“Mostly little stuff.” Like that she was with someone in her living room shortly before the gun was fired. And that I’d walked into that living room moments before it happened, raring for a fight. It hit me in another wave: What the hell happened?
He groaned. “You know, I was stupid-lucky I had to work that night. Otherwise who knows what kinda story the cops woulda spun. Jealous lover or whatever.”
My heart pounded in the pads of my fingers.
“So you did talk to the cops.”
“ ’Course. They were pretty fucking incompetent, though. Didn’t even bother with me until I called ’em a few days later to ask what they’d found.”
“They didn’t track you down?”
“No, stupid NYPD just figured it was a suicide, case closed.”
So much candor. I slowed my breathing.
“Didn’t Edie’s mom see you, like, take Edie inside? Didn’t she tell the cops?”
“Fuck if I know what she told ’em. They just didn’t seem that interested.”
I flopped onto my bed. “And did you have something to tell them?”
“Huh?”
“About Edie. About how she seemed, or…how her mom seemed, or something.”
“Nah. I mean, they were both crying, her mom had just told her they were basically broke, right? She started texting me like whoa, begging me to come get her. So finally I did. I was only a couple blocks away.”
“Did you talk to her mom at all?”
“I mean, I introduced myself. Tried to be polite. It was awkward as hell because they were both crying. She was, like, wild-eyed.”
“Edie?”
“No, her mom. Like, she really didn’t want Edie to go. Edie said her mom was freaking her out.”
Freaking her out? Edie’s mother was an odd duck, but she seemed composed. “What exactly did Mrs. Iredale say?”
“Look, I dunno. She bounced as soon as I got there. And Edie didn’t really wanna talk about it. We only had a couple minutes before I had to leave for the show anyway. I was dragging around all my gear.”
“Where was Edie headed when you left?”
“Just back inside. I figured she was going to her place.” He started laughing. “Lady, you’re better at this than the cops, you know.”
“The cops. They never spun together a…jealous-lover story, like you said?”
“Buncha clowns.”
“What’d they miss? Were you jealous? I know you were keeping your relationship a secret.”
“Ah, fuck. We were just stupid fucking kids. Hanging on to each other while the world, you know, crumbled around us.”
This was the Lloyd I remembered, ADD-addled and talking like a beat poet. I felt a pulse of envy that he’d chosen to cling to Edie, not me.
“What are you talking about?”
“Fuck if I know. I’m pretty bombed.”
I waited him out.
“Let me tell you something, Lindsay.”
“I’m listening.”
A little exhale, like he’d just finished a deep sip. “When the ground splits open,” he said, “the only smart reaction is to run.”
The fuck?
“What do you mean, when the ground splits open?”
“I mean that’s what we were living, babe, you, me, Edie, everyone back then. When we were coming out of this fucked-up phase of politeness and fake prosperity and everyone believing they just had to act proper to get everything they’d ever dreamed of on a silver platter.”
I gave a noncommittal “Mmm.”
Again, the sound of swallowing. “Edie was bored out of her mind,” he said. “Oh, I remember. She was getting a useless degree in like theoretical clothing design, and she was stuck with Alex because they lived together, right?”
I assented.
“And she had those rich, miserable parents in the city and she just, I don’t know, she totally got it. We were just, you know, living our way through it.”
I felt him wait for me to say something, so I tried mirroring again, some faux-hippie shit. “Proving that, like, you weren’t gonna let the monster shaking the tree take you down.”
“Exactly. You got it.” He tittered. “And now we’re back to being hubristic motherfuckers and everyone who’s doing semi-okay feels even more entitled to act like they earned it, survival of the fittest, dog-eat-dog meritocratic bullshit.”
I pictured him now, hair long and scraggly, brain cells desiccated like overbaked cookies.
“When did you start seeing her?”
He giggled. “You really do sound like a cop.”
“I’m not.” Suddenly, recklessly: “I think I might have been involved. In her death.”
Surprised silence, then laughter, full-on guffaws. “The fuck are you talking about?”
“We were fighting, I know how to use a gun, I was blackout drunk, and I was hanging around her apartment that night. I’m—that’s why I’m investigating.”
“Well, shit.” He collected himself. “Here I thought I was an alcoholic.”