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Deputy DA: After that?
Miss Stone: We talked a bit about the day, what I had been up to, how my garden was coming along, then she asked me to take her coffee cup downstairs to the kitchen on my way out. Then I said goodbye and went downstairs.
Deputy DA: And did you see Rhett then?
Miss Stone: Yes. He was in the kitchen.
Deputy DA: Doing what?
Miss Stone: Working on the cabinets. Opening boxes, specifically.
Deputy DA: Boxes of what?
Miss Stone: I don’t know—like cabinet liner or something.
Deputy DA: How close did you get to him?
Miss Stone: Well, I put the cup in the sink, which was right next to where he was standing.
Deputy DA: Exactly how close would you say?
Miss Stone: Probably two feet away.
Deputy DA: And you two still didn’t speak.
Miss Stone: No.
Deputy DA: Miss Stone can you describe, in detail, what Rhett Cohen was doing at this exact moment? You said he was opening boxes, can you elaborate?
Miss Stone: Yes he was using a knife to open the top of the boxes. I recognized it. It was one of my mother’s knives, from a set she has.
Deputy DA: Can you describe the knife?
Miss Stone: Yes, it was a large blue kitchen knife with a checkered handle. She got it with a set she ordered online. Rhett was using this knife to open the box.
Deputy DA: You saw it in his hand?
Miss Stone: Yes.
Deputy DA: And can you tell me the next time you saw that exact knife?
Miss Stone: Yes. Right after I found my mother’s body. An officer brought it in from the woods. It was covered in blood.
Deputy DA: And later, forensic testing confirmed that it was Rhett’s fingerprints on the knife, and your mother’s blood on the blade.
Miss Stone: Yes, that’s correct.
29
Rhett
Iexpect Detective Stroud to be at Sylvia’s home when I arrive, lying in wait, armed with handcuffs and snide remarks while I walk headfirst into whatever booby trap he’s conceived to ensure my re-entry into the prison system. Even as I park in her driveway behind her Jeep, even as I slowly circle her house on foot, I look for him.
He’s in my head. If not physically here, the man has taken up residence in my brain.
Whose fault is that, I wonder, as I glance up at the sky.
Thick, billowing clouds move swiftly overhead, in time with the rapidly dropping temperature. It is a gray and bleak dusk, as if autumn has simply given up, yielding to the impending winter.
