“We got along all right.” The answer came across as snide.

Niki paused, tapping her pen against the pad as she contemplated the path the interview was about to take. “Alice, it’s really important that you be straight with me. We have reason to believe that Chloe’s attacker had killed before, and might kill again. I need honest answers from you today.”

“Are you calling me a liar?”

“Tell me about your relationship with Chloe Ludlow.”

“She was a…” Alice pursed her lips as though to hold back some venomous words. Then she proceeded in a calm tone. “I should’ve never taken her in. We were a bad fit from the start. She was pretty and tall—not that I have anything against that, but the way she flaunted it in my face. I had a boyfriend, and she’d walk around the apartment wearing next to nothing—prancing in front of him like she was trying to seduce him or something. I told her to stop, but she’d just say, ‘I can’t help it if boys like to look at me.’ She had no respect for other people—none at all.”

“Was Chloe seeing anyone—a significant other?”

“She saw lots of men, but significant? She used to bring guys to the apartment, guys she met at the bars. Sometimes she didn’t even remember their names. What do you expect when you act like that? I told her she was gonna get herself in trouble, acting that way. I told her—I said, ‘One of these days, you’re gonna run into the wrong kind of guy and end up dead.’ I said that to her. You can’t live that way and not expect consequences.”

“You make it sound…like you think she deserved what happened to her.”

“I’m not saying she deserved it, but what’d she expect?”

Niki said nothing for a moment, letting the rumble of St. Anthony Falls fill the silence. “Hear that?” Niki asked. “The falls?”

Alice looked toward the river but didn’t answer.

“He drugged Chloe—then he raped her. When he was finished, he drove her over there to Nicollet Island. She was probably groggy because he wanted as little of the drug in her system as possible when he dragged her down to the river and held her under the water. When he was sure she was dead, he pushed her out to let her wash over the falls. The pull of the undertow probably held her body at the bottom of the spillway for a while—minutes, hours, who knows—before letting go. Chloe might not have lived up to your expectations, but nobody—nobody—deserves what happened to her.”

Alice looked at her hands on the table and didn’t say anything.

“Now, I want you to tell me everything you can remember about Chloe’s last days in that apartment. Don’t leave a single detail out, no matter how small. Did you meet the man who came to pick her up?”

“No, I was in my bedroom. He never came in.”

“Prior to him coming to pick her up, did she say anything about him?”