My Sweet Annie

31

I was wearing one of Gran's crocheted afghans as a shawl, clutching it close to my chest. Two police cars and a van that read CORONER were crowded in the driveway behind my car, Gran's car, and the landscaping truck. Officers Sanchez and Whitehead—the woman with the pretty braid—were among the four who had responded to my 911 call. They were down at the pond. From where I was, I could make out one staked corner of the crime scene perimeter, yellow tape fluttering in the soft wind.

The ambulance had come and gone.

"Ms. Carter."

I blinked, returning my focus to the woman in front of me. Detective LeBlanc wore a crisp, pinstriped blouse under a navy blazer. She was about my mother's age, with wrinkles around her lips that suggested she was, or had been, a smoker. Her brown hair was laced with gray.

"I'm sorry, I just..."

"I understand. This is a very upsetting thing. Are you okay to answer my questions now?" She had a pocket notebook in one hand and a pen in the other.

"Of course, yes. Yes."

"I was hoping you could walk me through the timeline in more detail. You said that Mr. Lassiter arrived around when?"

"It was just after 1 PM. 1:04."

"1:04 exactly?" She made a note.

"I mean, according to my phone."

"You checked the time?"

It hadn't struck me as strange until she probed. "Yeah, just...naturally. I was in the dining room getting ready to do some stuff and I knew that Mark—um, I just called him Mark, but Mr. Lassiter—I knew that he planned to be here at 1. My dog heard the truck in the driveway and went crazy. When I saw the time, I knew it it would be Mark."

LeBlanc made a sound of acknowledgment and made another note.

"It couldn't really have been anyone else. I haven't been here long, and the only other person to stop by the house has been a friend."

"And who is this friend?"

"Anabel Torres." I knew Ana's last name because I had asked for it when I added her contact information to my phone. Watching LeBlanc jot down her name, I added, "She's a new friend. We met a couple of days after I got here."

"Got here—to your grandmother's house."

I nodded. I had explained to Detective LeBlanc that the home wasn't mine—or that it was mine by inheritance, I supposed. She knew of my grandmother's recent death and the reason I had come to stay for a while. "Ana was an art student of my grandmother's. Painting. She came to the house a couple of days after I got here because she wanted to pick up some of her things from Gran's studio. Some of her work and supplies. But she was close to Gran, so I invited her to keep working in the studio until the house is sold. She's been here once since then to use the studio."

"Alright, so Mark arrived at 1:04. What happened then?"

"We talked for a minute, and then—"

"Talked about what?"

I turned gestured the front door of the house. "We were just standing in the doorway. He was letting me know that he had arrived and was going to get started. He was going to mow the grass and trim one of the trees."

"So he didn't come into the house?"

I shook my head. "No. Honestly, he checked in and we talked for a minute, max, and then he went straight back down off of the porch. I saw him go to his truck, but that's all. I went to do other things and didn't even think about it again until I realized that his truck was still here and I didn't hear the mower."