Everyone Here Is Lying(16)

But now, Michael can’t stand the thought that she’s out there somewhere by herself. She’s been out all night. She must be scared, maybe hurt. He feels a sense of dread that he cannot shake. Why can’t they find her?

It’s his fault. If he hadn’t sent her home that one time, if he hadn’t told her about the key, she probably would have waited for him yesterday. They’d both be going to school today, having a regular day. But instead, his family is in shock and he’s sitting in the police station while the detectives question his parents. They’re going to question him. He feels sick at the thought. What more do they want from him? He already told them what happened. He’s sorry. He wishes he could do it over again, differently. But he can’t, and now his little sister is missing.

He hears a door open down the hall, and soon the female detective appears in front of him. They’ve finished with his mom. It’s his turn. He feels a paralyzing dread, like when he had to do a speech last year at a school assembly. But this is so much worse.

Gully says to him, “Michael, we’re ready for you now. Come with me, we’ll join your mother.” Her voice is kind, and she’s smiling at him.

He follows her into the small room and sees his mother seated at a table across from Detective Bledsoe. She stands up and he goes to her. She puts her arms around him and kisses him on top of his head. Lately, he’d been telling her not to do that, he’s not a little kid anymore, but now he wants all the comfort she can give him.

“Have a seat,” Bledsoe tells him. Michael sits down beside his mother. “This won’t take long, son, so just relax.”

Michael nods silently. He wants to please them.

“When you got home after school yesterday, after basketball practice,” Bledsoe says, “was your father at the house?”

Michael is startled. He feels his mother stiffen beside him, as if she’s afraid of what his answer might be. He glances up at her, but she’s looking straight ahead of her, at the detectives.

“It’s okay,” Bledsoe says soothingly, “if you change your story now. We just want the truth. Can you do that? Can you tell us the truth, Michael?”

His mother is rigid beside him, but she doesn’t say anything. He swallows nervously. “No. He wasn’t there. Why are you asking me this?” His voice comes out a little shrill.

“Do you know if he’d been there, earlier, before you got home?”

Michael shakes his head in dismay. They’re accusing his father. They think he did something to Avery. The world tilts. “No,” he says. “He wasn’t there, I swear. There was no one there. The house was empty.”

“Okay,” Bledsoe says. He waits a beat and then asks, “Did you change anything in the house, Michael? Tidy up, perhaps?”

“What?” He glances again at his mom, who looks appalled and ill. He turns back to the detective and says, rather wildly, “Why are you asking me that? I didn’t do anything!”

“Okay, Michael, all right, we just had to ask, okay?” Bledsoe leans back in his chair and says, “You didn’t hang up Avery’s jean jacket, then?”

“No.” He’s telling them the truth. He didn’t hang up the jacket. He didn’t clean up. He didn’t see his father. He’s told them the truth, but they don’t seem to believe him.

“How would you describe your dad, Michael?” the detective asks.

They think Dad did it, Michael worries. They’re wrong. Dad wasn’t there. He’s telling them the truth. Finally, he says, “He’s good. He’s a good dad.”

“Does he ever lose his temper with you?”

Michael shakes his head slowly. “No.” The detective waits; he wants more. Michael doesn’t want to say anything more. He wants this to end.

“Does he ever lose his temper with your sister?”

Now Michael can’t look at his mother, he can’t bear to. He doesn’t know how to answer. He can feel time passing, until his silence is the answer they’re looking for and it’s too late.

“What did he do when he lost his temper with your sister?”

Michael swallows and says, “Sometimes he’d yell at her.”

Bledsoe nods slowly. “Did he ever hit her?”

“Not really.”

“It’s a yes-or-no answer, Michael.”

“He just slapped her sometimes, to calm her down.”

“To calm her down,” Bledsoe repeats.

“She deserved it,” Michael says in his father’s defense.

The two detectives shift their eyes to stare at his mother.





Ten


Gully follows Bledsoe, Erin, and Michael out of the interview room. They are all silent. They’re done, for now. The revelations arising from these short interviews are disturbing. The father has no alibi. The father has a temper, has a history of losing it with his troubled daughter. He’s been known to slap her on several occasions. This has caused friction between the parents, has soured the marriage, something the mother finally—reluctantly—admitted.

Bledsoe is a better interrogator than Gully expected. She was impressed. She can tell he thinks that William Wooler may have done something to his daughter. It’s certainly possible. But she worries that Bledsoe will develop tunnel vision, fail to consider other possibilities. She’s seen it happen before, with other detectives she’s known. She will have to make sure that doesn’t happen here.