Every Secret Thing

“You can help us,” Nancy said, “by telling the truth.”

Fierce, automatic: “I always tell the truth.”

“Then tell me this. Do you know anything about Brittany Little, the girl who disappeared? Anything at all, Alice?”

“I don’t know Brittany Little. I mean, except from the news. I saw her picture on the news.”

“Can I ask you something, Alice?”

Alice gave her an odd look, as if it were late in the game for Nancy to be seeking permission to ask questions. Still, she nodded.

“I mean, it’s only because it might give me-give us-an insight. When you took Olivia Barnes, what were you thinking?”

The wounded blue eyes cut right through her, saw the deception in Nancy ’s question. “How would that give you an insight? I mean, unless Ro

“Still-” Nancy had to know. Even if it proved to have nothing to do with the matter at hand, she had to have the answer to the question that had haunted her for so many years. “What were you thinking?”

“We thought she had been abandoned. We thought we could take care of her until her parents came back.”

“And why did you kill her?”

“I didn’t,” Alice said with a weariness at once disappointed and resigned. “Ro

“I know that’s what you said back then. But you can tell the truth now. It’s over. There’s no risk now in telling me what happened.”

“I am telling the truth. I always told the truth. It’s not my fault that no one believed me. Ro

“Are you saying she has, like, another personality?”

“Sort of?” Alice ’s voice was tentative. “I saw this show once, and there was a girl like that. Only with Ro

“What do you mean?”

“Her voice doesn’t change, and she doesn’t tell you to call her by a different name. But it’s like there’s good Ro

Alice ’s voice rose, petulant after all these years. Yes, she took the baby, yes, she knew where the baby was, yes, she participated in the conspiracy that kept the baby hidden for four days. But she hadn’t killed her, and she still didn’t understand why the punishments meted out refused to recognize her lesser guilt.

Nancy wasn’t sure she did, either. Her odd co

“ Alice -” There was so much Nancy wanted to ask her, but the sad fact was, it had little to do with Brittany Little and everything to do with Olivia Barnes. Nancy was face-to-face with a girl who had changed her life as surely as anyone. Except, perhaps, Ro

You bet they do, she answered her uncle now. The only difference was the ten-to-one ratio. But the detectives worked roughly the same caseloads. And Nancy would have taken fifty never-going-to-be-solved drug shootings over a maybe homicide like this one.

Alice was still holding her plump arms in a prayerful pose. She had a milk-white pallor, almost creepy in its uniformity. Not a nick, not a cut, not even a bruise. It looked as if she never used her hands at all, for anything.

“C’mon, Alice, you say you want to help us. There’s one small thing-it would only take a minute-”

There was a light knock on the door. When Nancy opened it, Infante was there, motioning for her to come out. She did, closing the door on Alice, who looked stricken to be left alone.

Helen Ma

“I’m Sharon Kerpelman,” she said. “I’m Alice ’s lawyer. Charge her or release her. At any rate, she’s not talking to you anymore tonight.”

“Look,” Infante said, “I saw your card. You’re city PD, you got no jurisdiction here. She’s not a juvenile anymore and this isn’t a city case.”

“I already told you, I’m here on behalf of Rosario Bustamante, who has agreed to represent Alice. Ms. Bustamante is…indisposed and asked that I come here to make arrangements for Alice ’s release.”

“I don’t think we can do that.”

“Oh, fuck me. Alice called and left a message on my machine two hours ago, asking me to accompany her here or find someone who could. I got that message twenty minutes ago. But you know, and I know, she can get up and walk out of here on her own steam. I’m certainly not going to let you talk to her at this late hour, when she’s tired and suggestible and would say anything to make you happy.”

“We’ve got her at the scene,” Nancy said.

“Really? That’s fu

Alice ’s voice came back, tentative and sweet: “Well, maybe it was another day. I mean, I did go there once, and see Ro

Sharon Kerpelman looked triumphant. “See? She hears you’re looking for her, and she knows it’s all because of what happened in the past, and she can’t stop trying to make it right.” Maybe it was Sharon, not Helen, who had taught Alice to think of her crime as a past. “And she knows Ro

“But why lie? Why say it was yesterday if it wasn’t yesterday?”

“There’s a lot-” Helen began, but Sharon shushed her with a look and an upraised hand. Then, motioning to Nancy and Infante, she led them down the hall, out of Alice ’s earshot.

“It’s hard, being Alice.” Sharon was trying to be reasonable in tone, conciliatory and conspiratorial, but she wasn’t good at it, and her voice grated on Nancy ’s nerves. “She got caught up in something that was bigger than she was, and she keeps trying to undo it. Seven years ago, she was too scared of Ro