"So do you have any idea why she would kill herself?" Romero asked. He had taken out a pad.
"No, not really."
"You have no idea at all?"
Figuring that, thanks to Carmen, he was going to ask me about the fight Rebecca and I had had, I decided to beat him to the punch.
"I mean, there'd been some tension between us lately," I said, "but I don't think she'd kill herself over it."
"Yeah, the old lady was saying, you two were having some kind of fight?"
"It wasn't a fight," I said. "We were in the process of breaking up."
"Is that why you tossed her clothes out on the street?"
"I really don't see what this has to do with anything," I said. "Like I said, we were breaking up. I admit it wasn't the most cordial breakup in the world. Maybe that was why she killed herself that was your question, wasn't it?"
"Yeah, that was my question," Romero said, looking down as he wrote in the pad.
"I don't get this," I said. "Isn't it obvious she OD'd?"
"Why is that obvious?"
I looked beyond Romero as I saw the EMS workers carrying Rebecca's body, covered by a white sheet. Everyone left the apartment except Fitch and Romero.
"We mopped up a little for you in there," Fitch said.
"Thanks," I said.
"The body will be taken to Bellevue for the autopsy." Fitch handed me a card. "You can call this number for any information you might need."
Then Fitch turned to Romero and said, "Should we stick around, Tony?"
"Yeah," Romero said, "I'll be done in a few."
Fitch left, and Romero and I were alone. I felt uncomfortable, suddenly remembering the pictures Kenny had taken.
"Are you okay?" Romero asked.
"Yeah," I said. "Fine."
He squinted at my face. "How'd you get that?"
"I fell the other day," I said, touching my lower lip, "leaving a bank."
"It looks like teeth marks."
Remembering how Rebecca had bitten into my face, I realized he wasn't referring to the healing fat lip from my struggle with Ricky.
"Oh, that," I said. "Yeah, they're teeth marks."
"Where did they come from?"
I shook my head, fed up, then said, "Rebecca bit me, all right? Like Carmen told you, we had an argument and it got a little out of control.
Rebecca was crazy she flipped out sometimes. I told her she had to move out and she basically attacked me. I was trying to get her off me, and she started biting me. Then I got angry and dumped some of her stuff on the street. I took a walk, and when I came back she'd locked herself in the bathroom. I saw the water coming out into the hallway, so I broke down the door and called nine-one-one."
"The medical examiner noticed trauma to the victim's throat. Do you know how that happened?"
"I might've grabbed her throat," I said, "trying to get her off me."
Romero had turned his head, looking back toward the kitchen counter at, I noticed, the empty bottle of whiskey.
"Were you drinking today?" he asked.
"Rebecca was," I said. "When I came home from work she was drunk and acting crazier than usual. That's when I told her I'd had it, and she came after me. Are you done with the questions?"
"Not yet," Romero said. "You said you suspected an overdose. Do you know what kind of drugs she might've been taking?"
"Rebecca was into the club scene," I said. "I know she took a lot of Ecstasy."
"Anything else?"
"Pot, coke, some meth."
"That it?"
"Far as I know."
Romero wrote in his pad.
"Was she depressed lately?" he asked.
"No, not really," I said.
"Did she ever try to kill herself before?"
"Not that I know of."
Romero was about to ask another question when the buzzer rang. Figuring it was officers coming back into the apartment, I pressed the buzzer, and, about a minute later, I opened the door, surprised to see Rebecca's friend Ray standing there. He looked like he'd been crying, and I knew the officers outside must've told him about Rebecca.
"Say it ain't true," Ray said. "Please say it ain't true."
Romero and I just looked at him.
"Fuck!" Ray shouted. "Why? Why'd she have to go do that shit?
Why?"
Ray started crying.
"What's your name?" Romero said to Ray.
"His name's Ray he was a friend of Rebecca's," I said.
"I'm Romero, NYPD. Did you happen to speak with Ms. Daniels recently?"
