Waiting to Be Heard: A Memoir by Amanda Knox

our toothpaste into the same sink and shared the food in the fridge. If anyone knew a detail that could help track down her killer, it would likely have been me.
    When I wasn’t being questioned, I hung out in the waiting room for the police to give me a new set of instructions. I spent almost every free minute on the phone with one of my parents. Mom and Aunt Dolly had decided it would be good for me to spend some time with Dolly and her family in Hamburg until the murderer was caught. I was willing to go anywhere, as long as it wasn’t home for good.
    That afternoon, I was talking to a steely brown-haired police officer named Rita Ficarra—although I didn’t find out her name until two years later, when she testified against me in court. I said, “My parents want me to go to Germany to stay with relatives for a couple of weeks. Is that okay?”
    She said, “You can’t leave Perugia. You’re an important part of the investigation.”
    She didn’t seem like a person you’d ever want to argue with. “How long will you need me?” I asked.
    “We don’t know—maybe months,” she said.
    This stunned me. “But I’m planning to go home for Christmas.”
    “Well, we’ll decide if you can do that,” she said. “We’ll have to hear what the magistrate says when he calls in three days.”
    When I repeated this conversation to my mom, she was concerned. “That doesn’t make sense,” she said.
    Later that afternoon, Mom asked, “Amanda, do you need me there?”
    Although it had been only one day since Meredith’s body had been discovered, I said, “I know I’ll be okay, but I’d really appreciate it if you came.”
    My chest loosened when she called back again with her flight information. She was due to land in Rome on Tuesday morning, November 6. From there she’d take a train to Perugia, and I’d meet her at the station. She said she wanted to help me find a new place to live and buy me some clothes. I looked at her visit as a way to get my life back on track.
    Sometime that afternoon the police drove me to the villa. Sitting in the backseat with an interpreter on the way there, I admitted, “I’m completely exhausted.”
    One of the officers in the front seat swung around and looked at me. Her reaction was harsh: “Do you think we’re not tired? We’re working twenty-four/seven to solve this crime, and you need to stop complaining. Do you just not care that someone murdered your friend?”
    The police told me to cover myself in the car as we neared the villa, so that the satellite trucks and photographers who’d commandeered the parking lot above us, their cameras aimed right on our driveway, wouldn’t see me. I ducked down, and the interpreter covered me with her coat. They left me hunched over like that while they got out.
    As I sat there, I thought about Meredith. She was quiet and kept to herself at home, but she was smart, cheerful, generous. I still couldn’t believe that she was gone. I was overwhelmed by the enormity, the finality of her death. I wondered how her family was coping with the news. Meredith had told me that her mother had health issues, and I hoped her daughter’s sudden, shocking death hadn’t triggered an episode. I felt sorry for Meredith’s sister. What would I do if something were to happen to one of mine?
    When the police finally came to get me, I saw that the entrance to our apartment was blocked off with yellow police tape. Instead of going in, the police had me show them from the outside what I’d noticed about Filomena’s window, asking whether the shutters were opened or closed when Raffaele and I had come home. They wanted details about how we lived. Did we usually lock the gate to our driveway? What about the faulty lock on the front door? Did anyone else have a key? Were there outside lights on at night? Did Meredith often stay there alone? Did we have frequent visitors?
    Then the police led me around back to the downstairs apartment. The glass in the