me on his own, then I could simply lure him to an isolated spot, and take care of the problem. I thought of the cemetery I’d been to with Ted Severson. I’d never seen anyone else there, and yet it was fairly open. If Detective Kimball followed me to Concord he could see me in the cemetery from the town below. I’d stare for a long time at one grave, and hope that he would visit it himself. Then I’d simply wait for him.
It worked perfectly, until Detective James showed up.
I felt confident in my story. I would probably wind up temporarily in jail, or in a psychiatric institution, but I doubted very much that I would be put away for any considerable length of time. My biggest concern was just how much digging they would do into Miranda’s death and Brad’s disappearance. I had no alibi for that night, but why would I? It was late on a Tuesday night, and I lived alone. Even if they questioned my mother, I thought it was a very slim chance that she would mention my needing a ride to southern Maine. I thought it was a very slim chance that she’d even remember it.
While thinking of my mother, I heard the unoiled hinge of the door at the end of the hall creak open, and recognized my mother’s hectoring voice. I heard the word bail and the word ridiculous. Both my parents were brought to my barred door by the same officer who had brought me my lunch. My mother looked outraged, my father looked old and frightened. “Oh, darling,” my mother said.
Three days later, the day before my bail review, I was brought to an interrogation room after my breakfast of microwaved eggs and potatoes. I’d been to the room before, a windowless box, its walls painted a harsh industrial white.
Detective James entered, announcing her presence and the current time to the camera mounted in the room’s high corner.
“How are you, Ms. Kintner?” she asked, after taking a seat.
“I’ve been better,” I said. “How’s Detective Kimball?”
She paused, pursing her lips, and I caught her eyes flickering toward the rectangle of one-way glass that stretched across one of the room’s walls. I wondered if he was watching this interrogation.
“He’s recovering,” she said. “He’s very lucky to be alive.”
I nodded but chose to say nothing.
“I have some follow-up questions for you, Ms. Kintner. First off, you said in our previous interview that you’d spotted Detective Kimball following you on a number of occasions prior to the Sunday when you traveled to Concord to visit the cemetery. Can you tell me what those occasions were?”
I told her about the times I’d spotted Detective Kimball following me. Once in Winslow town center, and once I’d seen him in his car driving slowly past my driveway. She asked me about my relationship with Ted Severson, and my reasons for going up to Kennewick after his death. I told her the same things I’d told Kimball.
“So what you’re telling me,” she said, “is that when you had crucial information on a murder that had taken place, you chose to withhold that information from the police and go investigate the crime yourself? Then later, when you believed that a police detective who was just doing his job was following and harassing you, you decided to murder him? You have some very interesting solutions to your problems.”
“I didn’t decide to murder Detective Kimball.”
“Well, you did decide to put a knife in him.”
I didn’t say anything. Detective James stared across the table at me. I wondered if there was something going on between her and Kimball, something romantic, but I doubted it. She was almost beautiful—with the bone structure and the tall, lanky body of a model—but there was something fierce and predatory about Detective James. Maybe it was just the way she was staring at me right now, as though she could see straight through me and out the other side.
The silence hung there, and I thought that Detective James had run out of questions. Then she said: “Detective Kimball told me that you spoke to him right before you stabbed him. Do you remember what it was you said?”
I did remember, but I shook my head. “Honestly,” I said, “I barely remember anything from that afternoon. I think I’ve blacked it out.”
“How convenient for you,” she said, and stood and walked out of the room.
I was left alone for what felt like thirty minutes. I wasn’t wearing