When the police officer rang my doorbell at 8:14 AM on a Sunday in February, I had been asleep for six hours and hungover for three. I opened the door in an oversized hoodie and pajama pants, and the officer — a man about my father's age, with a kind face and a clipboard — asked me if my name was Callie Brennan. I said yes. He asked me if I had been driving a 2019 silver Honda Civic, license plate ending in 7FJR, between 11 PM and midnight the previous night. I said no. I had never driven that car, I told him. It was my friend Mia's car. He asked me if I was sure. I said I was. He asked me if I had seen Mia the night before. I said yes — we had been at a bar until about 10:30 PM.
He asked me what time I had come home. I told him: around 10:45, in an Uber, which I could prove because I had the receipt on my phone. He asked me if I knew where Mia was. I said I did not. He nodded. He thanked me. He told me that a Honda Civic matching that description had hit a parked Tesla in a residential neighborhood around 11:40 PM the night before, and that the driver had fled the scene, and that — he paused on this word — the witness said the driver was my friend. And the driver, when stopped by police three blocks away, had told them the driver had been me. I stood in my doorway in February sunlight. I said, "Excuse me?"