Sergeant Sanchez was about to enter, followed by a younger man, also dressed in a suit and tie. The new guy was tall, and bulky without being fat. His shoulders were wide and I knew he’d played soccer in high school. I stared at him. The cognitive dissonance of seeing a familiar face in this room was muddling my brain.
Sanchez moved past me across the room, straightening the wooden chairs, positioning them closer to the conference table.
“Dewey?” the young detective said quietly. “What are you doing here?”
That voice. The voice that was my lullaby. “Buster.”
It was Buster, Benjamin Healy, Kevin’s best friend since second grade. I’d talked him into eating a tadpole when he was seven and I was nine. He’d beaten me at ping-pong one hundred and sixty-eight times one long summer. I’d towered over him until he hit a growth spurt when he was fourteen. My fifth child, my mother had called him, like the mythical fifth Beatle.
This was Kevin’s best man.
This was the fourth pallbearer who had helped my brothers carry Mom’s casket.
This was the guy who had been leaving messages on my answering machine since November, looking for a date.
“Buster.” I saw by his sharp look that no one called him that anymore. He glanced over at Sanchez, but the thin sergeant was distracted, talking into his cell. Buster put his hands in his pants pocket, spreading apart his suit jacket, exposing the gold badge clipped on to his narrow brown leather belt. Detective Benjamin Healy, he seemed to be saying, that’s who I am now.
“Sit down, Dewey.”
Buster moved further into the room, steering me with a gentle touch toward the conference table chairs. Gone was the baby-faced kid. I could see the beginnings of wrinkles around his mouth and eyes. I wondered if they were squint lines or frown lines—wrinkles from the sun or the work he did.
“Homicide, Buster?”
“Just assigned, Dewey. Six weeks ago.”
“Congratulations, but that’s not what I meant. Why are homicide detectives here? Claire had an accident.”
“Routine,” Buster assured me. “Unattended death in a hotel room. Dispatch sends a team out.”
Even though I’d seen Buster off and on over the years at family functions, right now I could conjure up only two images of him as an adult. One was from Kevin and Kym’s wedding, two years ago. Dodging the affections of an usher feeling entitled to a post-reception grope, I’d bumped into Buster, his arm slung around my brother’s neck, his grin mirroring Kevin’s, flush with drink and the excitement of the day. The usher had slunk away when faced with the protective duo who gathered me into their boozy embrace. Last November, I saw Buster with his arm around Kevin again, but this time his face echoed the pain surrounding us in the anteroom of the funeral home.
I’d been grateful that day for his quiet strength. The men in my life had not handled Mom’s death well, alternating between sudden tears and explosive rage, with little warning. Although I’d never acknowledged his role, Buster had alleviated my burden, taking one brother or the other for long walks; sitting with my father as he recounted worn-out tales of long-ago barbecues.
Now he was here in an official role. I looked to him for a clue on how to proceed. His face was shuttered. This was not the bocce ball champion of the Pellicano backyard.
“I just have a few questions,” Buster said.
Sanchez clicked his phone closed and joined us at the conference table. I sat in the chair Buster had pulled out. Sanchez stood across from me, his feet spread wide apart. I had to turn slightly in the seat so I could see Buster at my elbow. I looked from one detective to the other.
“Can’t you see what happened?” I spoke quickly. “She was working on her quilt, cutting the final border, from the looks of it. Her rotary cutter slipped, and she cut herself. Badly.” I remembered the ugly cut on her leg and stopped to breathe in a painful gulp of air.
“Rotary cutter?” Buster had his pad out now, ready to take notes.
“Didn’t you see it? The big blade? With a yellow handle?” I asked.
Neither detective changed expression. They must have seen it, so it was obvious to me they didn’t know what a rotary cutter was and were not going to reveal their ignorance.
“A rotary cutter?” I continued, proscribing the shape with my hands. “Looks kind of like a pizza cutter? Quilters use them. Very sharp blade. Really lethal.”
I winced at my frivolous choice of words, but their potential danger had been drilled into me fro
m the time my mother brought home the first rotary cutter twenty years ago.
“Do you use the rotary cutter, Miss Pelligrino?” Detective Sanchez asked. He over-pronounced the t’s in cutter, as though he’d never heard the word before.
