.

South Simcoe station is closer to your house, only ten minutes away. We’d rather talk to you on your own turf.” Suddenly I had a turf. I felt like pawing it.

      The air smelled of corn. “Tornado ripped through here a few years back,” Detective Stanton said. “You can see the damage if you know where to look.” We were driving past a break in the trees where the brush lay flat.

      They took me to a room with a scarred table and four chairs. Detective Young fiddled with the blind so it blocked the sun and a blue patch of Lake Simcoe then sat at the end. She was tall, and her knee hit the table when she crossed her legs.

      “You’re late-breaking,” Detective Stanton said. He spoke with relieved glee, as if he’d expected I’d give him more trouble. “We didn’t know about you until after Ramona Hawkes’s preliminary hearing.”

      “How did you find me?” Maybe Ramona had given them my name. I tugged each finger away from its socket.

      Detective Stanton looked at Detective Young, who twitched. He leaned an elbow on the table as if he wanted to share a secret, his body poised in the relaxed coil of a practised flirt. His wedding band caught the light like treasure.

      “You weren’t in her yearbook, that’s obvious. She had letters and scripts. Your name turned up.”

      “Scripts?”

      “Scripts with your name on them. It appears you wrote them. Keep in mind your statement could help convict Ramona Hawkes at the trial. Smoke?”

      I took one and let him light it. After an easy drag, I tapped the cigarette against the crimp-edged ashtray then held it away from my body. The scripts I remembered, but I couldn’t think of what letters I’d written. I wanted to help but didn’t see how I could.

      “How will talking to me make a difference? I knew her five years ago. I have no idea why — or if — she did it. I haven’t followed the story at all.”

      “What happened at the prelim is public domain,” Stanton said. He hitched the back of his pants with one hand. Young inspected her nails, cut blunt and left bare, then spoke. “You might want to bone up further at the library, but we can give you the basics.” She had the soothing voice of a shill, and I quickened, alert for loopholes.

      “There is evidence that Ramona and James Hawkes drugged and assaulted teenage girls. While Ramona Hawkes is not on trial here for sexual assault, at issue is whether her husband forced her to participate and she killed him out of fear for her own life, or whether she shared her husband’s proclivities and killed him out of jealousy over someone else.”

      She twirled the words “someone else” into a question, as if she had an idea of the other woman’s identity but wanted to see how I responded. After all, Ramona had kept my scripts. I must have meant something to her. Maybe she envied me all these years later. If so, I didn’t want to know. Let another friend carry that burden.

      “We’re going back to establish patterns, digging up what we can. Every small detail could help.”

      “Whose side are you on?” I asked.

      “It isn’t about sides, Pauline. We work for the Crown.”

      “So you think she did it?”

      “There is enough evidence to go to trial, yes.”

      “We’d like you to tell us whatever you remember about the times you spent at the Hawkeses’ house,” Stanton said. “What you saw and heard, whatever you observed, however small.”

      “But I didn’t know them long.”

      “We have one witness who knew them less than a week. Your story has merit. We’d like to hear it.”

      “How about some pop? A coffee?” Palms on the table, Detective Young shifted her weight as if to stand. She had a precise assurance that spoke of no disappointments. A leader. A prizewinning girl.

      I brought the cigarette to my mouth. Ashes rose then settled on my skirt. These two had the main events figured. I’d have to give them details, tell them what I guessed they already knew.

      “Shall we?”

      “Okay.” I tucked my hands into my armpits. “But go easy on me. I’m nervous. It’s hard to talk about this kind of thing.”

      “We understand. We’ll take it slow, then,” said Detective Young. “As slow as you like.”

      “How did you meet Ramona?” Detective Stanton asked. “Give us times and dates.”

      “I knew her a year,” I said. “Him less than that. I met them in 1985.” I took care not to say either name.

      Detective Stanton asked about touching. Sex.

      “What? Will I have to testify? I don’t want —”

      “Possibly,” said Detective Young. “Though I’m afraid you don’t have a choice, if it comes to that. What is it?”

      “This is embarrassing. I hardly knew this woman and I don’t remember much. My husband doesn’t even know.”

      “I’m sorry,” said Detective Young. “Maybe you’ll want to speak someone about that?”

      “Isn’t that what I’m doing?” I reined in my smile so they wouldn’t take me for a smartass. I wanted to leave but I had no way to get home.

      “A professional, I was thinking. A counsellor. We can give you some names, if you like. So you know, we do sometimes use the statement, no witness. The trial starts in March. Please, your story’s important. Tell us every detail. Don’t lie or guess. Wayne will take notes, and I’ll tape you.”

      Someone else would come forward. Another friend. They wouldn’t need my story to get a conviction. Girls, he’d said. There were others. Even if I was the other woman in Ramona’s mind, I didn’t need to be in theirs. I talked for almost an hour then stopped.

      “I don’t remember any more,” I said, and I didn’t, not really. I hadn’t for a long time.

      The house reeled, too bright, nothing in its expected place. My body felt wrong, far away and not my own. After the detectives dropped me off, I stood inside the door and held out my hands. I touched my fingers as if I’d never seen fingers before. In the living room I stared at the nudes. Not one looked back at me, the faces haircurtained, buried in armpits, turned away, or cut from the frame.

      Until I saw her photo in the Telstar, I’d forgotten Ramona. I never thought about what happened and I never talked about it. Today, I’d rewarded the detectives’ questions. They’d picked at the details and prodded until I told more than I’d bargained. The cops had my statement now. I’d signed it so they could read it in court and I wouldn’t have to appear. Since Alex didn’t follow murder trials, he needn’t find out. I could stay the same in his eyes. I could forget again.

      In my office, I kneeled in front of the box and turned the Telstar over. Ramona had worn Ray-Bans for her arrest, and a pink turtleneck. She’d rounded out, but little else had changed in five years. I brought the paper to my desk. My novel outline had hit a hundred pages. The novel needed scenes. I tackled one in which the ghost watches the sculptor with her lover. Soon I switched to my stack of character cards. I crossed out the sculptor’s description and wrote “blonde.” Then “Ramona.” I scribbled over the card and shredded it. Cards were stupid and they weren’t writing. I shut off my computer and grabbed a notepad. With the Telstar on my knee, I leaned against the box and wrote. I wrote what I saw and what I thought and what I might have thought. Some of the places changed, our names, too. I put Ramona’s side in, but writing it made me uncomfortable and I didn’t think I would do it again.

       The first time Peck saw her, Mona was applying lip gloss in the parking lot of the Rodeo strip mall. Peck was seventeen, had moved to Westwoods three weeks earlier, and was sticking Velcroed poker chips to the New Releases shelf near the window of Venus Video when she saw this woman in a black leather