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Are you being a wise guy with an officer of the law, Mickey?”
    I was. I could be stupid with my mouth sometimes, but I’m usually not suicidal. So I stopped.
    Dunleavy put a hand on Chief Taylor’s arm. “I think he was trying to make a point, Chief. Weren’t you, Mickey?”
    Maybe I did indeed watch too much TV, but even if I hadn’t, this felt a whole lot like a good-cop bad-cop routine. Chief Taylor gave me one more hard frown and went back to the wall. He leaned against it as though it might fall without him.
    “Let’s start with your talks,” Dunleavy said. “Did you talk to someone in person or via the phone or what?”
    I swallowed. What was going on here? “Via the phone.”
    “And with whom did you speak?”
    “Just a friend.”
    “Her name?”
    Her. Interesting. How did she know it wasn’t a “his”?
    “Her name,” I said, “is Rachel Caldwell.”
    She was staring hard down at the paper, but I saw something I didn’t like in the way her body sort of jerked at the sound of Rachel’s name.
    My blood went cold.
    “Oh no . . . ,” I heard myself say.
    “Did Ms. Caldwell call you or did you call her?”
    “Is it Rachel? Is she okay?”
    “Mickey—”
    “What happened?”
    “Yo, kid.”
    I glared into Chief Taylor’s sunglasses, again seeing my own reflection.
    “Pipe down. You’re here to answer our questions, not the other way around. Got it?”
    I said nothing.
    “Got it?” he repeated.
    Not. One. Word.
    “Mickey?” Dunleavy cleared her throat. She had the pen ready. “Did you call Ms. Caldwell or did she call you?”
    My head spun. I tried to put it together. What was going on? Suddenly Rachel’s words came back to me:
    I have to take care of something.
    What had she meant by that?
    “Mickey?”
    I found my voice. “Um, Rachel called me.”
    “Just like that?”
    “Well, no. I had texted her first. Then she called me back.”
    I quickly filled her in on the brief text exchange. I also told her that I had texted Spoon, but they had no interest in that. Whatever had happened . . .
    . . . shooting . . . two people shot . . . homicide . . .
    . . . involved Rachel.
    “So after your texts, Ms. Caldwell called you back?”
    “Yes.”
    “Do you know what time this was?”
    “Maybe nine.”
    “The phone records tell us it was 9:17 P.M .”
    They had already checked the phone records.
    “That sounds right,” I said.
    “So what did you two talk about?”
    “I was just checking in on her. We had an ordeal on Wednesday. You probably know about that.”
    They said nothing.
    “So I was making sure that she was okay, saying hi, that kind of thing. We also have a project due in school. I thought we could talk about that.”
    “Did you?”
    “Did I what?”
    “Did you talk about the project?”
    “Not really, no.”
    “How long have you known Rachel Caldwell?”
    “Not long. I just started at the school—”
    Chief Taylor jumped back in. “We didn’t ask when you started at the school. We asked—”
    “I don’t know exactly. I don’t think we talked before maybe a week ago.”
    “Not a long time.”
    “Yes, not a long time.” I was getting scared—and when I get scared, I have a habit of getting angry and even sarcastic. So I added, “See, that’s what I meant when you asked, ‘How long have you known Rachel Caldwell?’ and I replied, ‘Not long.’ Sorry I didn’t make that clear.”
    They didn’t like that. Neither did I.
    “And yet you were both here in Newark on Wednesday,” Dunleavy said. “Involved in that mess at the Plan B nightclub, is that correct?”
    “It is.”
    “Interesting. Have you met Rachel Caldwell’s father?”
    That question threw me. “No.”
    “How about her mother?”
    “No.”
    “Any family member?”
    “No. Please. What’s going on? Is Rachel okay?”
    “Tell us about your phone conversation with Rachel Caldwell.”
    “I already did.”
    “From the beginning. Word for word.”
    “I don’t