“Sure. We use them every day at Quilter Paradiso, my shop.” Something about Sanchez demanded complete answers, so I corrected myself. “Mostly, my employees do. To cut fabric. I do the computer work. And it’s Ms., Ms. Pellicano.”
Sanchez didn’t seem to register the correction, gesturing for me to continue. My temper flared at his dismissive attitude.
“The tool is very common,” I said sharply.
“Where does one buy this tool?” Sanchez asked, drawing out the word enough to let me know that real tools have power cords at one end and a man at the other.
“Any quilt shop or fabric store.” I laid on the any, informing him he was the one out of the loop.
I felt Buster’s eyes on me, pleading for me to play along. He knew my tendency to smart-mouth. I swallowed the sarcastic tone and spoke civilly. “We sell them in our shop and, this week, in our booth. Many of the booths carry them, I’d guess. You do know there’s a convention of quilters this weekend, don’t you? I’d bet there are hundreds of these rotary cutters around here.” The sarcasm had crept back into my voice. Had they missed the hordes of fabric-toting women downstairs?
“So these cutters are used extensively?” Sanchez said.
“Yes,” I shouted. Years of dealing with brothers who never seemed to hear me unless I yelled, had turned me quick-tempered when confronted with deliberate obtuseness. “And how about this—not only are they used all the time, most people use the same brand, so they all look alike. They come in different sizes, but still have the same yellow handle. To tell them apart, people put their names on them. Did you find a name on the one on the floor, Detective?”
Buster clasped a large hand on my shoulder, sending tiny waves of energy through my body. The warmth from his hand soothed my jangled nerves.
I settled against the back of the chair and modulated my tone. “Quilters use these cutters all the time, that’s all I’m saying.”
“But you don’t use one?”
“I’m not much of a quilter.”
Sanchez dismissed me, turning his attention to Buster. “What’s your plan for interviewing witnesses?”
“We can question people on-site,” Buster said. “According to hotel staff, most of the guests are associated with the quilt show and knew Mrs. Armstrong.”
“She was famous,” I put in. I suddenly felt too confined and jumped up, knocking over my chair. Buster caught the back of the chair before it hit the ground.
“A famous quilter,” Sanchez qualified with a sneer. “Take your seat, Miss Pelican.”
I did not want to sit down. “It’s Ms. Pellicano,” I corrected, biting off each syllable. “Why can’t you get it straight?”
Sanchez gave Buster a look as though to say I was his problem now. “I’m going back to the scene,” he said.
As he left, I sat heavily back in the chair. I felt the kinetic energy drain out of me.
“You okay? Sanchez can be a little rough.”
“I’d hate to see him around someone who was guilty of something.” I rubbed my eyes. I hadn’t seen much of Buster since going away to college, just a few times a year at family events. That’s why I’d been taken aback when Buster’s voice floated out of my answering machine several days after the funeral.
At first he’d offered a shoulder to cry on. I’d been tempted, but had been unable to summon the energy to dial. When I didn’t return his initial call, he left several more messages. It became clear he wanted to see me on a more personal level. I hadn’t been sure how to deal with the idea of dating Buster, so I’d ignored his phone calls. I thought not responding had been a pretty good tactic—until now. Now, it just seemed rude.
Buster said, “I’m going to tape your statement, all right? Don’t be nervous, it’s standard procedure.”
He was wearing glasses. I didn’t remember ever seeing him in glasses before. They made him look smart, and the look contrasted with his wide shoulders and small waist, imbuing him with an intellectual sex appeal. This didn’t seem like the right place to be noticing that Buster was hot, so I looked away.
His ministrations with his handheld tape player were taking longer than I thought necessary. I fidgeted in my seat. My legs twitched uncomfortably.
Finally, he spoke into the recorder, establishing the time and place of the meeting, inserting my name and his. The official tone of his voice made my stomach clench in fear. I was finally getting the idea that, despite the size of his tiny recorder, this was a real police investigation.
Buster indicated I should begin. I started haltingly to tell what happened.
“I came up here to meet with Claire Armstrong. She was going to buy Quilter Paradiso.”
Buster’s eyebrows shot up in question. I reached across the table and put my hand on his, restraining him.
