“People are so hung up on their titles,” Brianna said, her tone a little smug, living up to her stereotype of an entitled rich kid with as much warmth as a vodka luge.
“About Olivia,” Annie said, getting the interview back on track.
“She was cool. I liked her accent. She came to my party, and someone killed her. That’s all I know.”
“Fine,” Annie said. “Let’s dig a little deeper. You said Drew and Olivia came to the party together?”
Brianna fiddled with her phone. “Drew picked her up,” she said. “I was busy getting things ready. She didn’t want to wait for Beth and the other Port Gamble losers.”
Annie kept her expression flat. “Which Port Gamble ‘losers’ are you referring to?”
“Colton James, Beth Lee, and those genetic copies, Hayley and Taylor Ryan.”
“Was she not getting along with them?”
“She told me Beth was miffed that she wouldn’t wait for her little clique. They had a big fight.”
“All right. Do you know if Olivia had any enemies?”
“She wasn’t here long enough. Look, she was pretty. She was smart.
All the boys thought she was a supermodel in the making, and the girls wanted to talk fashion with her. She actually had an Alexander McQueen purse. That’s the Holy Grail. Harder to get than a Birkin, you know.”
Annie nodded, though she really didn’t know. Her idea of designer goods was what she could find on the clearance table at Shelly’s Tall Girl shop at the mall. “She sounds like a nice girl,” she said.
“She was nice. I liked her. We were best friends. Well, I was her best friend anyway. She was so new, you know?”
“Kids at the party were using drugs and drinking, right?” Annie asked in her calmest, most nonjudgmental voice.
Brianna flinched. “You can do whatever you want in your own home. I didn’t provide any booze or drugs. If kids were drinking and getting baked, that’s not my fault. I provided snacks and stuff. That’s not against the law.”
“This isn’t about your party and what snacks you served, Brianna. It is about the death of your friend, Olivia.”
Brianna looked at her phone again, fingers almost twitching to touch the screen. It was clear right then to Annie that Brianna’s phone was an extension of herself. It reminded her of her last visit to the Olive Garden in Silverdale. Two girls sat across from each other, but barely spoke. Instead, between all the breadsticks they could eat, they texted and Facebooked.
“Yeah, I get that,” Brianna said. “I just don’t like the way you’re treating me. You’re being inappropriate and making me uncomfortable. I know when I’m being bullied. Bullying, in case you haven’t heard, is a serious problem. I’ve watched some videos on YouTube.”
Annie tried to ignore the remark. This girl is a self-centered, condescending brat.
“At some point in the evening,” Annie said, “Olivia went upstairs to your room? Tell me about that once more.”
“She said she was feeling sick. I don’t know why. She wasn’t that drunk. My dad’s wife, Shelley, is a total boozer. I know what wasted looks like. Are we done now?”
Annie pushed a pad and pencil toward Brianna. “Almost,” she said. “I need a list of all the kids who attended the party.”
“Look, I can give you some names but not all of them. We had some crashers. People always want to come to my parties, and when they show up uninvited, I sometimes let them in. It’s my way of giving back. You know, inspiring kids who don’t know what to aspire to.”
Annie smiled—a forced one, but a smile nevertheless.
Brianna jotted down a list of names, then stopped a beat. She looked Annie in the eyes before going on. “Don’t get me wrong. I like to help everyone, even those who live a little on the fringe. I don’t mind the fringe. Though, I’m sure some people do.”
“What happened to your hand?” Annie pointed to a thin red gash on the palm of the teen’s right hand.
“Oh, that? That’s nothing. Paper cut,” Brianna said flatly. She looked Annie straight in the eye as if daring her to push further.
The two sized each other up for a long minute before Annie ended the discussion.
“That’s all for now, Brianna. You can go,” Annie said.
“How am I supposed to get home?”
“You can’t go home right now. Your house is a crime scene.”
Brianna glared at the police chief. “Great! I didn’t do anything and I can’t even go home.”
“Can you stay with a friend? Drew’s folks?”
Brianna, distracted by the vibration of her phone, shook her head. “Never mind. I’ll figure something out. I always do.”
“I’m sure you will. Let me know if I can help.”
Annie wrote down Brianna’s answers while the teenager turned her attention back to her phone and immersed herself in Twitter:
@ police dept. Totally sux having a murder committed at your party! Please RT. #partyruinedbymurder
After she finished, Brianna stood up, stretched, and did a couple of yoga poses in the small, cramped office.
“Crap,” she said loud enough for anyone to hear. “This whole thing has really upset me. I’m completely out of it.”
Annie watched as the teenager dropped into the Downward Dog pose. While a zillion things were competing for focus in her mind as they always did in the first moments of a criminal investigation, one thought decisively shoved all of the others aside: Who on God’s green earth does yoga when their friend has just been killed?
AT LEAST ON THE SURFACE OF THINGS, Andrew Marcello was one of those kids others couldn’t help but envy. He had his own car, a traditional family, a nice house, and, probably most important, a hot girlfriend. His mother, Marsha, was an administrator for the North Kitsap School District and his father, Chase, was a three-term Kitsap County Superior Court judge. Although Drew spent most of his childhood in the Kingston area, there was a period of two years in which he lived in California with an aunt. He called it his “So Cal sabbatical from Kidnap County.” Although he was eighteen, Drew told everyone that he was a year younger. He didn’t want the other kids to know that he’d been held back and had to repeat the second grade.
Drew was attractive, but the bleary, fluorescent overhead lighting in the interrogation room didn’t do him any justice. He had dark hair, dark eyes, and a pug nose almost too small for his face. Over his right pec was a tattoo of a fleur-de-lis, a gift to himself in honor of his Italian heritage. His parents didn’t have the heart to tell their less-than-brilliant son that the design he’d had inked permanently on his body was French, not Italian. No one in the Marcello household liked to push or prod Drew. When he was calm, he was much easier to deal with.
“Yes, Chief,” he said to Annie Garnett’s request to take a seat for the interview. He waited a beat for her to sit first.
Annie was unsure if the teenager was trying to be polite or if he was using her title in sarcasm.
“All right, Drew,” she said. “Let’s talk about what happened tonight.”
Drew shrugged and pulled on the zipper on his hoodie, revealing a Kingston High Buccaneers red and gold T-shirt. “Fine, but, if you don’t mind, my dad says that kids don’t have to talk without their parents being here. My dad’s Chase Marcello, the judge. Maybe you’ve heard of him?”
“I’ve heard of your father. You’re not a minor, Drew,” Annie said. “You’re eighteen.”
“My dad says it’s never good to talk to the police without a lawyer.”
Annie kept her emotions in check. The kid was a piece of work, but he was right. “Understood. Are you requesting a lawyer? Or would you like me to phone your father at this hour?”
Drew glowered a little. “Nah. Not really.”
Annie dropped a new pad on the table and reached for a pen. With her perfect, deliberate penmanship she recorded Drew’s version of the events of the evening: who came to the party, who shouldn’t have been there, and if he knew of any reason why Olivia Grant had been murdered.