I woke up on a cot in the secure medical facility at JFK Airport with an IV stuck in my arm. Detective Pardo sat on a chair next to my bed, scrolling through her phone. After a moment, she looked up and noticed that I was conscious.
“She’s awake,” she called.
The medical personnel were busy with other patients and ignored her.
Pardo explained that I’d fainted and had been taken to the “van,” which was actually a trailer in the middle of a parking lot somewhere, fitted out with medical equipment and staffed by a doctor, a couple of nurses, and numerous law-enforcement officers. It was there to treat drug mules who’d been arrested smuggling heroin-filled condoms in their stomachs. I felt like Cinderella at midnight. The day before, I’d been on a yacht. Now I was here, surrounded by men and women of every age and color who looked beaten down and exhausted. Some looked angry. One woman sobbed pitifully, repeating over and over that she was innocent and didn’t belong here. You and me both, sister. I knew how this went. I could protest my innocence, but no one would care.
Eventually, a nurse came by and checked my blood pressure. She removed the IV, then had me sit up in a chair and drink some orange juice from a can. The juice tasted sour and metallic. But it had enough sugar in it that the baby suddenly kicked me hard, making me gasp. I put my hand on my abdomen. The nurse asked how far along I was. Feeling Detective Pardo’s eyes on me, I just shrugged and didn’t reply.
It was after midnight by the time the doctor signed my discharge papers. Detective Pardo handcuffed me and walked me down the steps of the van to the parking lot, where an unmarked police car sat spewing exhaust into the cold night. It was raining steadily, and the handcuffs were cutting off my circulation. Hagerty got out and opened the rear door, and only then did it hit me that I wasn’t going home tonight. I was going to jail.
“Where’s my husband? I want to see him.”
“We told him there was no point in waiting around for you tonight,” Pardo said.
Anger seared me. How dare she send Connor away? In that moment, I hated her so much I could have hurt her. Her sharp, nasty features, her smug, clipped way of speaking. Hagerty was just the opposite. He had a soft face, blondish hair. He reminded me of a golden retriever.
“Let’s get you out of the rain,” he said, sympathy in his eyes.
Hagerty put his hand up to protect my head as I slid into the hard, cold backseat. It occurred to me that they were playing good cop/bad cop, and they were just right for those roles. The mind games were having their intended effect. I hated Pardo’s guts, and felt a powerful rush of emotion toward Hagerty, like he was my best friend, and I should tell him my secrets. I had to be stronger than this, to remember what my lawyer up in New Hampshire taught me about when to talk to the cops. The right answer was never.
We merged onto the highway, heading out toward Long Island. The rain was heavy for a bit, and nobody spoke. But once it let up, Hagerty started working on me, trying to get me to talk.
“So, Tabitha, that must’ve been a shock, us meeting you at the airport, huh?”
I didn’t reply.
“I’m sorry if we frightened you. And I’m really sorry you fainted. I understand you might be expecting?”
He tried to catch my eye in the rearview mirror. I stared out the window.
“Look, though, I just want to explain where we were coming from. We have some pretty heavy evidence against you. We were just working through it, deciding whether to seek a warrant, when we learned you left the country. I’m wondering if it was your idea to skip town? Or was it Connor’s?”
I saw what he was doing. Either way I answered would implicate someone. I could try to exonerate myself by giving up Connor. Or I could protect my husband at my own expense. The entrapment was so obvious that I felt a surge of rage. I was determined not to repeat the experience I’d had with the police last time. I’d played into their hands, and taken a plea for something I knew I didn’t do. I wouldn’t be such a patsy this time. I had to use my wits and fight back. But carefully, so I didn’t give them anything they could use against me in court.
“What evidence?” I asked.
“Beg your pardon?”
“What exactly is the evidence you claim to have against me?”
“I think you know.”
“If you tell me what your evidence is, I’ll talk to you. If you don’t, I’ll ask for a lawyer.”
Hagerty and Pardo exchanged glances.
“Where were you the night Nina Levitt was killed?” Pardo said.
Pardo’s question told me two things. One, they knew I’d been at Windswept that night. And two, they now believed that Nina had been murdered.
“I’m assuming you don’t have any actual evidence against me, or you’d tell me?” I said.
They looked at each other again.
“That’s an incorrect assumption,” Pardo said. “We couldn’t get a warrant without evidence. So, you know, you really should cooperate.”
“I don’t believe you. I think you arrested me because of something you read on ChitChat, and you’re hoping I’ll confess to killing Nina, when I didn’t,” I said.
I sounded more defiant than I felt. Her point about needing evidence to get a warrant seemed plausible to me. They must have told the judge something. What was it? Presumably that I’d been at Windswept that night. That didn’t prove my guilt, but it didn’t look good, either. It felt hot in the car suddenly, and sweat broke out on my forehead. I had no way to lower the window, but I didn’t want to ask them to do it because then they’d know they were getting to me. If I felt trapped, it’s because I was trapped. My fate was in their hands, and they already believed I was guilty. Nothing I could say would change their minds, so best to stay silent. I pressed my lips together into a hard line.
“I heard you say you want to see your husband,” Hagerty said. “That won’t be possible tonight just because of the hour. But, you know, I wanted to raise the idea that seeing him might not be good for you right now. I’m not sure Connor has your best interests at heart.”
He caught my attention with that last remark. I turned back from the window and met his eyes in the mirror.
“He’s planning to get you a lawyer,” Hagerty said. “Ask yourself, Tabitha—who will that lawyer work for? You? Or Connor?”
That got under my skin. Hagerty was suggesting that Connor might set me up. I couldn’t believe he would do that. Yet, if I was honest with myself, I couldn’t rule out the possibility that he was involved somehow in Nina’s death. The police no longer believed that she committed suicide. My arrest proved that. My arrest. Why me, when I was innocent? When Connor might not be? Maybe Hagerty had a point.
“You asked what our evidence is,” Pardo said. “We think you two were in on this together. Admit what you did, testify against Connor, and we might cut you a break. That’s your best bet.”
They wanted me to testify against him. But, just like with Derek, I had nothing to offer. I didn’t know how Nina died, because I wasn’t involved in killing her. If Connor was, I knew nothing about it. I might have my suspicions. But that’s all they were—suspicions. What if he was innocent, too? I still loved him. I was carrying his child. I couldn’t let myself be maneuvered into implicating him in a murder that he might not have committed.
“I had nothing to do with Nina Levitt’s death,” I said. “I don’t know anything about it. You’re asking me to lie, to invent evidence that doesn’t exist.”
In the rearview mirror, Hagerty looked alarmed. Pardo shot me an annoyed glance.
“She’s playing games,” Pardo said.
“You’re the ones playing games—with people’s lives,” I said. “I told you I’m innocent. Instead of taking my word for it, you’re trying to get me to set up my husband. You’re asking me to lie.”
“That right there is going to wreck your chance at a plea deal,” Pardo said.
“I don’t want a plea deal from you, and I don’t need one. I’m innocent. You’re only doing this because of a tabloid story. And that story is a lie. Your case is based on nothing. It’s made up out of thin air. I see no point in talking to you when your minds are closed against me. That’s all I have to say. Now, I choose to remain silent. I want a lawyer.”