Page 114 of Family Affair

Chapter 26

If she lived to be eighty years old and in her sound mind, Coco would write a memoir about her life. About how average and boring it had been before she met Dan Sheffield and his brothers, and how it took a dramatic slide down the crapper soon thereafter.

She'd make sure to include a chapter in her memoir entitled “How I Participated in a Police Line-up.” Surely the publishers would want to run with it.

As Coco stood in the viewing room holding number five, second from the last, she could only hope that the following chapter of her memoir wouldn’t be called “How I Served Time for a Crime I Didn’t Commit.” Decked out in navy blue jail garb for conformity with other women in line, her mind spun depressing images of the prison door clanging shut and her mother visiting with homemade cookies.

God, would this day ever end?

All the women in the lineup fit Coco’s general description with their light eyes and long hair ranging in color from light blond to brown. They all held their number cards in front of them, some standing still, some shifting from one foot to the other. No words passed between them. The opaque mirror on the opposite wall gave up nothing.

Coco felt a childish impulse to stick her tongue at the mirror as far as the root allowed. Only the fear of being picked for her bad behavior kept her from doing it.

After what felt like a year-and-a-half, the door opened.

“We’ll take a group picture now.” The dry voice belonged to the dry Detective Willis.

Fantastic.

A dude with a camera squeezed into the room after Willis and snapped a couple of shots of the unsmiling bevy of jail beauties.

The guards filed in to escort the ladies to their quarters.

“Ms. Milroy, we’ll go back to the interrogation room. Please follow me.”

Willis’s tone, never warm to begin with, dripped icicles.

“Where is Detective Smirnoff? He brought me here, he should see this spectacle to the end and let me go.”

Willis speared her with a stern look. “You can’t request a cop like you would a personal trainer. We are partnering on this case, so I picked up where he left off.”

Duly warned by his frosty attitude, Coco didn’t ask any more questions and followed him to the interrogation room.

Willis crossed to the desk and sat down.

“Sit, Ms. Milroy.”

She didn’t sit down. Instead, she crossed her arms.

“Don’t you think it’s enough already, Detective? In all this affair that hardly concerns me, I’ve been nothing but accommodating. I answered all your questions, submitted to the inane house search, came to the station - willingly! - for this farce of an identification procedure. I’m done. I want to go home, and I want to go now!”

Willis looked at her, not at all perturbed by her outburst.

“I. Want. To. Go. Now.” Coco enunciated each word in case he was dimwitted. You never knew with these strong and silent types.

“You can’t. You’ve been identified as the woman who had been seen visiting Reverend Ward Williamson’s residence.”

Coco sat down. “You’re joking.”

He leaned forward. “Do I look like a clown to you? We aren’t running a circus here, either. You’re up to your ears in problems. What we’re gonna do about that, is up to you.”

Coco’s head spun. Impossible. This must be a mistake.

She took a deep breath, calling on the untapped reserves of logic that she hoped she had somewhere within her. “Detective, I thought we established that at the time of the murder I was having dinner with Cade Sheffield. Remember the video?”

He had the grace to color slightly. “You were seen at Williamson’s house weeks earlier. Why? Did Cade send you?”

The pressure built inside her temples. “I didn’t go anywhere near his house. I didn’t know where he lived. I still don’t.”