Free In the First Early Days of My Death by Catherine Hunter Page A

carefully, that Wendy’s fall had been an accident. He had examined the scene and doubted she could have tripped in the first place, he said, let alone fallen with such force, even if she’d been unconscious. He suspected Wendy had been pushed from behind, probably by a burglar.
    Noni said she didn’t think anything had been stolen from the house. Alika hadn’t mentioned that anything was missing.
    â€œThen is there anyone you can think of who might have wanted to hurt her?” he asked. “Anyone at all?”
    Noni started to shake her head. Then she remembered.

    Almost as soon as Evelyn James opened her door for him, Felix decided that she was probably innocent. She was tiny, for one thing, not strong enough to have committed such an assault. And it seemed she knew nothing of Wendy’s fall or her coma. When Felix told her about it, she placed both hands over her mouth and stared at him with wide eyes, while the blood drained from her face. Felix thought she was going to faint.
    But he still had to question her. Noni had told him about the stocking, along with some crazy theory about Evelyn breaking in and leaving it there. If Alika had his wife and his sister believing that, he was a pretty slick liar.
    â€œSit down, sit down,” he said. He ushered Evelyn into her own kitchen. A pot of tea sat on the table and a full cup steamed beside it. Felix guided her into a chair. “Drink your tea,” he said. “It’ll do you good.”
    She drank the tea, holding the cup with two shaking hands.
    â€œWhen did this happen?” she managed to ask.
    â€œLast Thursday. August twenty-first.”
    Evelyn lost her grip on the cup and it crashed down into the saucer.
    Felix pulled out a chair for himself.
    â€œWould you like some tea?” she asked. “The cups are behind you, there, on those hooks.”
    He reached up and took one. “Thanks. Do you have milk?” He moved toward the refrigerator, but Evelyn jumped up and stood in front of it, blocking his way.
    â€œI’ll get it,” she said. She poured the milk from the carton into a tiny pitcher and set it on the table.
    â€œDid you see Wendy on the twenty-first?” Felix asked.
    â€œI haven’t seen her for months.”
    â€œYou haven’t visited her house?”
    â€œNo!”
    â€œWhere were you that night?”
    Evelyn glanced at the calendar on the wall. Thursday the twenty-first was marked with a circle to represent the full moon. “I worked the late shift until eleven and then I came home to bed.”
    â€œAlone?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWhat were you doing? Watching television?”
    â€œI don’t remember.”
    â€œDid you talk to anyone that night, on the phone, maybe?”
    â€œI don’t remember.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper.
    Felix looked hard at the girl’s pale face. She was definitely shocked by this news. Even if she was having an affair with the husband, she honestly didn’t seem to have a clue about Wendy’s fall.
    â€œHow is Alika taking it?” she asked.
    â€œNot very well,” said Felix.

    Alika stood at the living room window, watching the empty street. He often stood staring at nothing, and sometimes I used to stand behind him, trying to see what he was looking at.
    I could never tell, especially when he was taking pictures. He’d hold the camera to his eye, look at the world through that one hole. What did he see?
    This morning, he had dressed carelessly. His collar buttons were crooked, and I wanted to reach out and put them right. I wondered if he’d misbuttoned his shirt all the way down, and I moved closer to the window, trying to see his whole body. I pushed up close against the glass and then I found myself inside the house. I was right there in the living room with him. I was back!
    â€œAlika,” I said. “I’m home.” But he didn’t believe me. He placed his right palm