Authors: Ruth Vincent
Crap, what should I say?
I hated lying. I wished I could just tell him what I saw. But I could never tell the detective the truth—that Eva had been flying. He’d have me locked up in a mental ward.
“Um . . . yeah, of course, she must have fallen from the fire escape.”
“You’re certain?” said Foster.
“Yes,” I muttered miserably.
There was a beat of silence between us. The fluorescent light flickered and buzzed over our heads. I felt like the detective was carefully constructing a trap for me, slowly backing me into it, and I knew at any moment it would spring shut. But I wasn’t sure exactly where he was going with this, so I didn’t know how to respond.
“Well, there’s one problem with all of this, Miss Jones,” said Detective Foster.
I froze, waiting for him to go on, my stomach clenched.
“My team examined the exterior of Obadiah’s establishment, including the fire escape. As you know, it snowed heavily last night. If your friend Eva Morales had leaned too far over the railing of the fire escape, causing her to fall, her body would have left a mark in the snow on the railing.”
My breath caught in my throat. I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t come up with an explanation. I could feel the panic rising in my chest.
“If your friend had slipped on the ice and slid underneath the railing,” he continued, “there would be marks in the snow of the fire-escape floor, indicating a slide. But of course there are none of those either.”
Crap, what could I say? My mind was spinning. Of course there were no such marks in the snow on the fire escape, because Eva had never touched it. But how was I going to get Foster to believe me? How would anyone ever believe me that her body just fell from the sky?
I stared at my hands, clenched white in nervousness on the Formica tabletop.
“I don’t know where she fell from,” I said at last. I could feel my face turning red, because my body, unlike my mind, was unable to lie. “I never saw her fall,” I said. “Maybe it wasn’t the fire escape. I don’t know . . .”
“Do you know what the medical examiners said, Miss Jones?” said Foster, interrupting me.
I shook my head, feeling sick.
“They confirmed that Eva Morales’ injuries reflected a fall from at least fifty feet.”
I nodded. I was so sick at heart that I could barely process what he was saying.
“The height of the lower fire escape is only twenty-five feet,” said the cop, his voice raised now. “Fifty feet is the height of the rooftop.”
“But she wasn’t on the roof with us, I swear,” I protested. “Maybe she was on the rooftop across the street?” I said, my brain wildly trying to think of something. “She could have fallen off the roof of the opposite building?”
It was a poor defense and I knew it. I shifted uncomfortably in my chair.
“We already investigated that. The building across the street is empty and the door is locked with a chain. Eva Morales would have had no way of accessing that roof.”
Foster paused and leaned back in his chair and examined me. The fluorescent light flickered on his face.
“If someone falls off the roof of a four-story building, Miss Jones, their body will land directly below where they fell. In this case, that would have been on the sidewalk, outside Obadiah’s establishment. But instead, Eva was found in the middle of the street, at least ten feet from the sidewalk.”
His eyes narrowed. “In order for her to land in the middle of the street, there would have had to be another force acting on her body, enough to propel her an additional ten feet.”
I saw where he was going with this now, and yet I didn’t know how to stop it.
“I don’t think Eva Morales fell by accident,” said Detective Foster.
I was hyperventilating. I knew what he was about to say.
“I think Eva Morales was pushed.”
“That’s not true!” I protested. “I would never, ever do that to anyone, certainly not my best friend.”
I looked imploringly up at Foster. But his arms were crossed over his chest and there was a hard, cold expression on his face. I could tell he didn’t believe me in the least.
My mind was whirling, trying to think of any way out of this, any explanation other than the truth—that Eva had flown.
“I bet you didn’t find any skid marks in the snow on the roof either,” I said at last.
Foster eyed me keenly.
“You didn’t find signs of a struggle on the roof.”
Foster uncrossed his arm and sighed.
“That is correct,” he said at last, “but it doesn’t matter. Here’s what I think happened, Miss Jones. I think you and your boyfriend, Obadiah, put something in Eva’s drink. You drugged her, and then you carried her up to the roof of the building. Then you threw her off with such force that she landed in the middle of the street. You were intending to kill her . . .”
“That’s not true!” How could he think I would try to murder my best friend? “I’m worried sick about Eva right now. I just want to be out of this room, so I can go to the hospital and check on her.”
My heart was pounding in my chest. As much as I knew we were innocent, I had to admit, I could see how this must appear from Foster’s perspective. In his mind there could be no explanation other than that we pushed Eva off the roof. How could I convince him otherwise?
I had an idea.
“Look at me,” I said to the detective. “I’m four feet, eleven inches tall.” I gestured to my petite frame. “Do I seem like someone who could carry a person up three flights of stairs and throw them off a roof?”
The detective scrutinized me. His mouth was still set in the same hard, impassive line, but something had changed in his eyes. He was trying to hide it, but I could see that he’d been asking himself the same question.
“No, but I bet your friend Obadiah could,” he said.
It was true. Obadiah could have carried Eva with ease. Except that he hadn’t.
“I was with Obadiah the whole time. He was standing next to me. He never touched Eva. He’d never even seen her before, until he saw her on the ground.”
The detective folded his hands. There was a beat of silence between us, and I could hear the fluorescent light buzzing over our heads.
“How do you know your roommate had never met Obadiah before?” he asked.
“I just told her about his club tonight. She came because she was worried about me. They didn’t know each other.”
“But she could be lying,” countered Foster.
“I guess . . . but I don’t think so. She was only there tonight because she was trying to rescue me . . .”
