A Playdate With Death Read Free Page A

time.
    Betsy just cried harder and jerked her arm away from the officer’s extended hand. I sat down next to her and slipped an arm around her shoulders.
    “Officer, why don’t you let the detectives know that Betsy’s just too distraught right now.” The cop started to shake his head, but I interrupted him. “Am I to understand that you are placing her under arrest?” I asked. I felt Betsy quiver under my arm, and I gave her back a reassuring pat.
    “No, no, nothing like that,” the other officer spoke up. He looked a bit older than the one trying to get Betsy up off the couch. “We just need her to give a statement to the detectives.”
    “Unless you’re planning on arresting her, Betsy’s going to stay home for now. You can let the detectives know that they can contact her here. And if there’s nothing further, I think Betsy would like to be left alone.”
    The police officers looked at each other for a moment, and then the older one shrugged his shoulders. They walked out the door, leaving behind a room that suddenly seemed to quadruple in size.
    I patted Betsy on the back for a while, and then got up to make some tea. Bobby had introduced me to the wonders of green tea, and I could think of no time when I’d needed a restorative cup of Silver Needle Jasmine more than at this moment. I opened the fridge in the little galley kitchen off the living room and sorted through the jars of protein powderand murky green bottles of wheat grass juice until I found a little black canister of tea. I dug up a teapot and ran the faucet until it was hot. I poured some water over the leaves and let them steep for a moment. By the time I came back out to the living room holding two small cups of tea, Betsy had gathered herself together and was wiping her eyes and blowing her nose.
    “Thanks,” she said. “You still know how to be a lawyer.”
    “What? Making tea?”
    “No, no.” She smiled through her tears. “Getting rid of the cops.”
    “Don’t mention it. Pissing off cops is my specialty. Are Bobby’s parents on their way?”
    Betsy shook her head.
    “Do they know?”
    She nodded and said, “The police called them this morning and told them. I tried to call, too, but they aren’t answering the phone. I just keep getting the machine.”
    That surprised me. “You mean you haven’t talked to them at all?”
    “I haven’t talked to them in months. Ever since . . . ever since that whole thing happened. When they found out about it, they tried to get Bobby to break up with me. They told him that I was a bad influence and that I’d drag him down. Which I guess I did.” The last was said in a sort of moan, and more tears dripped down her cheeks.
    I wrapped my arm around her and handed her a tissue and the cup of tea. “Drink,” I said. “It’ll make you feel better.” She took a few sips and then blew her nose loudly.
    “You weren’t a bad influence on Bobby,” I said, although I have to admit that at the time of her arrest, I’d taken the same line as Bobby’s parents, albeit a bit more delicately. I’d just suggested to Bobby that since he had worked so hard to kick his addiction, he might want to put a little distance between himself and Betsy, just until she got her act together. Bobby had thanked me for my advice and gently informed me that he loved Betsy and planned to stand by her. I’d been chastened and never mentioned my reservations again. I had still had them, though. Bobby was the poster child for twelve-step programs. He’d stopped using methamphetamine five years before and hadn’t missed a weekly meeting since. Before he’d gotten sober, his addiction was so bad that it was costing him hundreds of dollars a week, just to stay awake. He’d turned his athlete’s body into a husk of its former self. The damage he’d caused to his heart from years of drug abuse was permanent. Despite the great shape he’d managed to return himself to, he still had an enlarged heart and a