“I am,” I say, the panic only heightened seeing two of them here. The sun is directly in my eyes, and I shade them with my hand for a moment. “What happened? Is it my husband? He went to get milk.”
One of the detective’s palms goes up. “It’s not him. We need you to identify something for us. If you don’t mind.”
I swallow thickly, feeling the sweat rolling down my chest. The smell of smoke from last night floats up from my too-padded bra. “Sure,” I manage to say.
“Do you know this object?” the detective asks as he waves the uniformed cop forward. The kid cop holds up my red leather Celine wallet in a plastic bag marked EVIDENCE.
“Oh.” I shake my head, embarrassed tingles spreading all over my body, as if I’ve been caught. “I must have left it . . .”
I try to remember the end of the night. After the event, I was in a Lyft to . . . Hope Street Pizza Kitchen, which is only a block from our house and open late. I had a gin and tonic, I think. Maybe a slice of pizza. I see a bartender—Sarah—but she works at the Wrong Side of Hope Bar next door. So I guess I went there too.
“Did you find my wallet on Hope Street?” I point in that direction but realize a lost wallet wouldn’t bring a cop and detective to my house. “Where was it?”
“Your wallet was next to a body,” the detective says. “The body of a person we believe was murdered last night.”
“What?” I close my eyes and brace myself on the porch rail. All the blood has dropped to my feet. “Who?” I whisper, terrified it’s Sarah the bartender. Or anyone, really. “Who?” I snap.
“I’d like to bring you into the station for questioning,” the detective says.
“What?” I say again, and my vision blurs. “You cannot be serious. I mean, who was killed? Do I even know them?”
“Why don’t you get your phone and come with us?” he says softly, almost too nice.
That’s what cops do at first, my dad told me once—act like they care. Then they get what they want, which means you’re either tossed aside or tossed into jail.
“My son . . .” I hear the panic in my voice, but there’s no stopping it. I know what the police can do to a family. How even after they leave, the wake is felt for years, decades, a whole lifetime if you let it. “My son . . . he’s . . . inside alone. Yes. Alone. I can’t leave him.”
The feelings I had as a girl resurface, and all that shame burns with my present embarrassment. The tears begin, and I angrily wipe them away.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “This isn’t because of . . . the wallet. It reminds me . . .”
The detective glances at the cop. “It’s okay, Mrs. Smith. Can you tell us where you were last night?”
“Working at an event downtown,” I say and clear my throat. “I’m CEO of the Poe Foundation. We actually fund your annual Take Back the Night walk.” I wipe a few more tears into the T-shirt sleeve. “I know your boss.”
Detective Ramos clears his throat. “Why would your wallet be in the alley off Hope Street?”
I let out a long shaky breath. “Well, honestly, I went out for a drink after the event. I shouldn’t have. One too many,” I say and manage a small laugh. “Not enough to eat. I probably dropped my wallet on my walk home. Can you please . . . tell me who was killed?”
A van door slams in the distance. There’s shouting. Our house is close to Hope Street, one of the busier stretches on the East Side of Providence. But this time of day, it’s usually a lot quieter. Something is wrong.
There’s another sliding door. A man yells about getting “the shot.”
Stepping past Detective Ramos, I narrow my gaze down the block past the front yards of colonial and Cape-style homes. News vans are parking in front of Kitchen Bar. I recognize the logo from a Boston station. People with video cameras hurry across the street toward the Wrong Side of Hope Bar. “That’s where it happened?” I whisper. “By the Sider?”
Detective Ramos clears his throat, and his focus darts to the news vans. “Damn it, they’re fast,” he says to the young officer. “Be sure the tape is up and the scene is locked down.”
The cop strides toward our white picket fence. He speaks softly into a radio clipped to his shoulder.
The distraction gone, my question screams in my throbbing head. “Who was killed, Detective?” I cross my arms tight across my chest and try to stay calm. Stay smart. “Please, tell me who?”
His cheek twitches as his lips press together. He doesn’t want to tell me. Likely, he’s saving it for the interrogation room. I get another waft of sweaty cigarette smoke from my bra. A memory arrives: Light-brown eyes and long eyelashes as a lighter sparked. The momentary contact of our skin and how it contrasted even more than usual in the full moon light. Mine so pale, almost transparent, and his a rich brown.
I can’t remember for certain, but it feels like Terrance Castle met me last night. I hear the words he whispered after he left me on the stage of the grant announcement that would make our careers.
Text me after, Jules.
“Terrance,” I whisper, my throat suddenly on fire. “No, please not him.”
“Whoa, what did you say?” My realization seems to strike the detective between the eyes as he stammers, then waves the cop back over. “You said the name Terrance. Are you referring to Professor Castle?”
“Dr. Castle,” I correct. “Yes. The event was for him. To announce his partnership with the Poe Foundation.”
“You were with him last night?”
The way the detective’s voice turns eager is all the confirmation I need that this brilliant man is dead. Tears begin again with purpose, having something to grab and sink into. “Oh my God.” I drop onto the step and sob into my hands. “It is him?”
Detective Ramos replies in the affirmative, but I can’t comprehend the words.
My mind flashes through interactions with Terrance, but it’s hard to focus on a particular memory with the truth that everything is in the past.
My mind stops on the first speech I saw Terrance give. It was a keynote at Brown University, where he is . . . was . . . a professor. The Poe Foundation had sponsored the conference: Big Ideas in the Smallest State. Terrance strode onto the stage in his crisp white shirt. He began speaking in that hot spotlight with a simple question: “Are you ready to heal what’s broken?”
He was an early adopter of an approach to addressing crime called restorative justice. He explained how communities are full of pain from crime, both the criminals and victims.
“We aren’t asking the right questions,” he argued. “Because it’s easier to merely punish. But why did they commit the crime? Could it have been stopped? Could a simple intervention have kept the victim safe? We aren’t asking these questions, because we’re scared of the answers.”
I was only one person in that silent and rapt auditorium, but it felt like Terrance was speaking to me about a future we could make together.
“Restorative justice can help the people who committed the crime as well as the victims,” he said. “Yes, the bone is broken, but we can set it right and heal everyone impacted.”