Big Boned

“That’s the spirit,” Cooper says, encouragingly.

“Of course,” Sarah says, as the three of us head back toward Fischer Hall to pick up the sign-in sheets and take them over to Detective Canavan’s office, thus speeding the release of the man with whom Sarah claims most emphatically to no longer be in love with. “It would be much better if we could just figure out who really did kill Owen. Not just for Sebastian,” she adds, hastily. “But so everything could go back to normal.” Cooper and I exchange glances.

“Yes,” I say. “It would.”

11

Walking with my baby in t he park

Past the dog run

And the young at heart

“Lucy’s Song”

Written by Heather Wells

Detective Canavan is less than impressed by the sign-in sheets we present him with forty-five minutes later—possibly because he’s tired after a long day of work, and just wants to go home (welcome to the club).

But also because, as he points out, they don’t exactly represent an iron-clad alibi, since anyone can sneak past a college security guard, shoot an interim residence hall director in the head, then sneak back.

I inform him that his lack of faith in New York College’s crackerjack security force is jarring, a remark to which he responds not at all… except to mention the small matter of the handgun they found in Sebastian’s murse.

“Handgun?” Sarah scoffs. “Don’t be ridiculous. Sebastian doesn’t own a gun. He’s a pacifist. He believes violence is never the answer. It doesn’t solve anything.”

Detective Canavan snorts at this.

“A pacifist who carries around an unlicensed thirty-eight.”

Since this also happens to be the same caliber bullet that mowed through Owen Veatch’s skull at the time for which Sebastian has no credible alibi, he’s the murder’s number one—and only—suspect. A ballistics test will tell the police if the gun is, in fact, the same one used to dispatch my boss. The sign-in sheets, if anything, only serve to solidify the case against Sebastian, since it gives the NYPD their first solid proof that Sebastian was actually on the premises at the time of the murder.

Um. Oops?

Sarah, when we walk out of the precinct and onto West Tenth Street, has been rendered visibly pale by all of this.

“Look,” I say to her, fearing she’s going to hyperventilate again, and furtively sca

Cooper makes a noise when I say this, but I shoot him a warning look, and he closes his mouth.

“I know,” Sarah says quietly.

“And he’ll be all right overnight in the detention center,” I insist. “Detective Canavan will make sure he gets his inhaler. And his Allegra-D.”

“I know,” Sarah says. Again, quietly. Too quietly.

I glance at Cooper over the top of Sarah’s head. He raises his eyebrows. We both sense it: Something’s wrong. Sarah should be in hysterics. Why is she so calm?

We wait at the corner for an empty cab to come by and take us back to Washington Square. It’s a gorgeous spring evening, and there are a lot of people out and about, couples—both of the hetero and homo variety, some pushing strollers, some not—and singles, some walking dogs, some not, all stylishly attired (it’s the West Village, after all), enjoying the warm weather and twilight sky, strolling by the quaint outdoor cafés with their brightly colored awnings, the expensive home decor shops, the fragrantly scented cupcake bakeries, the specialty condom stores…

Sarah doesn’t seem to notice any of this. She keeps her gaze straight ahead, a faraway look in her eye. When Cooper successfully hails a cab and it pulls up in front of us, but she still doesn’t move, I reach out and pinch her, Muffy Fowler style.

Not hard, or anything. Just enough to get a reaction.

“Ow!” Sarah exclaims, jumping and rubbing her arm. She turns an accusatory gaze up at me. “What’d you do that for?”

“What’s the matter with you?” I demand. “You just found out the love of your life’s a big fat phony. Why aren’t you hyperventilating? Or at least crying?”

“What are you talking about?” Sarah’s eyebrows, badly in need of plucking, are constricted. “Sebastian’s not the love of my life. And he’s NOT a phony.”

“A pacifist who carries a thirty-eight?” Cooper, holding open the door to the backseat of the taxi, looks skeptical. “You don’t find that a bit hypocritical?”

“God, don’t you see?” Sarah lets out a bitter laugh as she climbs into car. “It’s so obvious. Someone planted that gun on him.”

I glance at Cooper as I slide onto the backseat beside her, but he shrugs, obviously as clueless as I am. “Sarah, what are you talking about?”

“It’s clearly a conspiracy,” Sarah explains, as if the two of us are simpletons not to have seen it. “A setup by the president’s office. I don’t know how they did it, but you can be sure they’re behind it. Sebastian would never carry a gun. Someone must have slipped it into his bag.”

“Washington Square West and Waverly,” Cooper says to the cabdriver, as he joins me on the backseat. To Sarah, he says, “I gotta hand it to you, kid. That’s a new one. A conspiracy by the New York College president’s office. Very creative.”

“Laugh all you want,” Sarah says. She turns her face resolutely toward the window. “But they’re going to be sorry come morning.Very sorry.”

I stare at her profile. It’s getting darker out, and harder to see. I can’t tell whether or not she’s kidding.

But then again, she’s Sarah. Sarah’s never been much of a kidder.

“What do you mean, they’re going to be sorry?” I ask her. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” Sarah says i

I glance at Cooper. He’s trying not to smile. Although I don’t see anything particularly fu

Sarah turns down my invitation to come over for di

“But what could she mean, we’re going to be sorry?” I wonder, as we make our way up the stoop to his front door. “What could she be up to?”

“I don’t know.” Cooper fumbles with his keys. “But it seems to me if she gets out of hand you have a good bargaining tool with the fact that she was letting that kid live illegally in your building. Just threaten to rat her out.”

“Oh, Coop,” I say. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” he wants to know. “You’re too soft on them, Heather. What was that whole thing earlier, with my car? Did you really think there was a chance in hell I was going to let them borrow it?”

“No,” I say. “But you’re one to talk. What was that other whole thing in your office earlier, where you were swearing at Sarah, and telling her to get the fuck out? Like you were really going to throw her out. You wouldn’t throw a cockroach out of there.Obviously.”

“Heather, you might not have noticed, but she was completely lying to us.” Cooper manages to get the front door unlocked, then pushes it open. “Do you think we’d have ever gotten the truth out of her if I’d coddled her the way you do?”

My cell phone rings. I pull it out, see that it’s Tad calling, and immediately send the call to voice mail.

Unfortunately, Cooper is standing close enough that he sees who it was. And where I sent the call.

“Trouble in paradise?” he asks, one dark eyebrow quirked.