“Nope. I grew up in New York. I didn’t see a field until I was seventeen,” Paige laughed.
“Once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all,” Ella said. “Ready to try again?”
Paige cracked her knuckles. “What’s the approach?”
“Wing it,” Ella said. She rapped her knuckles on the door of apartment 23.
“Go away,” a voice shouted from the other side.
Ella turned to Paige and rolled her eyes. Here we go, she mimed.
“Roxy, your roommate is dead and we have reason to believe you’re both junkies. For your own sake, you’re gonna want to open this door.”
“I’m not opening anything.”
Underneath her feet, Ella spotted the doormat. It read: Stay Amazing, Keep Blazing.
“Then how about we bust down this door and charge you for marijuana use? I can smell that stuff a mile off,” Ella said, trying her luck.
A moment of silence.
Paige leaned in and whispered to her partner. “I can’t smell weed.”
Ella returned the gesture. “Me neither. I just know junkies. Rolling down hills wasn’t the only thing we did in Virginia.”
The door creaked open and a pair of eyeballs emerged in the crack. Ella couldn’t see her clearly.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Ella asked.
“What do you want? You shouldn’t be here. This is a crime scene, you know?” said the woman Ella assumed to be Roxy.
“No it isn’t, or you wouldn’t be here. Now, can we come in?”
“I’m not smoking weed,” Roxy said.
“I know and we don’t care if you were. Blaze it up all day and night if you like. We’re here to talk about Cassie.”
Ella let the comments sink in. A moment later, Roxy opened up the door and reluctantly summoned the agents through. She was an unkempt, sickeningly-thin girl with wild red hair that seemed to defy gravity. A velvet sheet around her shoulders substituted as clothing.
Much like the rest of the complex, the apartment wasn’t much to look at. It was something of a mudbath, but there was probably still a high price tag attached.
The agents took a seat in what passed as the living room. Compared to Vanessa’s home a couple of miles up the road, it was like they’d gone from the royal wing to the servant’s quarters.
“I had nothing to do with it,” Roxy said as she waited by the living room door. Ella didn’t like the dynamic here.
“Sit down, for God’s sake,” Ella said. “We know you had nothing to do with Cassie’s murder, but you might know someone who did. That’s all we want to talk about. Not every law enforcement offer wants to kill you, you know?”
Roxy scuttled along the floor and sat opposite the agents. “Sorry. Not a fan of cops.”
“Neither are we,” Ella added, hoping the comment might ease Roxy a little. The truth was a little different. There were good cops and bad cops, but they all risked their lives three-hundred days a year. Such a job demanded respect.
The girl smiled. It must have hit the right spot.
“I’ll tell you what I told the police,” Roxy said, tightening her sheet-clothes. “I was at my boyfriend’s the night it happened. Stayed there all night. I found Cassie when I got home Thursday morning.”
Ella noted it down. “Your boyfriend can verify?”
Roxy nodded with haste. “So can a bunch of others. There were about eight of us in total.”