He wanted Dee Nash, the host of Crime After Crime, to see him in the office. Wyatt was at this store only a couple of hours a day and would never know Berk had passed off this desk as his own. As he waited he played with his tie, which the younger guys had already teased him about. Dee Nash was punctual. At five minutes to one o’clock he saw her arrive on one of his brother’s monitors. A black woman in a well-tailored pantsuit, she moved with a cop’s authority past the registers and inquired with the floor manager.
Berk drew some papers to himself and picked up a pen as she entered the office. He had no idea what he was signing so intently when he looked back up.
“Mr. Butler?”
“Detective.”
“Former detective. So it’s just Dee now.”
He’d watched one episode of Dee Nash’s show. It began with a young woman, unmoving, in a pool of blood, the kind of image he would switch off if he could. The camera angle cut to a victim’s-eye view, and they showed Dee Nash walking across a gritty parking lot toward the camera, police tape blowing in the wind. I lost my sister to violence when I was ten. That’s when I knew I had to dedicate my life to helping other victims. Time doesn’t heal wounds. Justice does.
The phone on the desk began lighting up and Berk realized he didn’t have a plan for that. He let it ring.
“Berkeley,” Dee began, “I don’t believe in a lot of small talk.” She glanced at the blinking phone lines. “And you’re a very busy man.”
“Twenty-four stores I run. Failing or succeeding because of the decisions I make every day. Lucky I even get to see my little girl at all at night.”
Dee asked how old his little girl was, and Berk said four, born after he’d met his wife, Serenity, and they’d wed in Vegas. His daughter was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
“We do it all for them, don’t we?” she said.
“Sure as money is money.” Berk leaned back in the chair, almost too far.
“And I want to thank you for taking the time to talk with us about going on camera.”
He leaned forward in the executive chair. “So how much does this pay?”
“I’m sorry if there was any confusion. We don’t pay interview subjects.”
Berk made a sound like she’d slugged him in the gut. “Then I’m wondering what it is I can do for you. My memory might not be so fresh.”
“You have a very personal interest in telling your story. You were closest to Haley Rae Kimberson.”
Hearing her full name was like being accused of things all over again. “I wouldn’t say close close.”
“I’m not concerned about the age difference. Those were different times.” Dee set her bag on the floor. She took out a small notebook.
“I’d feel more comfortable without that,” Berk said, shifting in his brother’s chair. “My words got used against me before.”
Dee put the pen down. “Old cop habit. And after what they put you through I should have known. A good man like yourself. Never got to tell your side to a jury.”
Berk nodded at the flattery.
“So what would you say was most important? If you were trying to explain what happened to someone who’d never heard of Haley Kimberson or you or Kennedy Wynn, what would you tell them?”
Berk had brought a Polaroid of Haley with him to work that day, like a talisman. It was from the moment she’d walked into his off-campus apartment only a couple of weeks before she died. He’d tugged it out from hiding spots and looked at it over the years. It didn’t quite capture how she could see right through his bullshit, that she knew his knowledge of philosophy and world religions would not stand up to the most basic interrogation. Or that he never read the books stacked on the floor in his bedroom. On their first all-night phone call he’d asked Haley what she was reading. She said W. S. Merwin. He laughed and said he wasn’t into mom poetry. “Try some Bukowski. That’s the real stuff.”
She’d found the Merwin in the thrift store in Blueheart and it intrigued her. He knew she didn’t have a lot of money to spend on new books. When Berk offered to drive her up to Washington, DC, to go book shopping at cool bookstores like Politics and Prose, she hedged.
“Everything ends up in a thrift store one day,” she replied. “That doesn’t make it less real. Just that everything had its time. Even your books.”
She had touched his shallow soul by reading him poems all night on the telephone, and now the Polaroid was the last of her. Haley, full cheeks, light freckles, white tank top, necklace at her throat, her red hair spilling from a sloppy bun, her eyes slightly closed as she laughed, red-lipsticked mouth.
The only part of Kennedy in this photo was her hand, on Haley’s upper arm. When he’d put it in his pocket that morning, he didn’t know if he would show it to Dee or if he just wanted it near him. His fingers grazed its edge, then he took them away and put his hand back on the desk. It felt too intimate.
“I can see you’re still a little hesitant, but I flew in from Los Angeles just so we could talk. I hope that shows how committed I am to telling the truth,” Dee said.
He scoffed. “Hesitant? No, just thinking things through. That’s what bosses do.”
The phone began ringing again.
“You do know Kennedy Wynn was released today? We filmed her being picked up by her family,” Dee said.
“That today? Didn’t write it down in my daybook, I guess.” Berk smirked.
Dee reached down into her bag and pulled out a camcorder, not much bigger than a pear. She set it on the desk in front of her, flipped the screen, and offered to play the video for him.
He could feel himself sweating through the collared shirt he wasn’t used to. “Are you going to talk to Kennedy?”
“We’ll talk to anyone involved who wants to tell their story. That’s why it’s important to tell yours.”
Berk thought about what Kennedy would say about that summer. All the lies coming back. Maybe this hadn’t been a good idea. “This is going to be like a documentary, right? Not an investigation?”
“We have some questions that we think weren’t asked at the time.”
“What questions?”
“Haley was stabbed nineteen times. Three of her ribs broken.” Her voice was flat as she recited the facts. “Was Kennedy a strong girl? Tall? Maybe our height?”
Five-three, he thought, five-four maybe. Berk tried to remember, then realized where she was steering the conversation. “Not so tall. No.”
“Those are the kind of questions we’ll ask.”