“You can’t tell anyone, Buster. Especially not Kevin or Kym. I just decided today to sell the shop,” I said.
He nodded. “I won’t say anything. Start with what happened this afternoon,” he said.
“Kym …” I didn’t want to finish that sentence. What happened at the booth would stay at the booth. The police didn’t need to know every detail of my miserable morning. Only the worst part.
I started over. “I needed to speak to Claire. When I came up to her room, she didn’t answer. After I knocked on the door a few times, her assistant showed up with her lunch. She didn’t want to let me in, but I convinced her.” I glanced at Buster to see if he could tell I’d omitted grabbing the key from Myra. I didn’t want to admit I’d bullied my way in.
I lied a little more. “We went in together, thinking Claire was coming right back. Then we saw the body, and I couldn’t understand how so much blood could be on the floor. It was pooled, thick and sticky.” I stopped as I remembered Claire’s inert form, and the huge gash in her thigh. My eyes filled with tears.
“I felt sick and ran to the bathroom to throw up. Myra came in and we called 911. That was it.” It was impossible to describe how helpless I felt at that moment, so I didn’t try.
“Was there blood anywhere else in the room?”
I pictured the scene and shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
Buster made me describe the color of the blood and Claire’s position. He asked a lot of the same questions over and over, changing the words, never explaining, but I was sure he was trying to trip me up or see if I changed my story. I just told him again and again what I’d seen.
Finally, he turned off the recorder. He sat near me, taking my hand in his and patting it awkwardly.
“You’ve had a rough day.”
The sympathy in his voice was genuine and hit me like a wave, knocking the adrenaline out of my body in a rush, leaving me feeling wrung out. I crumpled against the back of the chair, pulling my legs in around me. I leaned my chin on my knee, trying to gather myself together.
Buster got a can of soda out of the small refrigerator and handed it to me. I drank thirstily, the caffeine and fake sugar doing its magic, reaching my limbs and revitalizing them. I stretched in the chair, twisting my neck back and forth.
“Better?” Buster asked.
I nodded.
“Diet Coke still a favorite, I see.”
I knew where he was going with this. “Hey, I was ten.”
He looked around and whispered dramatically. “You made me steal a liter of Coke from Baxter’s store.”
“Paula and I were thirsty.”
“I was almost caught. Only old Mrs. Wright knocking over that Pringles display with her walker saved me.”
“How did I know you we
re going to grow up to be the police?”
We laughed at the memories of simpler, innocent crimes.
“You always could get me to do anything you wanted,” he said quietly.
I squirmed. This conversation was going to a dangerous place. I did not want to talk about the power I had over Buster when we were kids. I was two years older, that was all. In the neighborhood pecking order, age ranked highest.
“Buster, I’m sorry I didn’t return your calls …”
My apology was interrupted as the door banged open, and Sanchez took the room in several long strides. He was carrying my backpack in a plastic bag.
“Hey, you’ve got my backpack. Great.” Coming out of my chair, I reached for the bag.
Sanchez pulled it out of my reach. “Sit back down, please.”
My arms were still outstretched. What was with this guy? “I’m not a golden retriever … you can’t just tell me to sit.”
“Sit now.”
I heard in his voice a certain undeniable authority. I tried a quick look at Buster, but he was studying Sanchez. I sat, harder than I intended, jarring my butt and clinking my teeth.
“We found your satchel at the scene.” He waited for me to answer.
Satchel? How old was this guy? “Yes, that’s mine,” I said.
“Can you identify this?” He held up the cardboard I’d put in it earlier.
“Of course, that’s the packaging from a new rotary cutter.” I looked at Buster, who remained stone-faced. “I opened one this morning to use in the booth.”
“You put it in your bag.”
“Not the cutter, just the packaging. The State Board of Equalization requires us to pay sales tax on everything we take out of our own inventory even if it’s for our own use. I needed to take that to the store so I can include the barcode in our monthly report.”
I looked from Sanchez to Buster and back. Neither one said anything. Buster was watching Sanchez’s face. He was taking his cues from the older detective.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
Sanchez stood in front of me, his voice stentorian as though he was projecting across a crowded theater. I saw the frustrated actor—or maybe lawyer—in him.