“Ms. Leibowitz,” the man in the camel haired coat said, getting her attention. “What are you looking at?” He turned and looked in the corner where Sunny had just glanced.
“My other customer,” she said, returning her gaze to him as she spoke. “He came in before you. I was just going to ask if you could wait until I finished with him.”
A smirk spread across his face. “What other customer?”
Sunny pointed to the corner – the now empty corner – where the man had just stood. Then she looked at Divit.
“Did you see him leave?” she asked.
Divit slowly shook his head, his eyes wide.
The man in the camel haired coat, reached into his inside coat pocket, and that frightened Divit and Sunny. They grabbed hands and stepped back, both pulling in a breath and holding it.
“Ms. Leibowitz,” he said.
“Y-Yes,” came her shaky reply.
“I think you better come with me,” he said and pulled out a badge. “I’m Detective Phillip Dunley. Homicide.” He then reached into the outside pocket of his coat, pulled out a plastic Ziploc bag and threw it up on the counter. It contained a lens cap that had her name on a label inside of it. “We should finish this conversation downtown.”
Chapter Seven
“It’s illegal to lie to a police officer,” Detective Dunley said. He had stepped right inside the door and holding on to the doorknob spoke to her. He had a manila folder in his hand.
Sunny knew it wasn’t against the law. Her grandfather had been a police officer, and all of her life she’d heard of their tactics. It was only a crime to lie to an FBI agent, and she could tell by the looks of the place she’d landed, this place, while downtown, didn’t have any such clout.
Sunny sat in a small interrogation room, it had one door, and no windows. In the center of the room sat a small wooden table – scuffed up with carvings of initials and expletives – which she was thankful she wasn’t handcuffed to, and two metal chairs. An obvious spy portal behind the mirrored wall kept her eyes averted to the adjacent one, where she tried to concentrate on the peeling paint.
But she also knew that obstructing an investigation by giving misleading statements was a criminal offense.
And she hadn’t been completely forthcoming.
Sunny stuffed her hands down into the pockets of her puffy down coat, and slid down in her chair. Yeah so, she hadn’t actually given any misleading statements, but she was almost sure that omissions were just as bad.
She wasn’t sure why that detective had her lens cap, or what he was trying to find out. But she knew she had to be careful of what she said.
Pulling her hand out of her pockets, she noticed a feather on her hand, and it made her think of that man that had come into her studio right before the detective.
Be mindful of your tongue . . .
That was what he’d told her, and now she was thinking the same thing. Only she hadn’t been mindful of it. In fact, she’d insinuated that she’d been in her studio that morning when it opened when she had in fact been at the scene of a crime . . . And it was because of that tongue that she hadn’t minded that she sat where she was at that present moment – she’d talked herself into a ride downtown.
Who was that man?
The scraping of the chair legs across the floor jolted her out of her revelry. She looked up to see the detective sit down across from her, he dropped his folder on the table and gently placed her lens cap, still wrapped in plastic, on top of it.
“Where did you get my cap?” Sunny asked and reached for it.
The detective placed his hand over it before she could get it. “Where do you think it was?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” She looked up at him. “I don’t remember losing one.”
“Does looking at it now jolt your memory any?” He pointed at the cap.
“Aren’t you going to read me my rights?” Sunny asked, her heart starting to race, her palms feeling sweaty.
“You’re not under arrest, Ms. Leibowitz. You’re free to go anytime you’d like.”
“I am?”
“Yes. You are.” He gave a curt nod. “Why do you ask? Do you think I should arrest you?” He tilted his head and looked directly into her eyes. “Have you done something to be arrested for? Because if you have, I’ll be happy to read you your rights.”
She swiped the swiped her curls off her face, then moved her hand into her lap. “I haven’t done anything,” she said lowering her eyes.
“Other than lie to me, you mean?”
“I haven’t lied to you.” Sunny said, trying not to let her fear show in her voice. “I haven’t done anything.”
“Yes, you’ve already said that. Now by anything, do you mean anything other than kill Fleming Bennett?’”
“Who?” Then her breath caught in the back of her throat as the realization hit her.
The girl in the canary blue shoes.
“Was that her name?” Sunny let the words slip out her mouth. She knew she shouldn’t show any recognition. Not do anything to make him ask her more questions, but it gave her chills, it somehow made that girl in the blue shoes more real. Human.
Alive.
“Did you know her?” he asked. He moved the cap from atop the folder and slid the manila file across the table. Then he opened it up.
It was a picture of her. Sunny stared down at it. At Fleming. Those blank eyes, her red lips – laying on that cold ground, stone-cold dead – he needn’t show it to her, she knew that image all too well. It couldn’t have been a more lasting picture for Sunny even if it had been captured with her camera.
“I . . .”
“You what, Ms. Leibowitz?” He pushed the folder a little closer. “You killed her?”
“No,” Sunny said swallowing hard. “I saw her get killed.”
“Saw?” A smirk came across the detective’s face. “The same way you saw that customer in your studio earlier?”
Sunny grabbed a curl. “I saw it. I saw her get shot.”
He tilted his head the other way. “You want to tell me about it?”
