Here She Lies

really logical for us to stay if there’s any chance the bond can be modified again.”
    A couple came hurrying up behind Detective Lazare, passing in a rush to catch a plane, and he moved closer to us, speaking in a low, confidential tone.
    “Okay, I’ll tell you why I need you to stay, Annie.”
    “Finally—”
    “Just listen, please.” He paused a moment before saying, “Thomas Soiffer saw Julie kill Zara Moklas. It happened very fast, but Soiffer is adamant that he saw Julie do it.”
    That was exactly what I had assumed. No real surprise there, and yet hearing it from the detective brought home with force the horrifying turn this could take if Soiffer’s blood test eliminated him from suspicion. If Julie had actually killed someone. Soiffer had to be guilty; it was the only explanation that made real, deep, true sense to me. The only explanation I would be able to live with.
    “He says he saw Julie,” I said. “Not me .”
    “Well, Annie, that’s just the problem,” Lazare said. “How can he tell you two apart?”
    “Obviously he can’t.”
    “He picked you out of the lineup. He also picked Julie.”
    “So the lineups were useless. That’s a no-brainer. You still haven’t told me why I have to stay.”
    “I want to investigate this carefully,” he said, “without wasting time chasing you down.”
    “You know where I’ll be,” I said. “Right there at home.”
    “There’s too much at stake for you to go. With a witness saying—”
    “I don’t know why you even listen to Thomas Soiffer,” I interrupted. “He probably did it. There’s no reason to even discuss it, is there, until you get back his DNA? It’s all about the DNA, Detective. Am I right?”
    “Exactly, Annie.” His expression stilled. He didn’tblink at all. “It’s all about the DNA. I’ll just tell you, then. Soiffer’s results came in this afternoon.”
    “And?” Bobby asked. His face had now broken into a full sweat.
    “Thomas Soiffer did not kill Zara Moklas,” Detective Lazare said.
    “But the blood in his van?” Bobby asked.
    “Of course he killed her!” I said.
    “Stop, both of you. Listen carefully.” Lazare lowered his voice so it was barely audible, as if whispering would lessen the impropriety of revealing secrets in the middle of a busy airport. “He did kill someone, but not Zara. We matched the blood to a prostitute who was found murdered two weeks ago in Beartown State Park in Monterey.”
    “So the other blood with Zara’s—” Bobby began.
    “Was not Thomas Soiffer’s,” Lazare finished. “Which increases his value as a witness.”
    “A murderer?” The sharpness of my voice made Lexy cry. Bobby took her out of my arms, paced away a few steps and bounced her. I lowered my voice. “Are you telling me a judge and jury would actually listen to what one murderer says about another?”
    “That remains to be seen,” Lazare answered.
    “The sweater that guy took out of my rental car in Vermont,” I said, recalling the flashy sweater I’d worn the day I first arrived at Julie’s. “There was no blood on it — Zara’s or mine or Julie’s or anyone else’s. Am I right?”
    He stared at me, keeping completely still. I felt the grip of frustration and plowed forward despite his unwillingness to respond.
    “Everyone from the Lexington airport to the Albany airport to the pit stops I made along the highway that night saw me wearing that sweater, and you say Soiffer saw Zara get killed. He couldn’t have missed that sweater, Detective. Did he describe it, too?”
    Before Lazare could answer, if he was going to, Bobby returned with a now-quieted Lexy. He had wiped his face and his skin was dry. In the pause of calming Lexy, he had also calmed himself. “If you mishandle this case,” he told the detective in a new, flinty tone, “we’ll sue you, personally. Do you understand me?”
    Lazare nodded.
    “Did he?” I asked again about the sweater.
    “You were very right before, Annie,” he said. “DNA is the only way we’ll know who was there that night with Zara. Now that Thomas Soiffer is eliminated as a suspect, that leaves us with your blood tests — yours and Julie’s. And both of you claim innocence.”
    “And you believe her over me, after everything else?”
    “The identity theft is a separate matter at this point,” Lazare said.
    “But it’s not separate,” I said. “How can it be?”
    “We’re going to piece everything together, Annie, and find out.