Foster unfolded his hands and leaned forward, closer to me. The expression on his face and his whole demeanor changed. There was a sympathetic look in his eyes, which had been so hard and cold moments before. When he spoke, his voice was soft.
“Listen, Mabily. I don’t believe any of this was your idea. I know you care about your friend, and you’re devastated by what happened. I’m sure you didn’t want any part of this. But Obadiah Savage”—his eyes narrowed—“he’s very persuasive, isn’t he? He intimidated you? Threatened you?”
I could see where Foster was going with this. He was trying to be good cop and bad cop at once. I didn’t like it.
“It wasn’t like that, sir,” I said quickly. “Look, I know I probably seem like some young, scared girl to you. But I don’t let people mess with me. What happened to my friend was an acci dent.”
The detective folded his hands again.
“How long have you known Obadiah Savage?” he asked.
“Not very long,” I replied. “Actually, we just met tonight.”
Foster raised an eyebrow.
“I’m just wondering why you’re defending this guy. You just met him, you don’t know who he is, what he’s really like.”
I sighed. I could see the suspicion in Foster’s eyes.
“You’re right, Detective,” I said. “I don’t know him that well. But I know I was standing right next to him, and I know he didn’t push my friend off the roof.”
“What’s more important here—some guy you just met or your best friend, Eva?” the detective asked. He was trying a different tactic now.
“Eva, of course. But listen, I was with Obadiah when she fell. You asked me to tell the truth, right? He didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“But remember, you don’t know this guy very well.”
Foster was trying to sow seeds of doubt in me. And the thing was—it was true, I didn’t know Obadiah very well—but still—I had seen everything with my own eyes. Obadiah was innocent.
Foster studied me.
The kindly, sympathetic expression in his eyes was gone now, replaced by the old, hard gleam.
“I believe you’re innocent, Miss Jones,” he said.
“I’m glad to hear you say that, sir.”
“I think it was Obadiah Savage who carried your friend up to the roof and threw her . . .”
“But he didn’t,” I interrupted.
Foster cut me off with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“Miss Jones, hear me out, because what I’m about to say is very important. If you say that you had nothing to do with your friend’s fall, that you saw Obadiah carry her to the roof and throw her off . . .”
“But he didn’t do any of those things!” I protested.
Foster studied me intently. He paused for a second, weighing his words.
“Miss Jones, if your friend dies, there are going to be a lot of people wanting answers. I want to make sure that I tell your side of the story fairly, but I can’t do that unless you tell me what happened.”
“But I told you what happened. I can’t say I saw something I didn’t see. I can’t testify against someone I know is innocent.”
Foster sighed.
“I understand your point of view, Mabily. I understand that this is very difficult, but let me explain something to you. If, god forbid, your friend should die of her injuries, the D.A. is going to bring you
or Obadiah
up on charges of murder. Do you really want to go to prison for the rest of your life?”
My heart was pounding so hard, I could feel the blood pumping in my ears. I couldn’t believe what he was saying. He was asking me to testify against an innocent person just to get myself off. How could he do this?
“And even if your friend lives, the D.A. could still charge you with attempted murder. That means mandatory five-year prison sentence, and possibly up to twenty-five years.”
Foster and I stared at each other in silence. I felt numb. I studied his face. There were dark bags of exhaustion under his eyes. It must have been after 2:00 a.m., and I bet he wanted to go home. He silently tapped his fingers on the Formica table as he waited for my response. I could see the old, dirty wedding band that had embedded itself into the flesh of his ring finger. Through the haze of panic, I wondered if his wife was waiting up for him at home right now, or if she’d long since given up on him and gone to bed.
He isn’t a bad guy,
I told myself. He was just doing his job. His business was to resolve cases neatly and be done with them. If I went along with his narrative, the case could be done, “solved,” over. He probably really believed Obadiah was guilty, anyway.
But I knew better. And I couldn’t let this happen.
“No,” I said at last, breaking the silence, “I can’t do it. I can’t testify to something that isn’t true.”
Foster let out a long sigh and rubbed his eyes.
“Alright,” he said at last. “You’re free to go, Mabily. But I want you to go home and think about this. I’m going to call you back in here in a couple of days. By then I’ll expect a final answer. Just remember, if she dies and you’re charged with murder one, that could mean life imprisonment without parole. Think about that.”
I
t felt surreal, walking up the steps to Reggie’s office in the gray winter light. So much had changed since Friday night, it felt like the world should stop, pause on its axis for a day or two, just to let everything sink in. But life doesn’t work like that. And now it was 8:55 a.m. on Monday morning, and I was supposed to be at work.
I had considered asking Reggie for the day off, but there was no point to it. Eva was still in the ICU. They weren’t allowing her to have visitors. No amount of pleading calls to the nurses’ station seemed to be able to change that. There was absolutely nothing I could do but wait. It would be good for me to get out, I told myself. Otherwise¸ I’d just be pacing back and forth in the empty apartment—staring at Eva’s curtain of beads, so unnaturally still, or lifting the strands to peer at her altar—the burned-out candle stubs, the crystals and the little statues just as she’d left them, as if she’d gone down the street to the corner bodega and at any moment would be back.
I heaved open the heavy glass double doors to Reggie’s lobby and walked down the dingy hallway. At the end of the hall, Reggie’s office door was open. I could see him inside. His chair was tipped back against the wall and he had his legs propped up on his desk. He was munching on some sort of breakfast sandwich—it was on an everything bagel; I could smell the crunchy dried onion bits. His eyes were half closed, and he emitted little grunts of satisfaction as he chewed.