So I sat in the armchair and watched as the officers spread out around the apartment, searching through drawers, cabinets, closets, and just about everywhere else.
Romero asked me what was in the boxes, and I explained that I had packed up all of Rebecca's belongings earlier in the day. Romero immediately ordered the cops to start searching the boxes, and they came into the living room and started opening them, spreading the contents out all over the living room floor, making a total mess. As the search continued, Romero had a hushed conversation with the tall, gray-haired man who I assumed was another detective.
The idea that Charlotte was dead hadn't fully set in yet. I wondered if she'd died of natural causes, or ODor if someone had killed her. The first idea that came to me was that Kenny had done it. Maybe they'd had some fight about money or drugs or whatever, and Kenny had snapped.
That would explain why Charlotte hadn't shown up at Starbucks the other day, and why Kenny hadn't tried to blackmail me again. If Kenny had been arrested he could have made a deal with the cops turning over the pictures of me dumping Ricky's body in exchange for a lighter sentence. But none of this explained why Romero had gotten a warrant to search my apartment, but hadn't bothered to arrest me or even question me.
I watched as the officers continued their search. Finally, Romero and the gray-haired man came over and sat down on the couch across from me.
"This is Frank Glazer from the Ninth Precinct downtown," Romero said.
"Frank, this is David Miller, Rebecca Daniels's boyfriend."
"Good to meet you," Glazer said. "Can you tell us where Rebecca Daniels was Thursday night and early Friday morning?"
"I have no idea," I said. I felt frazzled and it was hard to concentrate.
"Come on, it was only a few days ago," Glazer said. "Think."
"I don't know," I said. "Let's see Thursday night. Um, she was home, I guess."
"You guess?"
I remembered that Thursday night was the night I'd gone to meet Charlotte at the Holiday Cocktail Lounge.
I looked over at the cops, who were now meticulously examining each pair of Rebecca's shoes.
"Why does it matter where Rebecca was?"
"We're talking about after midnight, up till around three a.m. Friday morning."
I'd been with Charlotte until about two a.m.
"Can you please explain what's going on?" I said.
"Have you noticed a steel sharpener missing from your apartment?"
"What's a steel sharpener?"
"It's about ten inches long kind of shaped like a screwdriver."
"I don't own a steel sharpener," I said.
"Well, Rebecca Daniels did," Romero said.
"Can you just tell me what the hell's going on?" I said.
"We believe that Rebecca Daniels stabbed Charlotte O'Dougal to death with a steel sharpener between two and three a.m. on Friday morning,"
Glazer said. "The incident took place in the vestibule of Ms.
CDougal's apartment on East Sixth Street."
It was a good thing I was sitting down, because I was suddenly so dizzy I probably would've passed out. Even sitting, Romero and Glazer's faces became fuzzy.
"You okay?" Romero asked.
"Yeah, fine," I said, although I clearly wasn't.
"You want something to drink? Some water or something?"
"No, that's okay," I said.
"This is a photo of Ms. O'Dougal," Glazer said. "It's an old one, but it's the only one we could find."
I glanced at the crinkled snapshot of Charlotte that looked almost nothing like her. It must've been taken in high school, in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. She had waist-length brown hair and was smiling, leaning against a red sports car. She looked sexy in a slutty kind of way.
"Have you ever seen her before?" Glazer asked.
"Never," I said. My voice was still unsteady.
"So do you know how Rebecca could've known Charlotte O'Dougal?" Romero asked.
"No idea," I said. "So why do you think Rebecca killed this what was her name?"
"Charlotte O'Dougal," Romero said.
"Yeah, Charlotte O'Dougal," I said.
"We had no idea at first," Glazer explained. "There were no witnesses to the murder and no fingerprints or other physical evidence. All we had to go on was a price sticker on the murder weapon."
"A price sticker?" I said.
"The steel sharpener had been purchased at Bed Bath and Beyond," Glazer explained. "On the chance the purchase had been made recently, we contacted the Bed Bath and Beyond stores in the New York area and created a list of the people who had purchased this particular steel sharpener and who'd paid by credit card. Rebecca Daniels was on this list. She'd purchased the steel sharpener at the Sixth Avenue store on Thursday afternoon with a Discover card."
"What the hell are you talking about?" I said. "Just because she bought a steel sharpener, what makes you think she killed somebody?"
"I guess you don't know about Rebecca Daniels's history," Romero said.
"History?" I asked.
Romero and Glazer exchanged looks again.
"Three years ago Rebecca Daniels was living in L.A.," Romero said.
"Yeah, so?" I said.
"Did you know she was married to a man named David Hardle?"
So Rebecca hadn't been lying about her former husband, the other David.
"Yeah, she did tell me a little about that, just recently, as a matter of fact," I said. "She said they got divorced."
Romero and Glazer looked at each other, smirking.
"What's so funny?" I said.
"It wasn't a divorce," Romero said. "What your girlfriend might've forgotten to tell you is that one night she stabbed her husband to death in the chest with a steel sharpener. She claimed somebody broke into the house and did it, but the case was pretty much open-and-shut.
Her prints were on the murder weapon, and she had motive. The victim's friends said Hardle had been having an affair and wanted out of the marriage, and Daniels was giving him a hard time about it."
Feeling dazed, wondering if this was really happening, I said, "So if Rebecca killed her husband, why didn't she go to jail?"
"Thank the American legal system," Romero said. "Evidence was mishandled, witnesses lied, and, apparently, Daniels was good on the stand. She claimed her prints got on the weapon when she tried to pull it out of her husband's chest. The jury bought it and she got off and moved to New York."
One of the cops searching through Rebecca's things said, "Hey, Frank, check this out."
Glazer and Romero went over and the cop showed them a pair of Rebecca's shoes. Glazer examined the shoes closely, then said, "Looks good." The cop put the shoes in a plastic bag, and then another cop showed the detectives one of Rebecca's jackets.
As the detectives and the cops continued to talk, I tried to absorb the fact that for over a year I'd been living with a cold-blooded killer.
Rebecca had told me that I didn't really know her, and now I knew what she meant. Then I started to imagine what could've happened on Thursday night. I'd thought Rebecca had been asleep when I left to meet Charlotte at the bar, but she could've been awake. She could've followed me downtown, maybe in another cab, and seen me with Charlotte. She could've assumed that Charlotte was Angie, then followed her home and killed her.
Romero and Glazer returned to their seats on the couch.
"So you really had no idea about what happened in L.A.?" Romero said to me.
"If I knew, why would I stay with her?"
"Unfortunately we might have some more bad news for you," Romero said, and then he turned to Glazer.