carrying the dress inside the purse. But, she said, she couldn’t
think why she would do that. She had just finished her sophomore year at Wheaton.
All she had to do was tell them if she was going out on a date.
Landry appeared to have done a good job canvassing Main Street. Within two days he
had presented her picture at every bar and restaurant. While she was known to some
of the waiters, waitresses, hostesses, and even a few of the bartenders, nobody had
seen her that night. Landry expressed a lack of surprise. He noted she was twenty
years old and not old enough to drink legally, and she had eaten before she went out.
He thought he might have better luck with sales staff and shopkeepers, but his interviews
with them had also failed to produce anyone who had seen her at any time after she
left her parents’ home.
He met with friends, co-workers, high school classmates, college classmates, former
boyfriends, and came up with no one who had any idea why someone would kill Heidi
Telford or even want to. The most common response, repeated several times by different
people, was that she “was not that kind of girl.” With no clues, no weapon, and not
even any rumors to follow, Landry essentially gave up. His report was still labeled
“Preliminary,” the file was still labeled “Open,” but thelast thing I saw with a date on it read 2000, and there was no sign that anything
had been added to it since then.
Whatever the things were that Heidi’s father had been giving to District Attorney
White, they had never even made it into the police department’s boxes.
1
.
WASHINGTON, D.C., October 1996
I
ENJOYED MY FIRST MONTH OF LAW SCHOOL. I PLAYED PICKUP basketball in the gym three afternoons a week, met some guys who asked me to join
a flag football team that played on Saturday mornings, drank with classmates at the
21st Amendment on Friday afternoons, and tried never to miss a lecture or homework
assignment. And then Mr. Andrews found me.
I was living in an apartment a few streets from the National Law Center at George
Washington University. I had not been there long, had not given anyone my new address,
but there was Mr. Andrews, looking taut and wired in jeans and running shoes and that
same gray jacket he had worn in Philadelphia six months before.
“George,” he said, and stood there, silently demanding that I invite him in.
My place was on the third floor of a building that sacrificed comfort for character.
I had a small living room that led to a smaller dining room, off of which was a kitchen
that was just big enough for one person at a time. The living room converted to a
bedroom at night. The dining room was used full-time as a study. I had yet to have
anybody there as a guest, and so my computer, my books, and my desklamp were all positioned on the dining room table. When I ate, I simply moved to a
different part of the table. I had two chairs.
I looked at the chairs, looked at the couch that had been left by the previous tenant,
and wondered where I would put Mr. Andrews. I wondered why I had to put him anywhere
at all. I said, “What do you want?”
The man stared at me long enough and hard enough that I somehow knew what he was going
to say before he said it. My lower lip began to tremble. I bit down on it to make
it stop. He didn’t even blink. I put my hand on the door frame and gripped it tightly
so that I could lean forward and not use all my willpower just to stand up straight.
And still Mr. Andrews did not say anything more. I had to ask him.
“What happened?”
“Drug overdose.”
“Is she all right?”
“She’s dead, George. Is that all right enough for you?”
I stepped away from the door. Fell away, ended up on the couch. I lost a small segment
of time, but then Mr. Andrews was standing over me and I was leaning forward, my forearms
on my knees, my hands dangling. “I’m sorry,” I said. I may have said it