Page 64 of The Fall of Iris Henley
I stop in my tracks as her eyes meet mine. They’re hard and flat, without a trace of warmth. She stares for the briefest moment, then looks away and walks quickly into the parking lot.
I want to chase after her, to grab her arm and make her look at me. But there’s no time. Sheriff Ramos is standing just inside the door. He holds it open.
“Come on in, Mrs. Henley, Iris.”
My mind spins as I follow him into the conference room. I take a seat at the big faux-wood table across from him.
“Can I get you anything? Water? Coffee?”
I open my mouth to answer, but Mom holds a hand up to cut me off. “What’s this all about, Sheriff?”
Ramos takes a long time to get settled into his chair. Hemakes a show of opening a manila folder, scanning over the top piece of paper inside.
“Well, Iris, it looks like I need to ask you one more time to go over the night of April fifteenth and the morning of the sixteenth,” he says. He rests his forearms on the table and leans forward.
“I already told you everything I know,” I say. I glance at Mom, her expression still tight, and then back at him. “I was at the cheer party. I was there all night.”
The sheriff leans back slightly in his chair, like he’s in the middle of an enormous meal and needs a moment to savor it.
“That’s interesting,” he says. “Because now we have a witness that says you left your house that night just after oneAM.”
I gape at him. My face feels numb and strange—like I can’t quite control it, or even guess what it might be doing. I put my hand to my mouth, covering up what I can, suddenly desperate to hide.
“Hayden,” I say faintly.
He shrugs. “I can’t identify informants.”
That makes me want to laugh. “You did a crappy job hiding her identity, then.”
He ignores this. “But what I can tell you is that someone who previously confirmed your alibi has retracted her statement and now claims she woke up in the middle of the night to see you slipping out the front door.”
I shake my head. “No, that’s not true.”
Ramos taps the table with his pen and stares at me. He’s trying to wait me out. I’m not going to let him force me to talk, but then my mom intervenes.
“Iris, tell the sheriff what he wants to know,” she says coldly. “I’d like to be out of here by lunch.”
I almost want to laugh in her face.Sorry to inconvenience you, Mom. Sorry to make you experience an iota of what I’ve been going through.
“I can only tell you what I already told you,” I say. “My parents were out of town. I had a sleepover. The girls all showed up between six and eight, I guess.”
“Your previous statement says between five and ten,” Ramos interjects.
I give a helpless shrug. “Then that’s probably more accurate. It was six months ago, I don’t remember all the details.”
“You don’t remember the details of the night your boyfriend and best friend died?” Skepticism drips from his voice. Where was this investigative aggression six months ago?
“No,” I say, a little snarkier than intended. “Why would I? It wasn’t like I knew ahead of time it was going to be the most traumatic night of my life. I didn’t keep a time-stamped journal or anything.”
“You need to lose the attitude, Iris,” Mom says.
It startles me so much I can’t keep a poker face. I turn to look at her, feeling like she slapped me. I don’t know what kind of help I’d expected from my mother—but I’d hoped she’d at least have my back.
“I’m not trying to have attitude. But I don’t know what you want me to say. I had a sleepover. We ate a ton of Ben & Jerry’s. We watched TV. I drank too much. I woke up to my phone ringing with the news the next day.”
“Do yourememberfalling asleep?” Ramos says. “Or did you black out?”
Mom draws in her breath sharply. “That’s enough. Sheriff Ramos, did you bring us in here tointerrogatemy daughter? Because if you did, I’m going to have to insist we reschedule for a date when our attorney can be present.”
