Coldcliff Police Station, October 15, 2:10 p.m.
OFFICER OLDMAN: I’m sure you heard that Tabitha attempted to leave town last week, and now she’s being held in custody. If you have something to tell us, we need to know it. Was she on her way to meet you?
BOBBY GOOD, BECK’S LAWYER: Go ahead and answer that.
BECK: Why would she be?
OFFICER OLDMAN: Seems to me that if someone tries to run, it means they have something to hide.
BECK: Seems to me that if someone thinks everyone hates them, what else are they gonna goddamn do?
BOBBY GOOD: My client was unaware of Miss Cousins’s whereabouts, as he has already asserted.
OFFICER SCHULTZ: A resident on Shady Lane claims she saw a bike drive past around seven p.m. Says the sound of it made her look up from her game of cards. Did you drive your bike down Shady Lane the night Mark Forrester was killed?
BECK: I have no reason to be on Shady Lane. I don’t ride my bike around rich people’s neighborhoods.
OFFICER SCHULTZ: The entrance to the woods where your boot print was found is close to Shady Lane.
BECK: Ever think Durango might have made more than one pair of boots? Maybe in a weird attempt to make money? Half the guys who hang out at Pacers wear these boots. Check into them.
OFFICER SCHULTZ: I assure you we’re following all leads.
OFFICER OLDMAN: Your girlfriend, Louisa, lives on Shady Crescent. But she said she didn’t see you that night.
BECK: Yeah, because we didn’t see each other.
OFFICER SCHULTZ: But you were supposed to make plans, isn’t that right? And you didn’t reply to her messages?
BOBBY GOOD: This is irrelevant to the case at hand. You have no evidence tying my client to the scene.
OFFICER OLDMAN: What about the text message Mark sent you?
BECK: Yeah, I don’t even know how he got my phone number. Must have found it in Tabby’s phone. He seems like the kind of guy who’d look through his girlfriend’s shit.
OFFICER OLDMAN: He told you to stay away from Tabitha. Is there a reason why he would have felt the need to say that?
BECK: I don’t know. He was a possessive guy.
OFFICER SCHULTZ: Did Tabitha tell you that?
BECK: She didn’t have to. You could tell. Went to a few parties, and his arm was always around her.
OFFICER OLDMAN: It seems like you paid a lot of attention to Tabitha.
BECK: Well, she’s the kind of girl people pay attention to. The whole country is doing it now, right?
BOBBY GOOD: What my client is trying to say is that he wasn’t the only person who noticed things.
OFFICER OLDMAN: Tell us about what happened last homecoming weekend.
BECK: That was so long ago, how am I supposed to remember?
OFFICER SCHULTZ: So you didn’t meet up with Tabitha at a party that weekend?
BECK: No, I didn’t even see her that weekend.
OFFICER OLDMAN: We’ve heard from various sources that she left a party with a boy in a black leather jacket.
BECK: Well, it wasn’t me.
OFFICER SCHULTZ: It sounds like we hit a nerve. Are you still in love with Tabitha Cousins?
BOBBY GOOD: That’s irrelevant. You’re investigating a boy who died. My client’s love life didn’t kill Mark Forrester.
OFFICER OLDMAN: We’ll be the judge of that.
BECK: Kind of hard to love a girl who only loves herself.