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“No.”
“Then just you, if you don’t mind.”
Armpit went out one door and in the other. He led Detective Newberg into the living room and offered her something to drink, but she declined. He sat at one end of the red and blue plaid couch, and she sat across from him on an ottoman, her knees close together and her notebook on her lap.
She seemed too young and too pretty to be a police officer. She had bright brown eyes, and curly black hair very similar to Kaira’s. Her cheeks had a red glow to them, as if she was blushing.
“So I understand you paid six hundred dollars for the tickets, is that correct?”
He hated to start right out with a lie, but it was the path of least resistance. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Was that six hundred total, or six hundred per ticket?”
“Total,” he said. “Three hundred per ticket.”
“That’s a lot of money.”
He suddenly felt very conscious of the old and well-worn furniture. Everything in his house seemed shoddy and cheap.
“Well, I wasn’t planning to pay that much,” he said. “It was supposed to be only a hundred and thirty-five a ticket, but then the guy kept changing his mind. First they were for sale. Then they weren’t. Then they were again. Three hundred’s not really that much for Kaira DeLeon tickets. They went for seven hundred and fifty in Philadelphia.”
“Wow,” said Detective Newberg.
He tried to relax. He wasn’t a suspect, he reminded himself. He was the victim. She was here to help him.
“What do you mean they were only supposed to cost one hundred and thirty-five?”
“There was an ad in the paper.”
The second he said that, he knew it was a mistake. She could easily get ahold of last week’s newspapers and find the ad, along with X-Ray’s phone number.
“What newspaper was that?” she asked.
“It wasn’t really a newspaper. It was one of those free advertisements, you know, that they stick on your door.”
“Do you still have it?”
“No, it got recycled.”
“Do you remember what day it was placed on your door?”
“No. It might have been two weeks ago. I just don’t remember.”
“And the ad was for a hundred and thirty-five dollars?”
“No, I don’t think it was that much.”
“You just said—”
“It was for ninety-five,” Armpit said firmly. “But that was two weeks ago. By the time I called the guy, he said the price had gone up to a hundred and thirty-five so I told him I had to think about it. Then when I called him back on the day of the concert, he said the tickets were no longer for sale. But then he called me back and said they were for sale again, but the price was now two hundred. But then when I tried to buy the tickets he said they weren’t for sale again.”
“And that’s when you offered him three hundred?”
Armpit nodded. “I was desperate. It was five-thirty. The concert was at eight. I’d already promised Ginny.”
“Did he ever tell you his name?”
He shook his head.