Sunny unwrapped the curl from around her finger. She put her hands back in her lap, she didn’t want him to see how badly they were shaking.
Her grandfather had always told her what to do when talking to a detective. Sunny remembered plenty of days how he’d come home saying how a suspect had given himself away just by his actions in the interrogation room. She hadn’t done anything, but she knew her actions as she sat there belied that fact.
She took in a breath to calm her nerves. “I was taking pictures. On a job I’d been hired for,” Sunny said, studying her hands that were clasped together in her lap. “To take pictures of the landscape. I was a few hundred yards away.” She glanced up at the detective for only a moment, then let her eyes drift back down. “I heard the shots. Then I saw her fall.”
“Did you get a picture of the killer?”
“No. Not really,” she said and shook her head. “It’s all a blur.”
“Your memory is a blur?”
“No. The pictures. I had the shutter speed set for distance, not for movement.” She swallowed again, the saliva in her mouth seeming to be overflowing. “My camera couldn’t catch the image.”
“Where are these pictures now?” he asked.
“At my studio.”
“Why didn’t you think to show them to me when we were there?”
“I didn’t know what you came to my studio for,” Sunny said lifting her head. “I thought you were a new customer.”
“You didn’t think that someone would come to investigate a murder?”
“Of course I did. But . . .” She bit her bottom lip. “I didn’t know anyone knew anything about me. That you’d be able to find me.”
“If you don’t want to be found, Ms. Leibowitz, you shouldn’t drop your calling card on the ground.”
“I was scared,” Sunny said. “I must have dropped it when I was packing up to leave.”
“Scared? Scared of what Ms. Leibowitz?”
“That maybe the killer saw me.” Sunny looked at the detective. “Knew I’d seen the murder. I was scared that the killer might be coming after me.”
“Well, with you leaving your name and address laying around,” the detective said. “I can’t say for sure that someone won’t be coming after you.”
Chapter Eight
Sunny wheeled her VW out of the police parking lot with fervor. She couldn’t wait to get out of that place and somehow get herself untangled from this mess she’d made.
“Lord, give me strength,” she whispered as she turned the wheel and spun into traffic.
The determination that it was she who’d made that 911 call to report the body was one of two reasons the detective had given her as to why he was letting her go.
The pictures was the other.
She’d promised she would get a copy of those pictures back to him. Then he would see, she explained, that it was just bad timing. She’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. And in exchange, he had promised to get her lens cap back to her, and Sunny hoped, it would make him stop thinking of her as a killer.
How could he think I was a killer?
It wasn’t vindication, the detective told her. Her being able to leave that police station instead of being locked up, because, he noted, his eyes intently deadlocked with hers, he still had his suspicions about her, and plenty of questions. He’d seen a lot of people commit crimes that they later regretted. Or people appearing to be a Good Samaritan just to take the heat off of them. A 911 call and blurred pictures couldn’t help clear her name, he’d told her, his eyes uncaring, his voice cold. And as far as he was concerned, she was at the top of his suspect list. She was going to have to prove to him that she hadn’t had anything to do with the morning’s unfortunate events.
Aren’t people supposed to be innocent until proven guilty?
Sunny shook her head. That Detective Dunley seemed to have it backwards.
But that didn’t help the anxiety that was amassing inside of Sunny. Those pictures, Sunny knew, couldn’t help her. They wouldn’t be her saving grace.
She slapped the steering wheel. “How could I not get a clear picture?” she chastised herself. “And how am I going to prove to that man that I’m not the one who took Fleming Bennett’s life?”
⸶⸷⸶⸷⸶⸷⸶⸷⸶⸷⸶⸷⸶⸷⸶⸷⸶⸷⸶⸷⸶⸷⸶⸷⸶⸷⸶⸷
“Yeah, that’s my boy. That’s my boy. I’m happy to see you, too.” Sunny came in the door, and without bothering to close it, stooped down on one knee to her dog who was waiting at the door to greet her. Scratching behind Duke’s ear, she put her nose against his. “You know, I didn’t do anything, don’t you, boy?” Duke gave out a bark. “Of course you do.” She rubbed the top of his head, while he licked her face. “Now just to convince that detective,” she said and stood up.
Sunny had avoided going to her dark room when she got back. Even though she’d been sent home to retrieve them, she couldn’t stomach to look at them again just yet. She had pulled up in her driveway and came straight up the stairs to her apartment. Now closing the door, she stood with her back against it, and tried to clear her mind. To think of thoughts that would make the queasiness she felt go away. Only nothing came to mind.
“Maybe a shower will help,” she said to herself. “Maybe that’ll help me to think better.”
Peeling off her clothes as she walked down the hallway, she turned on the hot water in the tub and let the steam build up in her tiny bathroom, She stepped inside the tub and let the beads of water beat down on her.
How could have today gone so wrong?
She rubbed the shower gel over her body, and let her thoughts drift off.
That woman was dead. Her life taken from her. Younger than herself, Sunny surmised, Fleming wouldn’t ever be able to do any of the things Sunny had planned for her life.
If she ever had the nerve to do any of those things.
