Yes was all he responded. Translation: I’m done talking about it. I know nothing more than I did before.

I tossed my phone to the side and chewed my lip. If we didn’t have Luna or Heriberto, we might as well get my dad.

I put the cassette marked with a big 1 into the machine and pressed play.

At first there was nothing. Just the hiss of the tape and some faraway clicks and dragging noises. Then there was some mumbling—something garbled—and my dad’s voice came in, so loud and clear and close to the microphone it sounded like he was actually in the room with me. It made my heart skip.

“Uh, Milo Kill. M-I-L-O K-I-L-L.”

More mumbling, then a rustling and the voice coming in clearer. “. . . Thursday night?”

There was a pause. “Uh. I was home? I don’t know, maybe I was out. I . . . can I get a drink of water?” There was the sound of liquid being poured, and then, “Thanks.” A pause. “I mean, the whole week has been such a blur. I’m not sure what I remember. What’s real and what’s fake, you know?” A breath.

“So you don’t remember anything about the night your wife was murdered? Not even where you were?”

“I . . . I was with my daughter. With Nikki.”

I sat up straighter, staring at the recorder, which was bursting with gold fireworks, dripping gray contrails, and melting into a deep indigo sky. I pressed rewind and listened again. “. . . I was with my daughter.”

“Fucking liar,” I said out loud. I clicked off the tape, my entire room blotted out with inky rage. I had been at my friend Wendy’s house. Her mom had given me Tootsie Rolls in a bag. I’d dropped them in Mom’s blood. I remembered everything. Everything, down to the warmth of the blood as it soaked into the knees of my jeans. Down to the look in Mom’s eyes when she told me to run. And he couldn’t even remember that he wasn’t with me that night? “Bullshit,” I said to the recorder, hopping off my bed and pacing the length of my room a few times, my thumbnail jammed in my mouth. I looked longingly at my desk drawer, where I knew I’d stashed an old, stale pack of cigarettes. If there ever was a time I was saving them for . . .

Instead, I took several deep breaths and hit play again. “Well, now, see, we’ve been told your daughter was at a friend’s house, Milo. Were you with her at that house, or . . . ?”

“I . . .” A sigh. “I guess I must have been. I must have picked her up, dropped her off. That’s . . . I mean, I don’t know where else I would be.”