“You didn’t exchange remarks about the sculptures or the weather?”
“No.”
“Yet you remember seeing this woman there. What made you notice her?”
“She wore bright clothing, flyaway fabrics. Most people come to the park in workout gear or shorts and t’s or directly from the beach.”
“You noticed she looked different.”
“Yes.”
“Did you like the way she looked?”
Drum folded his arms, sitting back further into the chair. Toshber’s questions were designed to trip him up. “I wasn’t thinking anything about the way she looked.”
“But you remembered her.”
“Yes.” More’s the pity.
“How many times would you say you ran into each other during the event?”
“We didn’t run into each other.”
“How would you characterise it?”
“As unimportant, irrelevant.” And now an enormous nuisance, or an opportunity.
Pagonis leaned forward and opened his mouth for the first time. “You think this is funny?”
Drum thought it was a form of torture, because outside the woman he loved was waiting to have his culpability for a hateful crime confirmed. “No.”
Toshber took over. “Okay, tell us about how you met on the day the removal was happening?”
“What is it that you want to know?”
“Oh, don’t be like that,” she shook her head and gave a noisy sigh. “We were getting along so well there. I want you to tell me how you met.”
“There was no handshake, no exchange of names.”
“So, she didn’t ask if you were Drum, the man from the cave?”
He was caught on that technicality. “Yes.”
“Are you changing your story? You’re saying you did meet after all?” said Pagonis.
Drum eyeballed Pagonis. “I haven’t told you any stories. And I don’t intend to. I don’t consider what happened to be the definition of a meeting. I was watching a group of protestors.”
Toshber jumped in. “Protestors. What were they protesting?”
He smiled. “Me.”
“Sorry, I’m lost. You were watching a group of people protest against you.”
“Yes. Specifically a guy called Walter Lam being interviewed by the paper while his group stood about in front of a protest sign.”
Toshber and Pagonis exchanged a look that wasn’t from any cop playbook, it was pure amusement.
“And you weren’t worried they’d know you were there?” Toshber said, struggling to keep a smile off her face.