“But the car?”

“Sure, the car. I never once took Oxy while in my car. I’d take it at home or in my office at work. That’s where the maximum temptation was. I was better when I was places I didn’t associate with the drug. Like the beach. Or driving, concentrating on the rules of the road and the speed limit and staying in my lane and playing music really loud and all of those things. The more I had to focus on that, the less I was focusing on Oxy.”

Good, I say to myself. He handled that well.

“When did you get home?” Bradley asks.

“It was sometime after midnight.”

“And what happened when you got home?”

“When I got home,” Jason says, “I went upstairs. And there was Alexa. Lying on my living room floor.”

94.

Jason

“I don’t remember exactly when I called the police,” I say in response to a question from Bradley. “But it would have been very shortly after I found Alexa dead.”

Bradley takes a drink of water, maybe for dramatic effect, but I think because his nerves are giving him dry mouth. Funny, I never had that problem myself—my mind and body seem to function best in situations like this, under pressure—but it was a problem that plagued me through my addiction.

He’s done a nice job with me. I’ll have to remember to tell him so. If this thing goes south for me, he’ll take it hard. Not as hard as Shauna, but hard.

“Jason, did you call 911 on your cell phone or on your landline?”

“Landline telephone,” I say.

“How is it that this detail sticks in your mind?”

“Because I remember the light was blinking on my machine. I had a voice mail. After I called 911, I sort of sat there, numb. And I pushed a button and listened to the voice mail.”

“Was this a voice mail from 8:16 that evening?”

“I don’t remember. I mean, I didn’t check the time. I just pressed the button to retrieve the message and I listened to it.”

Since I’m making up this entire business about the voice mail, it is tempting to say, Yeah! I remember very clearly that the voice mail had come at 8:16 P.M., and the message was more than one minute but less than two! But who remembers shit like that? So I don’t want to overplay my hand here. If you’re going to lie, lie about stuff that really matters, and play it safe on less important details, so it doesn’t look like you’re lying.

I am, after all, the son of a con artist.

“And what was the message?”

“It was from Alexa,” I say. “It was a long message. She was talking about wanting to get back together, she was watching a love story on television about star-crossed lovers and she wondered if maybe there was a chance for us, and she was going to come by my house if that was okay.” I pinch the bridge of my nose and pause. Respectful silence. Pained silence. I look back up at Bradley and let out air. “Obviously . . . she decided to come by.”

Bradley puts on the screen the Call Detail Records for that day, showing the 8:16 P.M. phone call with the number 2 in the column for duration.

“Was the voice mail more than one minute but less than two?”

“Oh, God.” I sigh. “Bradley, the truth is, I have no idea how long it was. I mean, I had just found Alexa . . .” I swallow hard and pause, summoning emotion. I can’t fake-cry. I hardly cry for real, so the concept of faking it is foreign to me. But I bring my fist to my mouth and bow my head and pause.

“I’d just found Alexa . . . lying there,” I go on, “and now I’m hearing her voice on the phone. It was . . . I mean, it was crazy, it was . . . like a dream or something.” I take a long, hard breath. “If you told me it was ninety seconds, I’d believe you. If you told me it was ninety minutes, I might believe you, to be honest.”

“And did you keep that message on the phone, Jason?”

“I wish I had,” I say.

“But you didn’t?”

Everyone knows I didn’t. The police checked my voice mail and it was empty. My phone company has no retention policy on voice mails. If the user deletes the voice mail, it’s gone with the wind. They don’t even know if I had a voice mail at 8:16 that evening. All the phone company knows is that something—my voice mail or a human being—answered Alexa’s call, initiated the connection with her cell phone, at 8:16 P.M.

“Bradley—sorry, Mr. John,” I say, “I honestly don’t remember deleting that phone message, but I’m sure I did. It’s like—I do it by rote. I hear a message on my home phone and then I delete it. It’s automatic for me.”

It’s automatic for most people, which is why, again, I’m not overplaying my hand here and claiming that I specifically recall pressing 7 and erasing her message. My ex-girlfriend is dead, I’ve just called 911, but I remember deleting a voice mail?

It’s little things that separate good lies from bad. Maybe I should teach a class, or write a how-to manual. Lessons from My Father.

“Jason, let’s talk about whether Alexa had a key to your house. Do you recall portions of the videotaped police interview where that subject was discussed?”

“I do.”

We’re going here next because Shauna considers this subject a low point for us. She decided it was best to sandwich this topic between more favorable matters.

“Did Alexa Himmel have a key to your house?”

“Yes, she did. Of course she did. Until we broke up, she practically lived with me.”

“The testimony we’ve heard,” says Bradley, “is that the police could find no such key on Alexa or anywhere else in your house.”

“I heard that, too. I don’t know what to tell you. I really don’t. I never got the key back from her. She still had it.”

“Did she typically keep it on her key chain?”

“Oh, boy.” I blow out air. “I really can’t say for sure whether she had it on her regular key chain or separate. I’m sorry. I really don’t know. Whenever we were together, I’d open the door. It was only when she was there by herself that she’d have to use the key. So I’m not sure I ever even saw where she kept the key or what she put it on.”

That sounds pretty good, I think. Better to do what I just did—throw up your hands, chalk it up to one of those things that probably has an obvious explanation, but you can’t think of it—than to have some elaborate explanation that checks every box. Again, if I’m a devious liar, why wouldn’t I come up with some carefully crafted explanation?

“Now, Jason, I’d like to turn to our final subject,” says Bradley. “I’d like to talk about this person you mentioned to Detective Cromartie as the possible killer. I’d like to talk about the person you called Jim.”

95.

Jason

“I’m going to replay a small portion of the police interview, Jason.”

Bradley hits “Play” on the computer. The projection screen comes alive. The jury gets to hear this snippet of the interview for a second time:

“You told me back at your house that you have a pretty good idea who killed Alexa,” Cromartie says. “Can you help me out with that? Who killed her, Jason?”

I don’t answer at first. Several seconds pass. I shake my head and wave a hand. “His name is Jim.”

“Last name?” Cromartie asks.