Beneath her fingers, Josie could feel the woman’s arm muscles tense. She sucked in a deep breath and on the exhale, said, “That was Nysa, wasn’t it? Oh my God. Is she dead?”
Josie said, “Would you like to sit down?”
“I can’t. I can’t sit right now. What happened?”
Josie let go of her arm and immediately she hugged herself. Tears glistened in her eyes.
“What’s your name?” Josie asked her.
“Christine. Christine Trostle. I’m Nysa’s roommate. She didn’t come home last night so I thought maybe she’d be here. Oh my God, is she dead?”
Christine’s burgeoning hysteria was palpable. Josie kept her voice calm and even. “We haven’t made a positive ID yet, but yes, we believe that the woman you saw inside is Nysa Somers, and I’m extremely sorry to tell you that she passed away. She was found in the pool. We tried CPR, but we were unable to revive her.”
A small line appeared in the center of Christine’s forehead. “CPR? For what? Did she, like, have a heart attack or something, while she was swimming?”
Josie thought about what they knew. The university’s star swimmer had been found floating face down in the pool. No bag, no bathing suit beneath her clothes. She’d still had her shoes on when Josie jumped in to get her. Had she come to swim at all?
“We don’t know,” Josie told her. “I’m afraid we don’t know much of anything at this point. My name is Detective Josie Quinn with the Denton Police Department. My team will be investigating her death. The medical examiner is on her way, but it may be days or even weeks before we have a definitive answer. What we really need right now is as much information as we can get about Nysa. You said you were roommates. How long have you known Nysa?”
Christine balled her fists inside her sleeves and used one of them to wipe at her tears. She looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time. Josie knew her brain was trying desperately to process what she had just seen and been told.
“Christine?” Josie said softly.
“Since freshman year,” she said, swallowing.
“You’re both sophomores now?”
Christine nodded and used her sleeve to dab at more tears. “Oh my God,” she breathed. “This can’t be happening.”
Josie tried to keep her focused on answering questions. “Were you roommates during your freshman year?”
“Yes. We were in the dorms. We got to be really close, so when it was time to get housing for this year, we decided to rent a student apartment together.”
“Where are you from?” Josie asked.
“Vermont.”
“Is Nysa also from Vermont?”
Christine shook her head. Her eyes wandered upward to the ceiling. “No. New Jersey.”
“I understand that Nysa was on the swim team. Are you on the team as well?”
Another shake of her head. “No. No way. I’m a terrible swimmer. Jesus. I can’t believe this.” One of her hands snaked out of its sleeve, reached up, and tugged hard at her ponytail. Finally, she met Josie’s eyes. “You said she was in the pool. Now she’s dead. Did she drown?” Before Josie could answer, Christine asked, “How in the hell does Denton University’s best swimmer drown alone in a pool?”
“We’re going to find out what happened,” Josie assured her. “Christine, you said Nysa didn’t come home last night, is that right?”
“Yeah. I was worried.”
“She didn’t come home from where?” Josie asked.
“The library. We had dinner in the commons last night and then I went back to our apartment, and she went to the library.”
“What time was that?” Josie asked.
“Around six, six thirty. Nysa had a paper due in one of her English classes and things can get pretty loud over in our area of student housing, even on a Sunday, so she wanted the quiet.”
“Did she walk? Or drive?”
“She walked,” Christine said. “Her car is still outside our place.”
“She walked from the commons to the library around six, six thirty and you didn’t see her after that?” Josie clarified. “Are you sure she didn’t come back to your apartment? Maybe after you were asleep?”
Christine shook her head. “I’m sure. I texted her at nine—the library is open till nine thirty—and she said she was finishing up. Then I was doing some reading for my history class, and I noticed it was eleven and she hadn’t come back or contacted me so I texted her again.” Christine reached into her sweatshirt pocket and took out her cell phone. She punched in a passcode and scrolled through a few screens. Then she turned the display toward Josie so she could read the text exchange between the two women.
At 11:03 p.m. Christine had texted: where r u? everything ok?
At 11:04 p.m. Nysa had responded: Everything’s good. Met up with a friend on the way back from library. Don’t wait up.
Then at 11:06 p.m. Christine wrote: Friend? What friend???
There was no response after that.
“I waited up until twelve thirty and then I fell asleep. I got up at seven fifteen because I’ve got a class at eight, but she wasn’t home. I looked in her room, but I couldn’t tell if she had been home or not ’cause her bed was a mess. She never makes it. Her toothbrush was dry as a bone though, which made me think she didn’t come home. I called her phone, but it went right to voicemail.” She swiped on her phone a few more times and then showed the display to Josie again. This time there was a call log showing that Christine had called Nysa three times between seven sixteen that morning and eight thirty. “I called a few times. Nothing. I didn’t know what to do, so after my class I thought I’d check here. I mean, Nysa is in the water every chance she gets. If she’s not home or in class, she’s here. I figured that if she wasn’t here, maybe some of her teammates would be. Maybe someone saw her. So I walked over here. Jesus. She’s really gone?” Her voice went up two octaves. “I just don’t understand. How can she be dead? This makes no sense.”
“Do you have any idea who she might have met up with last night?” Josie prodded. “Who the friend was that she referred to?”
“No. I don’t know. I just figured it was someone on the swim team. Those people are tight, you know? They hang out a lot.”
Josie made a mental note that the swim team members would have to be interviewed. She said, “Christine, when you last saw Nysa, was she carrying a purse or a bag of any kind?”
“Her backpack,” Christine said.
The lobby footage would show whether or not she still had her backpack when she walked into the pool building. They’d also need to check the locker rooms. That backpack and her phone had to be somewhere.
Josie continued with her questions. “Was Nysa dating anyone?”
“No. She said she didn’t have time for it.”
“Was she seeing anyone casually?” Josie asked.
“You mean, was she hooking up with anyone? I think that she might have been, but I’m really not sure.”
“What makes you think she might have been?”
“Just, like, she would be late sometimes coming back from practice or class and she was all flushed, and—I don’t know. Like, you know how someone looks when you walk in on them doing something they don’t want you to see? She would look like that.”