Ned: No.
Detective Ponder: And you didn’t hear her leave?
Ned: I said no. I didn’t.
Detective Ponder: OK. What time did you wake up this morning?
Ned: Like six thirty. I work a shift at Target later today… Oh, I’ve got to call them.
Castillo: We’ll have Mrs. Pollitt call them for you.
Ned: You get more Critters the earlier you go, in the park, and the game was offering bonus points before noon today, and so that was our plan. Play the game, go have a doughnut together at Donut Shack—it’s right by Target—then I’d go to my shift. I told Mom last night that was what we were doing. Oh, I forgot. I went into the garage this morning to get my charger out of my car. Her car was there. So that’s why I thought she was there, too, I guess. I for sure didn’t think she’d gone for a walk.
(Sounds of crying)
Castillo: Can he have a minute?
(Break, interview resumes)
Ned: I just don’t understand who could hurt my mom. She didn’t have any enemies. Everyone loved Mom. No one hated her. Ask Mrs. Pollitt. They’ve been friends forever.
Detective Ponder: We found an inexpensive phone under the park bench. This is a photo of it. I’m showing Ned Frimpong a picture I took of this phone.
Ned: That looks like the phone she was using last night. Who was she calling?
Detective Ponder: I can’t share any information about this with you right now.
Ned: Tell me! Was she calling the person who killed her?
Detective Ames: We don’t know yet.
Ned: I’ll find out. I’ll find out who it is. She can’t…She can’t be dead. She’s my mom. My mom can’t be dead.
(End of interview)
7
Kyle
Kyle has, very quietly, destroyed the phone. He did it with a hammer, and on a towel, spread out on the master bathroom floor. Trying to make sure that Grant doesn’t hear. Dad, what are you doing? Why would you destroy your phone—wait, whose phone is that?—all questions he cannot bear to answer right now. Kyle wraps up the shattered screen and the SIM card and the other components and dumps them all in a plastic grocery trash bag, then puts them in another bag. Then he folds up the towel and puts it back in the bathroom closet and hurries out to the garage, putting the hammer back in its little outlined spot on a board where all his tools are mounted. He wonders if he should rinse the hammer or wipe it down, if there can be traces of phone components on it the way there could be traces of blood on a weapon. He decides not and leaves the hammer in its place. He cannot imagine his kids or Iris finding him, on this dark day, washing off a hammer, doing something so odd without a real explanation.
You just have to get through today.
After a moment’s hesitation, he puts the bag in the trash can. It sits next to a matching recycling bin. For a moment he wonders if it’s better to hide the broken phone in the recycling. Will the police be less likely to look there? No, of course not. He is overthinking this, overthinking everything, and that is its own danger. He’ll say or do something suspicious, and he can’t. He mustn’t.
He would like to take the phone’s remains to a dumpster somewhere, but businesses have cameras in parking lots or in alleys now, and he doesn’t want to be captured on film getting rid of anything.
That is something guilty people do.
He goes back inside the house. Grant is sitting at the kitchen island, drinking orange juice, looking at his own phone. He glances up at his father. “Who died in the park, and why didn’t you tell me? Kids are talking about it on Nowpic.”
“I didn’t want to upset you. It’s Danielle Roberts.”
He sees the shock pass along his son’s face.
Grant is not a crier. Kyle always thinks it’s because Grant learned as an infant at that dismal orphanage outside Saint Petersburg that crying got him no extra attention; it was never a solution. His mouth now, though, quivers and he starts to breathe in sharp huffing pains, and Kyle hurries to him, thinking, I’m losing my grip if I thought this was the right way to tell him, and folds his son in an embrace.
“Did she have, like, a heart attack in the park?” Grant manages to ask.
“No, son. No. Someone killed her.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I guess the police will find out.”
Under his arm, he feels Grant suddenly stiffen. His son disengages from the hug, wanders over to the sink. Then he throws up the gulps of orange juice he’s downed. Kyle, uncertain, puts a reassuring hand on Grant’s back while Grant rinses his mouth with water and spits into the sink.
“I know this is a shock.”
“I wouldn’t be who I am without Danielle. I’d be someone else. Some Russian kid no one wanted. Or adopted by some other family.”
It’s all true, but Kyle doesn’t know what to say to this. The ripples Danielle had set in motion in all their lives. “They’ll find whoever did it,” he repeats.
“Where is Ned? And Mike?”
“Ned is talking to the police. I don’t know about Mike. I should try to call him.” That’s a thing an innocent person does, try to help. He gets out his phone—his usual phone—from his pocket and calls Mike’s number. He stands at the window. He can see Danielle’s house; there are no police cars there yet. Surely they’ll be arriving to secure her home, to look for evidence. The thought chills him. What does she have in there?
He gets Mike’s voicemail. “Mike, it’s Kyle. Call me as soon as you get this.” He imagines then that the police or Ned have already tried to reach Mike. “I’m so sorry.” He shouldn’t have said that, in case Mike’s listening to his voicemails in order and the police are probably not leaving him a message that his girlfriend is dead.
Stop second-guessing. Act normal. Forge ahead.
He adds: “Call me, Mike, please.” And hangs up.
“Where’s Mom?”
“At the police station with your sister and Ned.” Danielle’s house. What’s in her house that could point back to him? He goes to the large window in their living room. The house is two homes away from theirs. She moved into that house when Ned was in middle school, years after Grant had come from Russia as a squirming baby in their arms.
You have to get in before the police do. Lakehaven is a small department. They don’t often deal with murder, and he guesses from the Travis County sheriff’s cars that arrived to secure the park that they’ll be the lead agency. And TCSO is big and capable. But he can’t go inside there, not now, with the police about to arrive. Nothing would make him look worse.
You have time. You’re her friend and neighbor. Make up an excuse.
He puts on his running shorts, shoes, and a pullover.
“Are you going for a run?” Grant asks, disbelieving.
“Yes. A short one.” Kyle heads out the back door, along the greenbelt. His phone chimes. He glances at the screen. Mike Horvath. He steels himself. “Mike,” he answers.
“What’s going on?” Mike’s deep voice, booming.
“Where are you?”
“I got up early this morning and went fishing on Lake Travis with Peter.” Peter was Mike’s son, a senior at Lakehaven. “Why are the police looking for me? I got two voicemails before yours…”