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Page 29
wrote down the name. 'How long were you seeing Maxwell?' he asked the girl.
'A couple of weeks,' she said without looking at him. Her eyes were fixed on the knee of her jeans, where she was fingering her skin through a ragged slit. There were more gashes higher up.
'She just kept me totally in the dark,' Francine said, taking a pack of cigarettes from her purse. 'If I'd known, I would've put a quick stop to it. You'd better believe it.' She shook out a cigarette. Tapping its filter against the table, she said, 'It's not that I'm a bigot or anything.'
'Sure you aren't,' Lisa muttered.
'That's right, I'm not.' Glaring at the back of her daughter's head, she jabbed the cigarette into a corner of her mouth and fired it with a Bic. 'But I think I've been around awhile longer than you, young lady, and I think I know a few things you don't.' The cigarette jerked up and down as she talked. Lisa kept fiddling with the tear at her knee. 'One thing I know is a girl like you starts going around with a black guy, it means trouble. And I was right, wasn't I? Wasn't I?'
'I guess,' Lisa murmured.
'You guess. The boy's dead, isn't he?'
Lisa nodded.
'Think he'd be dead if he didn't start going with you?'
'Lisa,' Trev said, 'do you know who murdered him?'
'Not exactly.'
'Tell the man what you told me.'

 
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