Shiloh
At first, no one answers when I knock on the downstairs window. I want more than anything to go back up to Tro’s, but I can only get him into more trouble if they find me there. I knock again, harder, and the window slides open a minute later.
“Shiloh!” Kate says. I’ve clearly surprised her again.
“Tro’s in trouble,” I say, crawling through the window into what is obviously her bedroom.
She looks toward the hallway. “What’s going on?”
“The cops are upstairs. He sent me down the fire escape so they wouldn’t catch me in his bedroom.”
“Damn.” She takes a deep breath and rubs her eyes, then looks at me. “Did you hear what they wanted?”
“I got out of there as fast as I could. If they’re arresting him because of me…” I trail off as my face crumples and tears threaten. “I just never thought...but Billie…if she found out I came here, she might have done this.”
Kate starts shaking her head as I talk. “They were here a week ago. I don’t think it’s because of you.”
That information does nothing to settle my churning stomach. “Then why?”
“Stay here,” she says, turning for the hall.
I don’t. I drop my bag on the bed and follow her into a small living room. She goes to the door and opens it, and I hear voices and the sound of feet on stairs.
I move to her side just as Tro is being escorted across Kate’s landing flanked by two burly cops. He catches my eye and I’m surprised to see he doesn’t look afraid.
Which makes me feel better.
But then he nudges his chin at me and shakes his head, his eyes flashing over his shoulder as more feet thud on the stairs from his apartment.
They vanish around the corner of the landing and head down the next flight just as a heavyset older guy in a white button-up shirt emerges from the stairs to Tro’s apartment.
I back into Kate’s apartment and go to the living room window, watching the front entrance below.
The hinges creak as Kate closes the door all but a crack. “What’s going on?” I hear her ask.
“I’m sorry to bother you, but my name is Detective Stills,” a deep voice says. “May I ask you a few questions?”
She nods.
“What is your name?” he asks.
“Kate McGown,” she answers.
“This is your apartment?”
She nods.
“How long have you lived here, Miss McGown?”
“All my life.”
He pauses and I hear a rustle of paper. “I know this was a while back, but in or around late November of 2012, we believe your upstairs neighbor’s father might have shown up here. Do you remember hearing anything unusual? Maybe a fight? Raised voices or sounds of a scuffle?”
She thinks for a second, then shakes her head. “Not that I can think of.”
“As I said, it was a while ago,” he says. “How well do you know Trotte Gunnison?”
“He’s not here much because of his job, but we’ve been friends since he moved in four years ago.”
“Does anyone else live here with you?”
Instinctively, I duck into the corner, even though the door’s mostly closed.
“My grandmother passed away a few months ago,” she answers. “She was the only one.”
“Thank you for your time, Miss McGown,” he says, just as Tro and the officers spill through the door onto the sidewalk a story below. “If you think of anything at all, give us a call,” the cop adds after a second.
“Okay,” she answers and I hear the door click closed.
One of the cops grabs Tro’s arm once they’re outside, like he thinks Tro might try to run or something. Tro shakes him off and walks ahead of them toward the waiting cruiser. He lowers himself into the backseat, then looks up at the window I’m standing in and waves.
I spin on Kate as the cruiser pulls away from the curb. Her face is in her hand and a business card is pinched between her index and middle fingers. “What’s going on?” I ask around my heart, which is now firmly lodged in my throat.
“Nothing,” she says, pulling herself together. “There’s been a mistake.”
“But they were asking about Tro’s father.”
Her face scrunches into a grimace. “It’s a mistake.”
Kate must be right. This has nothing to do with me, and whatever they’re taking Tro in for is a mistake.
“He’ll be right back,” I tell myself as the cruiser disappears around the corner at the end of the street. And I pray I’m not wrong.
Chapter 33
Tro
“There appears to be a very large residuum of blood in the cracks of your wooden floor, Trotte,” the older cop, who it turns out is a homicide detective, says to me. “A large enough area that it might indicate someone lost a fatal amount of blood there.