“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 a watch, and there were no clocks in the room, so I wasn’t sure. I remained in my seat, tried to keep my face expressionless. I knew I was being watched through the glass, analyzed, talked about. It was like I was tied down naked, being pawed at by a bunch of dirty hands. But I knew that if I stuck to my story, and if Brad’s body was never found, they wouldn’t be able to keep me here forever. I would get my life back, or a life back, at least. And I would never make the same mistakes again. I wouldn’t let people in. It only led to trouble.
The door opened, and Detective Kimball came in. He wore his usual outfit, a tweedy blazer and a pair of jeans, but he had a week’s worth of beard, and his skin was pale. He moved gingerly toward the chair, but didn’t sit on it, placing one of his hands on its back instead, and fixing me with a stare that seemed more curious than angry.
“Detective,” I said.
“I know you remember what you said to me,” he said. “Right before you stabbed me.”
“I don’t remember. What did I say?”
“You said ‘I’m sorry.’”
“Okay. If you say so.”
“Why would you say that, if you were scared of me, if you thought I was stalking you?”
I shook my head at him.
“I will find out what you don’t want me to find out,” he said. “I don’t know where it is, or what it is, but I’ll find it.”
“I hope you do,” I said, and stared into his eyes. I thought he’d break contact, but he didn’t. “I’m glad you’re okay,” I said, and I actually meant it.
“Well, at this point, it’s probably best for you that I am.”
I didn’t say anything else, and he kept looking at me. I searched for the hatred in his eyes, but didn’t see it.
The door punched open with a loud bang, and a man in a suit I hadn’t seen before slammed into the room. He was middle-aged, and hefty, with a gray mustache. “Out, Detective, right now.” Henry Kimball turned slowly away from me, then walked briskly out of the room, the man holding the door for him. Before the door latched behind them, I heard the man’s loud voice again: “Jesus Christ, what the fuck were—” I was left again in silence.
That evening, after I’d been returned to my cell, my lawyer visited me, pulling up a chair outside the bars on my door. “You had an unexpected visitor today,” she said. She was doing something strange with her face, and I realized that she was trying not to smile.