Resolve by J.J. Hensley

state of mind, then it could appear that I either knew her very well; or perhaps I had talked to her about the meeting later that evening and thus knew exactly what she was thinking at the time. Clever, clever. It was a no-win question, and the detective wanted to see how I would handle it.
    I took a breath and addressed both of them.
    “Detectives, all I can tell you is that I made it abundantly clear that there was no relationship between us and never would be. I can’t be certain of what was going through her mind, partly because after she had started asking me about the possibility of a relationship, she noticed Steven in the room. At that point, she looked more surprised, and probably embarrassed, than anything else. Then she said she would talk to me later and simply left the room. I never saw her again.”
    My frustration was back now. Not at the detectives, but the fact that I had let my guard down. These guys played me beautifully and I had fallen for it. Hell, the T.O.D. may not have even been real. They may have gotten me focusing on a particular time frame only to see if I would get lazy with the rest of the timeline for my personal alibi. I was tired. I was cold. I was mad at myself. Truth be told, I was probably mad at Lindsay for putting me in this position. And then I was getting mad for letting myself get mad at a poor dead girl who probably had a very bright future ahead of her.
    “You said Steven was about twenty-five years old.” Hartz’s words jarred me back from my internal version of corporal mortification.
    “I did.”
    “Did he know the victim?” Hartz prodded.
    “A little, I guess. He helps out with the Victimology class, so he knows her from that.”
    “Did he know her outside of class?” Hartz had something on his mind and took control of the questioning.
    “I don’t know. I don’t think so. What are you getting at, Detective?”
    “Twenty-five is older than twenty-two.”
    “You’re barking up the wrong tree. They weren’t romantically involved.”
    “Thacker is a faculty member since he’s a graduate assistant, right? I would guess that he teaches some low-level classes?”
    “Technically . . . I suppose he is. And he does. What difference does that make?”
    “The roommate also mentioned that she thought the victim’s boyfriend worked for the university,” Hartz said, with some added emphasis on the word boyfriend .
    As angry as I felt, I still hadn’t really raised my voice, but the knob on my volume control was definitely beginning to turn.
    “Look. I wasn’t seeing her. Steven wasn’t seeing her. If she was seeing somebody who was a faculty member, then I sure don’t know who it was!”
    Shand calmly turned the page of his notepad, raised his eyes and interjected with, “If Mr. Thacker was seeing her, and he thought that you wouldn’t approve of a relationship between them, then it makes perfect sense that he would hide that fact from you, doesn’t it?”
    “No. He wasn’t seeing her. I’m certain.”
    Hartz shot back, “You can’t know everything about everyone. You were a cop. You know that.”
    “You’re off base here.”
    Shand added, “Maybe he was afraid you would turn him in if he told you. Maybe Ms. Behram was actually there to talk to you about her relationship with him .”
    “No.”
    The voice from Hartz’s direction exclaimed, “That’s true! You said she was taken aback when she saw him in the room. Then she left without argument.”
    “No. That’s not what I meant.”
    Volume knob turned a millimeter more.
    The two voices battering me were indistinguishable now.
    “Dr. Keller, does Steven have a girlfriend?”
    “No!”
    “Well, there you go. Maybe she was his girlfriend.”
    “No!”
    “They may have been seeing each other right under your nose. You shouldn’t be embarrassed. People hide all sorts of things, Doc.”
    “It’s Cyprus.”
    “Maybe she actually used you to make Steven jealous. Maybe he got really