“You guess or you remember?”
“I guess. I just remember we were passing the bottle around, up on the balcony.”
“And who was drinking beer?” the detective asks.
“What?” Anna’s chin jerks up, hair parting once again. For a quick moment, she meets the older woman’s eyes. Then her gaze drops to the pale glint of her knees.
“Before, you told me you were drinking whiskey and beer.”
“I did?” On the recording, you can see Anna press her lips between her teeth. She runs her tongue over the cracked, flaking skin. “I guess so,” she says after a moment. “I’d been drinking for hours—it’s not very clear. I guess there was also beer.”
“Tell me about how Zoe fell,” Detective Holloway says. She lifts her hand from the arm of the chair and places it lightly on Anna’s shoulder. Anna doesn’t seem to notice, doesn’t react. Her eyes are unfocused, but when she speaks, her voice is clearer than it’s been all night.
“The railing’s kind of low. Only up to your thigh? We were messing around, the three of us. I remember Kaylee pinching me, like she was trying to keep me awake. I guess I was pretty out of it. And I remember Zoe laughing. She had one of those infectious laughs, like silver. It made you feel all warm inside.”
“And how did she fall, Anna?” Detective Holloway squeezes the girl’s shoulder, not quite gently.
“Oh.” Anna looks up for a moment, not at the detective, but straight into the camera. It’s like she’s remembering, for the first time, where she is. What she came here to say. “Kaylee went inside. I think she was getting us a snack. Zoe and I stayed on the balcony. I remember twirling, our arms crossed in an X between us, holding hands. We were twirling and laughing and it was fun until I started to feel sick. I think I let go of her hands.”
“You think? You need to be honest, Anna.” Her words slice the air. Anna flinches, just slightly.
“I remember she hit the balcony rail. It was too low. Her knees buckled, and then it was like she was flying.”
“Cut the pretty language,” Detective Holloway snaps. “Just tell the truth.”
“She fell backward, onto the lawn.” Something wild dances in Anna’s eyes, then fades, her pupils sinking once again into dark, exhausted circles. For a moment, everyone is silent. Anna clasps her hands tight in her lap. “By the time I got down there … I don’t really remember seeing her body. I just remember the way it hit me like this cold, empty dread—she’s really gone, and it’s my fault. And I couldn’t find her bag; it was missing. I don’t know why that seemed important.”
AD Massey stands abruptly, chair rolling back and hitting the wall. Anna and Detective Holloway look up at him, as if they’ve both just remembered he’s there. “Did you push her?” His voice is thin but loud.
Anna draws in a sharp breath. “No.”
“I’m going to ask you one more time.” He takes three steps, closing the distance between them. Standing, he towers over Anna, all lean muscle and pants that are too big in the hips and too short at the ankle. The camera captures him from the shoulder down, a headless menace. “Did. You. Push. Her?”
“N-no.” For the first time, Anna trips over her words. “We were twirling. I let go of her hands.”
Detective Holloway glares sharply up at her junior partner. He takes one step back.
“What happened then, Anna?” she asks.
“I guess I drove her out to the lake.”
“You drove Zoe. Alone.”
“Yes.”
“In what car?”
Anna stares down at her hands, as if they might hold the answer. “I don’t remember. Maybe Zoe’s. Maybe a car from the Windermere property. Everyone has cars out here. And Mrs. Talbot isn’t much for keeping things locked.”
Detective Holloway grunts, part sound and part breath. “What do you remember, Anna?”
Anna draws in a lungful of air. “I remember the water. It was gray and dull, like an old car with the paint worn off. I remember kneeling on the bank, staring out across the surface after she was down there. I remember how cold it was that night, how the wind was sharp and wet against my cheeks. Most of all, I remember the guilt, how it crushed the air out of my lungs.”
The detective is silent for a moment, taking Anna’s words in. “Let’s take a step back,” she says finally. “How did you sink her body in the motorboat?”
Anna tugs at her lower lip with her teeth. “I don’t remember that part.”
“Think harder.” Detective Holloway’s voice is sharp.
“With buckets of water?”
“And what else?”
The girl pauses, considering. “With rocks?”
The two detectives exchange a glance.
“Okay. What rocks?”
Anna is silent for a moment. She chews a flake of skin from her lip and grinds it between her front teeth.
“From Windermere, I guess. Maybe I found some large rocks on the grounds, and I put them in the trunk.” She fidgets, rolling a new thread from her cutoffs between her thumb and forefinger, as AD Massey jots something down on the legal pad in front of him.
Detective Holloway clears her throat. She stands, changing the air in the room. “Tell me more about your relationship with Zoe.” Her voice is softer now, cajoling. “How did you know her?”
“We were friends,” Anna supplies unhelpfully. She’s mumbling again, holding something back.
Detective Holloway clasps her hands behind her back, exudes patience. “Had you known each other long?”
The question is so simple. But Anna doesn’t want to answer, or she doesn’t know how.
“Let me rephrase. How did you and Zoe meet?”
“I think …” Anna’s voice trails off. “It’ll be easiest if I show you. On my phone.”
This is new. Detective Holloway’s eyes light up. She nods toward her partner, who retrieves Anna’s phone from a small plastic basket on the room’s one desk. “What am I looking for?” he asks.
“Messenger. Bottom of the first screen? It’s like a little lightning bolt.”
AD Massey grunts, then taps open the app. He crouches next to Anna, holds her phone out between them.
“Scroll down a ways,” Anna says. “Here, it’s probably easier if I …” She looks up to Detective Holloway for permission.
Anna takes her phone gently from the junior detective’s hands, then starts scrolling back through months of chats. “Here.” She stabs her finger at a conversation from December—two messages from Zoe Spanos dated 12/10 and 12/28.
For a moment, the room is completely silent while the detectives pore over the notes from a dead girl. Anna barely breathes.
After her phone is taken away, the messages thoroughly dissected, then logged into evidence, after AD Massey has returned to his rolling chair and Detective Holloway is seated again at Anna’s side, only then does Anna draw in a full, deep breath.
“Is there anything else you’d like to tell us?” the detective asks.
For a moment, Anna is silent. Then, she turns to look the older woman in the eye. “We both loved that Tennyson poem. Do you know it? ‘The Lady of Shalott?’ ”