hair. His suit clings to him with a sort of desperation, unequal to the task but trying its damnedest.
“Hello there,” he says, his voice sweet and low. “I’m Detective Little.”
I blink. At his elbow—practically on his elbow—hovers a pigeon of a woman in a yellow nurse’s smock.
“Can you understand what we’re saying?” she asks.
I blink again, then nod. I feel the air shift around me, like it’s almost viscous, like I’m still underwater.
“This is Morningside,” the nurse explains. “The police have been waiting for you to come around all morning.” The way you’d chide someone for failing to answer the doorbell.
“What’s your name? Can you tell us your name?” asks Detective Little.
I open my mouth, squeak. My throat has gone dry. I feel as if I’ve just coughed up a puff of dust.
The nurse rounds the bed, zeroes in on the side table. I follow her, my head slowly revolving, and watch as she places a cup in my hands. I sip. Tepid water. “You’re under sedation,” she tells me, almost apologetic now. “You were fussing a little bit earlier.”
The detective’s question hangs in the air, unanswered. I turn my eyes back to Mount Little.
“Anna,” I say, the syllables stumbling in my mouth, as though my tongue is a speed bump. What the hell did they pump into me?
“You got a last name, Anna?” he asks.
I take another sip. “Fox.” It sounds elongated in my ears.
“Uh-huh.” He tugs a notepad from his breast pocket, eyes it. “And can you tell me where you live?”
I recite my address.
Little, nodding: “Do you know where you were picked up last night, Ms. Fox?”
“Doctor,” I say.
The nurse twitches beside me. “The doctor will be here soon.”
“No.” Shaking my head. “I’m a doctor.”
Little stares at me.
“I’m Dr. Fox.”
A smile breaks like dawn across his face. His teeth are almost phosphorescently white. “Doctor Fox,” he continues, tapping the pad with his finger. “Do you know where they picked you up last night?”
I sip my water, study him. The nurse flutters near me. “Who?” I say. That’s right: I’ll ask questions, too. I’ll slur them, at any rate.
“The EMTs.” Then, before I can reply: “They picked you up in Hanover Park. You were unconscious.”
“Unconscious,” echoes the nurse, in case I missed it the first time.
“You’d placed a phone call a little after ten thirty. They found you in your bathrobe with this in your pocket.” He unfolds one massive hand, and I see the house key glinting in his palm. “And this beside you.” Across his knees he lays my umbrella, its body cinched.
It starts somewhere in my gut, then rushes past my lungs, across my heart, into my throat, shreds itself against my teeth:
Jane.
“What’s that?” Little is frowning at me.
“Jane,” I repeat.
The nurse looks at Little. “She said ‘Jane,’” she translates, ever helpful.
“My neighbor. I saw her get stabbed.” It takes an ice age, the words thawing in my mouth before I can spit them out.
“Yes. I heard the 911 call,” Little tells me.
911. That’s right: that southern dispatcher. And then the trek out the side door, into the park, the branches shifting overhead, the lights swirling like some unholy potion in the bowl of the umbrella. My vision swims. I breathe hard.
“Try to stay calm,” the nurse orders me.
I breathe again, choke.
“Easy,” frets the nurse. I lock eyes with Little.
“She’s okay,” he says.
I bleat at him, wheeze at him, lift my head from the pillow, neck straining, drag shallow breaths through my mouth. And with my lungs shrinking, I bristle—how would he know how I am? He’s a cop I’ve just met. A cop—have I ever even met a cop before? The odd traffic ticket, I suppose.
The light strobes before my eyes, faintly, tiger stripes of dark clawed across my vision. His own eyes never leave mine, even as my gaze climbs his face and slips, like a struggling hiker. His pupils are almost absurdly huge. His lips are full, kind.
And as I stare at Little, as my fingers rake the blankets, I find my body relaxing, my chest expanding, my vision clearing. Whatever they put into me has won. I am indeed okay.
“She’s okay,” Little says again. The nurse pats my knuckles. Good girl.
I roll my head back, close my eyes. I feel exhausted. I feel embalmed.
“My neighbor was stabbed,” I whisper. “Her name is Jane Russell.”
I hear Little’s chair complain as he leans toward me. “Did you see who attacked her?”
“No.” I work my eyelids open, like rusty garage doors. Little is hunched