Here She Lies

flashing like thrown coins. Before leaving me alone here, Lazare had brought me a mug of hot coffee, which was nice-ish of him. I had been told to wear jeans and a plain short-sleeved shirt for the lineup and my arms were covered in goose bumps. I’d been here ten minutes and he hadn’t said much, just the usual pleasantries, but today his über-calm was anything but reassuring. For all my questions this morning, he had offered a single answer: “No.” No, the blood test results from Thomas Soiffer’s van were not finished being analyzed. No, Soiffer was not being arrested, at the moment, for Zara’s murder. No, a murder weapon still had not been found.
    Why wouldn’t Lazare talk to me, just tell me what was going on? It was an outrage that I was here at all, waiting, while he went about the business of making sure all the other Annie-look-alike women were gathered so we could stand there being scrutinized by, presumably, Thomas Soiffer. Person of interest. Ex-con. Victim. Witness. The man was so many things, my head was spinning. Was I being put in a lineup based on his word? Not just me, but Julie too. She was to be put through the same paces, at a different time, so our paths wouldn’t cross as we were processed. Since our return from Vermont, she had been arrested for fraud, grand larceny and a long list of other crimes all related to the identity theft. Posted bail and been released. (Incredibly, her grand larceny charge did not automatically erase mine, which continued to wend its way through the legal system.) We hadn’t laid eyes on each other, nor would we anytime soon. We were officially severed. But Julie — oh, Julie — how I missed her! I still couldn’t believe this was happening or that I might actually have lost her, or lost who she used to be. And now, for us to be compared by the police in this light, to be studied with the implication that one of us may have committed murder. I knew I hadn’t. Which meant...
    No. I couldn’t go there, couldn’t think that, couldn’t plant that rotten seed in my heart. To save my sanity, for now, I would stick with the probability that Thomas Soiffer had killed Zara. Because that was what made sense. I had to assume that Soiffer had lied about witnessing but not committing the murder. That Lazare was just covering his bases by putting us in lineups,crossing us off his list, saving time, on the off chance that Soiffer was telling the truth. A very remote off chance. Obviously, the only thing a lineup would reveal was that people couldn’t tell me and Julie apart. At most, identifying me would discredit Soiffer’s statement that it was definitely Julie he saw slicing the poor woman’s throat (assuming that’s what he’d said — and why wouldn’t he try to point fingers elsewhere? His van was full of blood). Maybe that was all Lazare was after, discrediting Soiffer. No, not all. He also wanted our blood. He had me and Julie scheduled for blood tests; mine was to take place later that day at a local clinic.
    The coffee had warmed me somewhat and when I finished it I wanted more, but the pot was all the way across the room. Was I allowed to walk over and get some for myself? I swiveled around to look for Detective Lazare — he wasn’t here — and saw that a few other detectives had trickled in to start their day. All three avoided looking at me, much as the New York City detectives had ignored me in their own precinct. Once again, they were us, I was them. I was a suspect now, a person being readied for a lineup. I noticed that one of the detectives, a woman about my height and with my coloring, was also wearing jeans and a plain T-shirt. I guessed she was part of the lineup, too. I tried to catch her eye and smile, just to see what would happen. She put her purse on the desk, took out a small appointment book, set it by the phone and flipped it open. I stared at her, but she wouldn’t look at me, not even a glance, though I knew she knew I was sitting right here.
    I got up, invisible, and carried my empty mug acrossthe room, making a beeline for the coffeepot. Filling my mug with the steaming coffee, I saw that someone had brought a box of blueberry muffins. I took one, curious to see if now the detectives would react. Nothing. I spread open a paper napkin on the edge of Lazare’s desk, set my muffin down and had broken off just one piece of the top edge when the room’s far door swung open and Lazare waved me over.
    “Okay,” he said.