Influence

Chapter 11

Sunlight forcing its way through cracks between plastic blinds created cage bars of light and shadow on the cement floor. The room was not intimidating. A Formica table and hard plastic chairs dominated the space, which was nondescript save for a drug free America poster. As the smell of burnt coffee wafted in from the open doorway, Tam shifted in her chair, folding and unfolding her hands on the table in front of her. The police had questions. Of course. She was a witness. Or nearly so. She hadn't seen it happen, but it had to have been only minutes before she arrived that Goldie fell to her death.

Tam closed her eyes. No, that couldn't be right. Goldie called her, had to tell her something but didn't want to. Tam went, bracing herself for a firing or a yelling at or worse. But the reality was worse than worse, and Tam wasn't ready to accept it. It couldn't be. She'd dreamt it all, and she was still dreaming.

Denial wasn't the comfort she wished it would be.

She stopped folding her hands long enough to pick at the zipper on her hoodie, running it up and down several times before stopping herself. That was a nervous habit she'd worked to remove from her litany of nervous habits and now she'd regressed.

"Damn it," she said under her breath.

"Damn what?" The detective with the severe ponytail and a beauty mark under her left eye entered the room carrying a clipboard. She plopped it on the table and took a seat across from Tam. Her partner, whose first or last name was Ryan trailed in behind her, closing the door before leaning against it.

"Everything. This whole night." She forced her hands underneath her butt. It was morning now, though. The night—that night—was gone, never to be redone. It wasn't part of an EpiGold that could be reshot so that Goldie could edit out her own death like she'd edited out the argument with her mother in the Maldives.

Goldie had fallen. Goldie was dead. End scene.

"Goldie. Goldie's dead."

Her eyes ached. Her chest felt tight, like she wasn't worthy of a body free of misery. If she would only cry, the tension may break, but her tears stayed put.

The female detective appeared as tightly wound as Tam, dark eyes wild and bloodshot. She had to remember that she wasn't the only one who'd been up all night. The detectives hadn't slept either and they were only doing their jobs. They could speed it along though. There wasn't anything more for Tam to tell them. She'd given them her phone willingly, even though in the back of her head she remembered you should only surrender such things if you were handed a warrant first.

She didn't want to seem suspicious. She answered their questions at the scene last night and again at the station. She tried not to seem riled. She tried not to seem guilty. She was innocent, after all. Of this crime, at least. They weren't investigating all the years of Tam Martin's life and all the mistakes she'd made. They sought only to understand last night and how Goldie had died.

"I need you to walk me through this again," Detective Garcia said. Garcia. That was her name and now Tam remembered it. Not from last night. Last night she'd been in a delirium. She remembered Garcia from that other time in Tam's distant past. If Garcia remembered her, she gave no indication. Probably not. Tam had sported long sea green hair back then. Her nose had been pierced. She was different now and not only in physical appearance. She sat up straighter.

The detectives remained silent until Tam began to sweat, her palms damp between her jeans and the plastic chair. This was the point in a detective show that the person getting questioned would become agitated and exclaim "I've already told you everything I know!"

Tam resisted this. She kept the thought to herself and instead gave a slow nod. "She left a voicemail while I was in the shower. You've already heard what the message said. I gave you access to my phone."