Casey read online that the NYPD confirmed Julia Sexton’s identity a little while ago. There was a teaser for the story at the top of the evening newscast. Sitting in front of the television in anticipation, especially on the heels of Rowan’s text, Casey can’t stop glancing over at the razor blade in the drying rack beside the sink. It might as well be flashing a neon beacon.
I’m bored. That’s the problem. I need something else to do. Something constructive, to keep my mind and my hands occupied like when I made those little gifts for Rowan, and the time capsule scrapbooks, too.
I always was artistic. Too bad I never got to put my creativity to good use until lately.
Maybe Casey should become an artisan of some sort when this is all over. A sculptor or a painter, creating masterpieces that will hang on museum walls all over the world . . .
That might make up for the fact that I’ll never get to take credit for this magnum opus.
The newscast is back from commercial with a chalk outline graphic. This is it. The shot of the news desk gives way to a reporter standing on the street outside a familiar Chelsea apartment building fronted by a grid of fire escapes.
Too bad I didn’t get to climb them, Casey thinks, turning up the volume and leaning forward eagerly. Rapunzel made it too easy for me. That’s why I’m so tempted to get careless.
Even the girl this morning made it easy.
“The victim in Saturday night’s homicide case has been identified as Julia Sexton, a young singer--songwriter who, like many, came to New York City with dreams of stardom . . .”
It wasn’t Saturday night, Casey thinks critically. It was Sunday morning. Sunday, bloody Sunday. Even the media can’t get it right.
The reporter goes on talking about Julia, showing a montage of photographs: baby photo, little girl missing her two front teeth, in a cap and gown, on stage with a microphone. There’s an interview with some guy carrying bags of groceries and standing on the stoop of her building, a neighbor who has frustratingly little to say about both victim and crime.
The lack of recognition is starting to get to Casey. Too bad the NYPD cops are too ignorant to realize that Julia Sexton has plenty of company. Maybe it’s time to send them a note or make a phone call, something like that. Just so that they’ll make no mistake about who has the upper hand here. It can’t hurt. Jack the Ripper and the Zodiac did it, and they were never caught.
Casey watches with interest as the boring man--on--the--street interview is replaced by earlier footage of a middle--aged -couple the reporter describes in voice--over as Julia’s parents. Heads bowed, arm in arm, they’re being escorted from the morgue by a -couple of uniformed cops and flanked by a pair of detectives: a tall African--American male and a female with—-can it be?—-long red hair.
It’s pulled back in a clip, but Casey can just imagine what it would look like falling down her back; what it would feel like . . .
Now there’s a close--up of the woman—-identified as Detective Sullivan Leary—-being questioned by the reporter.
“All I’m authorized to tell you at this point is that we’re working on a number of leads, and we’re asking anyone with information to call our tip hotline.”
A phone number flashes on the screen.
Casey grins. Just what the doctor ordered.
As Rowan watches Jake’s car pull into the driveway from the window of her study, her stomach turns.
He thinks he’s coming home to chicken Marsala, a happy wife . . . normalcy.
“I think you should just tell him the truth, Ro,” her sister advised earlier, when she called back. “Then you won’t have anything to worry about anymore.”
Her sister is delusional. Telling Jake she had a near--miss with an affair fourteen years ago would open the door to a whole slew of things to worry about.
When she said that to Noreen, the response was “Are you sure you’d be worse off than you are now? Because all you’re doing is worrying. I can assure you that marriages have withstood much bigger issues than this.”