“We’re asking everyone, Coach Pace.” She gave him a big smile. “Standard procedure.”
He didn’t look convinced but said, “Last night I was at home.”
“With your dog.”
“Yeah.”
“Right,” Josie said. “After nine thirty. Still at home?”
“I was home all night,” he replied. He slipped back into his overly friendly mode. “Mondays come quicker the older you get, know what I mean?”
Josie looked down at her pink shirt. “Yeah,” she said. “I do.”
Fourteen
My first time killing came a bit later. It wasn’t something I had planned initially, but living with other people can be difficult. They always disappoint, both in big ways and in small ones. He had disappointed me in a big way, but it was the constant wheezing that set my teeth on edge. You wouldn’t believe the noises your lungs make when they fill up with fluid. At first, I was glad to see him in such discomfort. If anyone had ever deserved to die a slow death, robbed of air in increments each day while fever burned through them, it was him. It was divine luck that he got so sick in the first place. Then all I had to do was switch his antibiotics with something else. He almost caught on a few times, made some noises about how he wasn’t “sure if these are the right pills,” but by the fourth day he was so weak, and he had so little breath left to use on speech, he shut up. Of course, he went back for more antibiotics, and I had to switch those out, too. I had already decided by that time that if he wasn’t gone within another week, I’d have to take drastic measures. The wheezing was driving me mad, but I didn’t want him to get better. Not after what he’d done. He had lied and not just to me. He was a lot like Nysa in that way.
In the end, I didn’t even get to see him die. I left him gasping for air and when I returned, there was only silence. I was giddy with delight—not just because he was dead but because he’d gotten what he deserved—until one of the doctors at the hospital mentioned an autopsy. Would it show that he didn’t have any of the antibiotics he was supposed to have taken in his system? To my relief, they declined to perform one. Still, I waited for someone to figure out what I had done.
No one ever did.
Fifteen
Josie followed Coach Pace into the hallway and watched him walk back to the lobby. She heard the campus officer at the reception desk say, “See you later, Coach.” The smell of pizza wafted toward her from the other end of the hall, and her stomach growled loudly in response. Mettner poked his head out of the CCTV room. “Food’s in here,” he said. As Josie devoured two slices of pizza in short order, they exchanged notes on their most recent interviews, which had led nowhere.
Mettner said, “Hudson Tinning is the last interview. He’s in my room. You want to talk to him together?”
Josie used a napkin to wipe pizza sauce from her mouth. “Yeah.”
As they entered the interview room, Hudson Tinning stood from one of the chairs surrounding the small table. A black T-shirt hung on his tall, wiry frame. White letters proclaimed: School Kills My Vibe. The cuffs of his torn jeans brushed over the tops of his flip-flop-clad feet. He towered over Josie and even had a few inches on Mettner, who was almost six feet tall.
“You’re the police?” he said, looking from Mettner to Josie and back. His pale blue eyes were wide. Stringy locks of blond hair hung down the sides of his face giving him a surfer look. “I mean, the real police,” he clarified. “Not just the campus police.”
“Yes,” Josie said. She introduced herself and Mettner and they showed him their credentials. “Have a seat, Mr. Tinning.”
He returned to his seat. Mettner sat across from him and took out his phone, pulling up his note-taking app. Josie remained standing. Hudson pushed a hand through his hair. “Is it true? Nysa’s dead?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Tinning,” said Josie. “Nysa Somers passed away this morning.”
“Oh Jesus.” His head dipped as he took several deep breaths. When he looked back up at them, tears glistened in his eyes. “Are you guys serious? I mean, really? She’s dead?”
“I’m afraid so,” Mettner said.
“Oh God.” He put his elbows on the table and lowered his face into his palms. A sob filled the room. Josie and Mettner gave him a moment. Then Mettner said, “Mr. Tinning, I know this is upsetting, but we really need to ask you some questions.”
Lifting his face, Hudson wiped tears from his cheeks and nodded. “I’m sorry. Yeah, yeah. Go ahead. I just—what happened to her?”
“We’re not sure yet,” Josie told him. “That’s why we’re here.”
“Someone said she was in the pool. Like, dead. That makes no sense. You know she’s the best swimmer we’ve got, right?”
“We’re aware,” Josie told him.
“Then how could she drown?”
Mettner said, “As Detective Quinn said, we’re really not sure what happened at this point. We’ll know more when our investigation concludes.”
Hudson said, “When will that be?”
Josie said, “It could take a couple of months, unfortunately, because the medical examiner is doing routine toxicology screening and that can take up to eight weeks.”
“Eight weeks!” he exclaimed. “Why so long?”
Josie answered, “Not enough labs to do all the processing. The labs that are available are severely backlogged. Some of the tests require multiple steps and take time to process.”
“But her family,” Hudson said. “They’ll want to know what happened. Her friends—all of us want to know what happened.”
“I’m sorry, Hudson,” said Josie.
“Her parents were just in town. Did anyone talk to them?”
“Our colleague was with them this morning,” Mettner said. “They made a positive identification. We’ll be speaking to them again later.”
“Can you tell them I’m sorry? For their loss?”
“Of course,” said Josie.
“’Cause I guess they’ll have her funeral at home and not here.”
Josie said, “New Jersey isn’t a long drive from here.”
Hudson nodded.
Mettner said, “I take it that you two were close?”
Hudson placed his palms down on the table. “Yeah. We’ve been training a lot together since school started. We were already friends but just spent a lot more time together since we came back to school this year. We’re both on the swim team, both sophomores. We’ve had a few classes together.”
“Were you having any kind of romantic relationship with Ms. Somers?” Josie asked him.
“No. We weren’t. I wanted to. I liked her. She was cool, you know? Not like most girls here. But she was too focused on her schoolwork and the team to date anyone.”
“Did Nysa know that you were interested in her in a sexual way?” Mettner asked.
He shrugged, his gaze on his hands. “I don’t know. I guess. Maybe.”
“Maybe?” Josie pressed.