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“Oh. I didn’t know.”
“We can look her up in the national system and see if I can get a copy of her ID.”
“I actually have a picture of it on my phone.” I lower my gaze and reach for the phone in her hand. “May I have that back, please?”
“Sure.” She hands it to me then reaches into her back pocket and pulls out a little pad with a pen to jot something down.
“Do you know his age—Styx?”
“Umm...” I think back and do some math as I search for the copy of Mama Rosa’s citizen’s card in my photo album. It had her signature, which is how I practiced forging. “He’s been gone five or six years, so maybe twenty-four or twenty-five.”
The officer nods. “Any idea why he was shot?”
Probably for the drugs strapped to his chest or because he wasn’t supposed to be here. I can’t tell her that though. “No idea,” I say as I land on the image of the ID. “Here’s the information.”
“And the back?”
I slide to the next image with the parental names and medical tag numbers. She jots them down into her notepad. “I think we can get his information from this. If Styx is registered, it’ll appear on her record.” After transferring the info to her notepad, she asks, “Did you find him like this?”
When she moves onto a different question, I lock the phone and slide it into the outer pocket of my purse. “I was just getting home from... um... my s-second job. And a few minutes later, I heard the noise. When I opened the door, I called in and came out here to help.” I leave out the fact that he knocked on the door and the shutters shut, since those will lead to more questions.
The officer looks up and down my body, pegging me as a hooker, no doubt. “You live here?”
“Yes. Above the shop.” I don’t really like to give these kinds of details to anyone.
“Where is it that you work exactly?”
I point down the street. “The strip club at the beginning of the block.”
“You’re a stripper?” Her raised brows are due to the chunks of fat on my thighs and the slight pudge on my hips. Strippers around here don’t usually cash-out at size twelve.
“No, I just tend the bar some mornings.” A job I got for my cup size.
She narrows her eyes. “You picked up an extra shift?”
“Yes,” I confirm. “I don’t normally work at night since I work here, but it was a slow night at the shop, and the club offered me double pay, which comes in handy since I help out with the bills while Mama Rosa is...” I lower my gaze to the business card tucked into her pocket with the turquoise metallic foil on it, expecting her to question me more. “... recovering.”
No more talking. I tell myself before I start rambling and end up telling the detective I’m a drug thief.
“You know, you shouldn’t be walking out here at night by yourself.” She seems genuinely concerned. “You got off when?”
“Umm. My shift was from seven to three, but I only left twenty-thirty minutes after.”
The woman’s eyes round at the information and she glances around the street. Some of the metallic tape, attached to some plastic, is picked up by the breeze and shoved down the road along with the other trash.
“Did you see anybody or find anything strange when you were walking home, or when you came out here? Did you see anyone following you?”
“No.” The quick answer comes off performed, but it’s mostly because I don’t like what she’s implying: that I knew something. “I walk down this road every day.”
“Routines are always predictable.” She holds her pen in the air. “You didn’t notice the shutters are all closed and two of the street lights didn’t light up?”
My heart beat skyrockets. Telling her they were open when I came means admitting to knowing about how Pink Street worked. “I didn’t really pay attention. I just wanted to get home and take these shoes off so I could relax and open this place up at eleven the next day.”
She glances at her watch and shakes her head.
“No one ever sees anything on Pink Street.” She holds a finger in the air toward the EMT. “We’re going to stick around here for a while and then stop at the hospital. If you’d like to go with Styx, hurry up.”
I did not want to go, not even a little bit, but it’s the least suspicious thing to do.
