Chapter 8: Statement

The police station on Front Street smelled like burnt coffee and floor cleaner.

I knew the floor cleaner.

It was the same brand Glenn used on the sixth floor, and I almost laughed out loud.

They put me in a small room with a table and a camera in the corner.

The detective was a heavyset woman with reading glasses on a chain.

She was polite.

I answered every question in order.

I told her my badge had been in my bag on my chair, and that my fiance had walked by it.

I told her the sixth-floor hallway camera would show me standing in front of Colin at nine-forty.

"Has anyone else had access to your badge?" she asked.

"Colin borrowed it in August," I said. "I didn't think anything of it."

She wrote that down and underlined it.

Twice.

At eleven there was a knock at the door.

A man in a charcoal suit stepped in, thin and silver at the temples, carrying a leather case.

"I'm Ms. Marrin's counsel," he said. "This interview is over."

I stared at him.

I had never seen him in my life.

"Counsel," the detective said, and sighed. "She came in voluntarily."

"And she's leaving voluntarily. Ms. Marrin, would you like to go?"

"Yes," I said.

He held the door.

We walked out into the lobby, and there was Glenn on a plastic chair with his tie loosened and a paper cup in his hand.

He stood up so fast the cup went over.

"Are you okay?" he said, and took my face in his hands, and looked me over.

"I'm fine," I said. "Where did you get a lawyer?"

"My cousin," he said, and I watched him realize how weak it sounded. "He knows people."

The thin man opened his case and handed me a card, then took a second look at Glenn and kept his face perfectly blank.

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