Shame

now.
    “They haven’t started the formal interview yet, but they have asked her some general questions. She doesn’t think she can identify her assailant. The room was too dark. The thing that saved her was the second alarm.
    “The first alarm went off at around ten thirty. That’s when they think he got in. At the time everyone just assumed it was a false alarm and not some diversion. The second alarm went off at around twelve thirty. It was accompanied by a deliberately set fire. A gas can was left at the scene of the fire. SDPD has some good latents on the can. There are also some blood droplets onthe scene. Someone wanted that alarm to go off. A glass pane was broken. It’s possible the blood resulted from the breaking glass.”
    “Any recent history of arson in the area?”
    “From what I understand, no. Maybe a vandal just had great timing. Or it could have been a divinely inspired frat prank.”
    “Can I talk with her now?”
    “Let me go see.”
    While Elizabeth waited, the door at the end of the hall opened and two paramedics, a man and a woman, emerged.
    “How about pizza?” the man said.
    “How about Mexican?” she said.
    “We had Mexican yesterday.”
    “We did not.”
    “Did too.”
    Their argument continued as they went down the stairs. They sounded more like an old married couple than an emergency medical team.
    Borman signaled to her, and Elizabeth walked over to the room the paramedics had just vacated.
    “Two minutes,” Borman said.
    She motioned for the lieutenant to precede her inside. Her own blocker. As they entered the room, four sets of eyes turned to them. Elizabeth briefly acknowledged the two SDPD detectives and the house mother, then focused her attention on Dana. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, her arms hugging herself. Around Dana’s neck were ice packs held in place by a neck brace. Just hours earlier Elizabeth’s neck had been similarly adorned. Sitting next to Dana, with an arm draped over her shoulders, was a large, protective-looking woman who appeared to be in her early thirties. Elizabeth thought of Mrs. Jackson, her onetime house mother. The woman looked nothing like Mrs. Jackson, but like her, she was obviously concerned about “her girl.” Elizabeth remembered how Mrs. Jackson had visited her in the hospital and how she had ended up being the one doing most of thecomforting. Mrs. Jackson was never the same after two of her girls were murdered.
    The room was small, barely designed to accommodate one person, let alone six. The shelves were crowded with personal effects, teddy bears and stuffed cows predominating. Hanging on the walls were an Aztecs pennant, a Monet print, and a Victorian garden scene with a mother and daughter wearing long pink dresses and carrying matching parasols. A small desk housed a computer and an iPod docking station.
    After the lieutenant made introductions to the detectives, Elizabeth went forward and took up a spot in a chair next to the two women sitting on the bed.
    “Hilda Conners,” the larger woman said. “I’m the house mother. And this is Dana Roberts.”
    Dana limply accepted Elizabeth’s hand but didn’t look at her.
    “Ms. Line wants to ask you a few brief questions that might aid in the investigation,” the lieutenant said. “Is that all right with you, Dana?”
    The girl offered an almost imperceptible nod. Her face was still very pale and looked all the more so because of her dark hair and eyebrows. She was thin, and the way she was huddled made her look brittle.
    Elizabeth sat in the chair, her knees all but touching Dana’s. She didn’t say anything for several moments, just stared at Dana until the girl finally responded enough to raise her head and direct her red-rimmed, puffy eyes back at Elizabeth.
    “I’m sorry you were attacked tonight, Dana. I know how upsetting all of this is for you. I know, because this afternoon someone tried to strangle me.”
    Elizabeth leaned closer to her and lifted her scarf. Each woman became the other’s audience, the onlookers forgotten. Elizabeth’s gesture was as intimate as it was revealing. She held her veil up for several seconds. Tears welled in both their eyes. They knew the horror.
    “I brought you a little present,” Elizabeth said, holding out a scarf for Dana.
    The girl stopped clutching herself. With her right hand she reached for the scarf, and then she extended both of her hands to Elizabeth.
    “We’re a member of a club neither one of us