"She called me up before," Ray said, still crying, "like at nine o'clock. She sounded whacked, know what I mean? Started talkin' some crazy shit said she was gonna kill herself."
"Did she say why she wanted to end her life?" Romero asked.
"She was sayin' all this shit," Ray said. "Said she was a horrible person and all this shit made no sense. She was talkin' about him a lot too." Ray jutted his chin toward me.
"What about him?" Romero said to Ray.
"I don't remember all of it," Ray said. "She just said he'd been takin' a lot of shit out on her lately, and said he was bonin' some other bitch too."
"What?" I said.
"That's what she said," Ray went on. "Said it was some bitch, Angie."
"That's a total lie," I said.
"I ain't lyin', man," Ray said to Romero. "She was real mad about it too. I was like, "Take it easy, yo, chill," but she said she was gonna take pills and shit. I didn't believe her, man, but I told her I'd come by later anyway, just to hang out with her."
"Who's Angie?" Romero asked me.
"I work with a woman named Angie, but we're just friends," I explained.
"I have no idea why Rebecca would've said that."
"Yo, you think I'm lyin'?" Ray said to me, as if challenging me to a fight.
"No," I said, "I believe Rebecca told you that, but it's not true."
"Why would she lie?" Ray said.
"I don't know," I said. "She was always making up stories, getting paranoid. Come on, you knew Rebecca. You knew she was crazy, right?"
"Becky wasn't crazy, yo," Ray said. "She was a little wild, that's all."
"Did Rebecca tell you anything else on the phone this evening?" Romero said to Ray. "Did she say something else was bothering her?"
"Yeah," Ray said, "she said she was afraid David was gonna dump her ass on the street."
"Thank you," Romero said. "Can you wait outside, please, Mr…?"
"Ramirez," Ray said. "Yeah, I'll wait." Then he left the apartment, pulling on the door handle to make the door slam.
"I guess I'll get out of your way now too," Romero said to me, "give you some time alone. But about this Angie he mentioned. What's her last name?"
"Nothing was going on between Angie and me," I said. "I have no idea why Rebecca told Ray that."
"I believe you, but can I have her last name anyway?"
"What does she have to do with anything?" I said. "I mean, I don't want to drag her into»
"Can I just have her last name please?" He sounded frustrated.
"Lerner," I said.
"Thank you," he said as he wrote in his pad. Then he said, "Phone number?"
"Don't know it," I lied. I had her home number programmed into my cell phone.
He looked at me suspiciously, then said, "How about a work number?"
I gave him the main number at Manhattan Business, figuring it would be easy for him to get it anyway, then said, "But please don't drag her into this if you don't really have to."
Romero put his pad away in his jacket pocket.
"I'll be in touch with you after the autopsy results," he said. "You'll be around, right?"
"Yes," I said.
"Good."
After the door shut I went into the foyer and listened. Sure enough, I heard the doorbell to the apartment across the hall ring, and then Romero started talking to Carmen. Their voices were so muffled that, even with my ear against the door, I couldn't make out exactly what they were saying. Their conversation lasted only a few minutes; then the door closed and there was silence. I walked away, deciding that I should call Angie at home and warn her that Romero might call her. I reached into my pocket and took out my cell phone, then decided that I wasn't in the mood to talk to her. But while I had my phone out I decided I might as well get it over with and call Rebecca's mother. I went to the hallway where Rebecca's pocketbook was hanging on the knob of the closet door. I found Rebecca's cell phone, but her mother's phone number wasn't programmed in. I didn't know why I expected the number to be there, since Rebecca had barely been in touch with her mother. I remembered Rebecca telling me her mother's name was Edna, and that she'd never remarried after her husband took off. Rebecca had said that her mother had moved from Duncanville to another part of Texas I couldn't remember if it was Houston or San Antonio. After striking out in San Antonio, I tried Houston, and sure enough the operator had a listing for an Edna Daniels. I dialed the number.