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“Chosen.” The other woman echoed Harris’s words and a distant look came over her face. “But why?”
“We’re still trying to figure that out.” Harris leaned forward. “The night before she died, did you know where Sage was? Who she was with?”
Mrs. Washington’s face hardened again. “My baby was a good kid.”
“I’m not suggesting she wasn’t.” Harris worked to keep her voice gentle and even. “But if we know where she was or what she was up to, then it might help us narrow down our search area.”
“She was downtown. She’s older than my boys. A lot more responsible. She stayed home to save up money and help us around the house. She was never a big partier, but she liked to go downtown time to time, you know.”
“With her friends?”
Mrs. Washington nodded her head. “Carla Rigsby and Sherri Coleman. She usually went out with them. Sometimes Lani Rodriguez.”
“Do you have contact info for them?”
“I gave that to the first officer I spoke to.”
“Any men in her life?”
Mrs. Washington laughed, but it sounded more like a sob. “No. She’d been trying online dating for a while. Never had much luck. She was too smart for any of them. Didn’t want to settle.”
“Smart girl.” Harris offered a weak smile, and it was not returned. “Do you know if she had a date on Friday or if she was just going out with her friends?”
“Like I said, she tried online dating, but it didn’t work for her.” She took a moment to calm down. “We didn’t really talk about it. She was a private person. Never kept anything from me, I guess, but she was shy. Liked to wait until she was sure before she said anything. She always said it wasn’t worth bringing anyone home if they weren’t going to stick around for a while.”
“Do you know what kind of guys she was into?”
“Sage was smart. Careful. She wouldn’t have gone out with anyone who could’ve done this—who could’ve—” A sob escaped her mouth, and the woman looked away.
“Sometimes it’s the people we least expect. This man could be charismatic. Unassuming. Completely ordinary. Boring, even. Sometimes we might act against our better judgment when we’re attracted to someone.”
Mrs. Washington looked back at Harris. The hardness had returned to her eyes. “I don’t know who she was seeing. I don’t know where she was. Talk to her friends.”
“Ma’am—”
Mrs. Washington shouted toward the back of the house. “Jimmy! Get out here.”
“Ma’am, please.”
The other woman grabbed her cane and pushed herself to her feet. “I appreciate you coming out here, Detective Harris, but I have to continue making arrangements for my daughter’s funeral.” Jimmy entered the room and looked up at his mom expectantly. “Walk the detective to the door. Then we have to go.”
Harris stood and produced her card. “If you think of anything else.”
Mrs. Washington looked down at the card, back up at Harris, and then turned and ambled from the room. Young Jimmy pulled the card from Detective Harris’s hand and tucked it in his pocket before leading her back through the kitchen.
At the door, Harris looked down at him. There was a sadness in his eyes that would take years to disappear, if it ever did. “Do you know if your sister was seeing anyone?”
Jimmy looked over his shoulder before he answered. “No. But Carla would. She was always getting Sage in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
His eyes widened. “Nothing bad. Just coming back late. Sometimes she was drunk. But she never drove when she was like that.”
“She sounds like she was a good big sister.”
“Yeah.” His voice was far away. “She is. I mean, was.”
Detective Harris didn’t know what else to say, so she just thanked him and left, feeling like she was no closer to an answer than she was when she had arrived.
