That mattered.

“Okay, Mrs. Wilson,” Detective Puhl said crisply. “Is there anything else you can tell us about what happened on the night you dropped him off? You said you thought Mr. Hooks seemed nervous when he got into your car. Do you still feel that way?”

The question made me angry, but again, that could’ve been the alcohol. I wanted to ask her why my story would have changed in the half hour since I’d arrived and demand to know why she was treating me like a criminal.

I was the one who’d been attacked. I was the victim here.

Though, in all fairness, the man hadn’t been nervous. On the night he slid into the back seat of my 2013 Hyundai Elantra and muttered the words “Rideshare for Lotti?” the first things that struck me were that (a) he seemed incredibly confident and very much in control; (b) his voice was deep and warm, like the voice in an advertisement for some cologne that smells like a spice drawer; and (c) he was almost certainly not “Lotti.”

But those weren’t the kinds of things you told two cops when they stared at you, a week and a half later, suspicion dancing behind their eyes. So, for this tiny thing, this unimportant part of the story, I lied.

“Yes, he was so…” I looked down at the table for a moment and paused, then drew my gaze back up to the cops. “Fidgety. I guess you could describe it as nervous. I can’t really explain it, but I could tell something was wrong.”

Detective Puhl leaned forward, placing both elbows on the table between us.

“I really wish you could explain it,” she said.

I froze. It was the first time since I’d arrived that she’d voiced her skepticism, even though it had been there all along—in her body language, her expression, her shared looks with Detective Greg.

She tilted her head and spoke slowly, as if there was a chance I might not understand her.

“So why exactly are you sharing this information with us?” she asked. “If you’re insinuating that Mr. Hooks had something to do with the incident on West Oak Street this past weekend, you must realize how serious of an accusation that is.”

I swallowed and tried to stave off the sick feeling in my stomach, the one that had been there for days but was still managing to grow worse by the minute.

Of course I realize that, I almost snapped. Sort of accusing someone of murder is not the kind of thing you don’t realize you’re doing. The cops looked at each other again, and I got the impression they were silently having a conversation with each other, right in front of my face. There was suddenly too much saliva in my mouth, and I wanted to swallow, but I didn’t, since it seemed it would make me look nervous.