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“We’ll wait outside,” he said. Gus looked over his shoulder. The police would enter the house, guns drawn. He wanted his sister safely outside when that happened, just in case. “Come on, Theo.”
Theo stepped around the kitchen table and took his hand. Hers was shaking. Gus moved between her and the body and, placing his arm about her shoulders, gently guided her back to the front door. He sat her down on the small porch and held her as they waited.
The first squad car arrived quietly, without lights or siren. Gus spoke to the uniformed policemen, who instructed them to wait outside while they secured the scene. They entered the house as Gus expected, with their weapons drawn. One of the officers emerged shortly thereafter and radioed for assistance. The cars that arrived after that did not do so quietly. The house became webbed in police tape as men in forensic overalls dusted, and sprayed, and swept. Theo watched mutely. Gus had wrapped her in his own jacket. He was worried that she might be in shock. Even now, he was trying to convince the detectives to let him take her home.
But they insisted upon taking her statement first. They did so in the back of a police van because Theo did not want to go back into the house.
She gave the young policeman her name and address and told him how she came to find Dan Murdoch’s body.
“And what’s your relationship to the deceased, ma’am?”
“We were friends.” Theo wiped the edge of her eye with the heel of her hand.
“So you had a spare key?”
“No. The door was open.”
“And you followed a cat in?”
Theo looked up sharply as she caught the note of skepticism in the policeman’s voice. “I don’t have a key,” she said again. “We weren’t…”
“Have you found the cat?” Gus interrupted.
The officer ignored him. “Can I ask why you washed your hands, ma’am?”
Theo looked down at her hands. The cuffs of her sleeves were wet and pink where the stain of blood had run. “I didn’t… I just splashed water onto my face… I didn’t think…”
“Officer, can’t this wait?” Gus said again. “I’d like to take my sister to see a doctor.”
The policeman studied Theo. “I’m sorry, ma’am, were you hurt?”
“No, I wasn’t…”
“For pity’s sake, man, the poor girl’s in shock.” Gus was frustrated now. “She’s just had the bejeezus scared out of her!”
“Would you care to wait outside, sir?”
Gus refused, declaring himself Theodosia Benton’s lawyer as well as her brother.
Theo thought he was overreacting, overprotective, but she was glad he was there, that he refused to go.
The officer called in an officer in plain clothes—a Detective Mendes, who seemed to recognize Gus. He looked over the notes of the interview and instructed them to make sure they’d be available the following morning for further questions. “I’ll send an officer with you to take your clothes.”
“Our clothes?”
“You know the routine, Benton. You were both on the scene—there may well be evidence on your clothing.”
“Yeah, all right, fine,” Gus murmured grudgingly.
The police officer that Mendes sent home with them was female. Theo undressed in her bedroom, systematically handing each item of clothing over as she took it off. The constable was discreet and considerate. Theo felt vaguely violated nonetheless.
“Just to be clear, I’ll need that suit back,” Gus reminded the officer, pulling a T-shirt over his head as his suit and shirt were sealed into a large brown envelope. “Contrary to popular myth, men cannot get away with wearing the same suit every day.”
Theo curled up into Gus’s old couch, listening as her brother joked with the policewoman. Gus was a natural flirt—he got away with it because he was cute and funny and maybe because he had an Australian accent. Whatever the reason, Officer Reaves gave him her number before she left.
Gus brought Theo a cup of hot chocolate that smelled like it had been laced liberally with brandy. He took the other end of the couch and said nothing for a while. Then finally. “Are you all right, Theo?”
She cried for a while then, grieving for the first friend she’d made in Lawrence, the man who’d become her lover barely two days before, weeping at the horror of it, the loss of it. For the memories elicited by the blood. Gus let her cry, held her at times, and ordered Chinese food. In his experience sorrow made you hungry. He was a lawyer. He’d met enough people on the worst day of their lives to know that.