Sunny could still see the dead girl’s face. Not the one in the picture the detective showed her, but the one she’d seen that morning. Raw. In color.
A single tear rolled down Sunny’s cheek, and she felt her façade of optimism start to crack. And another tear, she swiped at it. She didn’t know if she was crying for Fleming, a person she didn’t know, or for herself.
She stood underneath the shower head and let the water wash away the tears as she began to sob. She wanted all the pain and fear to go away. She didn’t want to feel anything. Nothing for that girl, nothing about the trouble he found herself in now. Nor did she want to think about those pictures.
But she just couldn’t seem to get any of it out of her head.
She felt like what she had depicted in those pictures – the ones that showed all the emptiness and desolation of that place where Fleming lost her life. She felt the same helplessness and sadness that, at that moment, filled Sunny.
These were the times when Sunny missed being home. Having her mother to motivate her, her grandfather to encourage her. She wanted to be all the things they had told her she could be. She knew she had it somewhere inside of her. How could she not? Her grandfather, the first black cop in a big city, had overcame all sorts of odds. Things much bigger than what she was going through. And her mother had raised her as a single parent. Taking care of her and never once complaining.
And all Sunny could think to do was cry.
She swiped the tears away from her face.
“What is wrong with me,” she muttered. “Please, Lord. Just help me find a way to get past all of this.”
But that hot shower, or the strength she tried to glean from her mother and grandfather’s memory wasn’t nearly enough to wash away all the emotions she was feeling, that were encumbering her. She felt weak, and alone and wished she could climb in the bed and pull the covers up over her head and stay there. She reached down and turned off the shower, stepping out of it, she grabbed a towel, wrapped it around her.
“But you can’t do that,” Sunny said, talking to herself as padded down the hallway to her bedroom. “Because you’ve got to prove to that nasty detective that you didn’t kill anybody!”
Sunny’s bedroom was bright and cheery. Flowered wallpaper on the walls, shiny hardwood floor, and the old wooden headboard and vanity that had been her mothers. Sunny had an eye for color and it definitely wasn’t lost in the room. A bright green chenille bedspread, and soft green sheer curtains complimented the walls of pink trailing peonies and delicate white daisies, and a pink cushion and throw pillows made the window seat perfect for sitting.
‘Hey, boy, what’cya doing?” Sunny said to Duke. She noticed him staring into a corner of her room. Back to her, down on his hind legs, his head cocked to one side, he seemed intrigued with something on the wall.
“What you see? Any bees buzzing round those flowers you think you can chase,” Sunny said absently as she grabbed the deodorant off the top of the chest of drawers and swiped it under her arms. Putting it back, she picked up the lotion, squirted into her hands and rubbed it up and down her legs and arms. She plucked a bra and panties out of the top dresser drawer, and pulled a pair of jeans and a tee shirt out of another one and threw them on the bed. “Something on that wall?” She glanced over at him. “Wish my life was that dull.”
She pulled on her clothes, and picking up a ponytail band off her nightstand, she sat in front of her vanity mirror and ran her fingers through her curls, pulling it back off her face and wrapping the holder around it.
She looked over at Duke. His half white, half gray face still positioned on the wall, tongue hanging out, his tail wagging happily. “What is it boy?” Sunny went over and stood next to him. Cocking her head to one side, too, she tried to see what he was looking at. “What are we looking at?” As her words came out, Sunny felt a whoosh of air come at her from the wall and go around her. It was warm, and soothing, and it seemed to envelop her in an embrace. And as it did, Duke turned and l
ooked at her, his brown eyes glistening, like he’d seen what happened.
“Oh!” Sunny said her voice low. “What was that?” Duke gave out a bark. “Did you feel that?” She looked down at him.
He barked an answer, and she took it as a “Yes.”
“Me too,” she said. “And maybe, before I go back to see that nasty detective, I’ll go to the cemetery and see Pops. Good idea?” Duke looked at the bare wall, back at Sunny and gave out a bark.
“I agree,” Sunny said.
“Are you home?” It was Divit.
“Goodness,” Sunny said to Duke. “I can’t get away from that man.”
“There you are,” Divit said sounding out of breath as he rounded the corner into her bedroom. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“You found me,” Sunny said and smiled at her friend. “What’s going on with you?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said, a look of disbelief on his face. “It’s what’s going on with you! You just came back from the police station. I didn’t know if I’d have to take up a collection from my congregation to come and bail you out.”
“They let me go on the promise I’d bring the pictures.”
“What pictures?” he asked and seemed to shield himself from her answer.
“The ones I took this morning. What else could I be talking about?”
“Well, that’s a problem.” He stretched his eyes. “Did you tell them that the pictures didn’t show anything?”
Sunny closed her eyes. “Yes.”
“And they still wanted to see them?” he asked.
“Yes. They still wanted to see them. It’ll exonerate me.”
“I really don’t think those pictures are going to help you.”
“For once,” Sunny said and plopped down on her bed and pulled the ponytail holder off of her hair. It was too tight and was giving her a headache. “I agree with you. Although they do show that I was behind the camera when she was shot.”
Angel Angst Page 4