I glance at the door.
“Isabelle, sweetheart, this is Chief Montgomery.” My dad pokes his head inside before pushing the door open. I see another man beside him: tall and lanky with a head the shape and shine of a cue ball. “He’s here to ask you a few questions.”
I nod, look down at my hands clasped in my lap, and repeat Dad’s lines in my mind over and over again. It doesn’t feel like a lie, really, because I don’t know what happened—I wouldn’t even know if I was lying—but somehow, it doesn’t feel like the truth, either.
“Hi, Isabelle.” Chief Montgomery walks across my bedroom, taking a seat next to me on the mattress. I hear the springs creak, feel my weight tilt toward him. “Do you mind if I sit here?”
I shake my head, even though he’s already sitting.
“Can you tell me what you remember about last night? Anything unusual happen?”
I look up at the man, the way his forehead seems to connect seamlessly with his scalp, both shiny and sleek with sweat. He reminds me of a copperhead Margaret and I found in our backyard once: the pointy nose, the slit-like eyes. Margaret wanted to keep it, give it a name, but Dad decapitated it with a shovel without a second thought. I’ll never forget the crunch it made when that metal made contact; the mucusy strings of blood and entrails that hung out of its neck like soggy noodles. The way the body kept moving for a minute, writhing around on the ground like it didn’t even know it was dead.
I glance at my dad, register his gentle little nod.
“Nothing unusual,” I say, and that’s the truth, sort of. The air conditioner was out, and Margaret had slept in my room. That was kind of unusual. “We had a bath, then we got into bed.”
“Okay,” Chief Montgomery says. “And around what time was that?”
I shrug. “Nine?”
“Did you get out of bed for any reason? To go to the bathroom maybe, or get a drink of water?”
I glance at my dad again, then immediately back down to my lap. “No. I was asleep the whole night.”
“Okay,” he says, nodding. “Okay, and what about Margaret? Did you see her get out of bed?”
“No,” I say again. “I was sleeping.”
“Did you hear anything?”
“No.”
“Not even through that window?”
I look up at the man; he’s pointing at the wall, my window, facing the marsh.
“No,” I say again. “It was closed.”
“Why was it closed? It’s hot in here.” He pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket and wipes his head, like he wants to emphasize the fact that he’s sweating. Immediately, I see little beads of it squeeze back to the surface, like his scalp is made of mesh. “Surely you could have used some breeze, right? And if the window was open, maybe you might have heard something in the water? Splashing or yelling?”
“No,” I say again. “It wasn’t open. I … don’t like the smell.”
Chief Montgomery nods. “Okay,” he says, the sweat trickling down his neck now. “Okay. And about what time did you get up this morning?”
I want to look at my dad again, but something tells me I shouldn’t keep doing that. That I should keep my eyes straight ahead, trained on the man in front of me.
“Seven?”
“Are you always such an early bird?”
“I guess.”
“And was Margaret awake when you got up?”
“I’m not sure.”
He shifts on the mattress, crossing his legs, and I don’t like the way the movement is making me slide closer to him again. Our legs are touching, and I want to scoot back, but at the same time, I’m afraid to move.
“Isabelle, I’m gonna need your help on this, okay? I hear you and your sister were close.”
I nod—were—and before I can look away, I feel a tear escape, making its way down my cheek. I lift my arm and wipe it away with the back of my hand.
“What happened this morning after you woke up? Is there anything unusual that you can remember? Anything at all out of place?”
I think about getting up, unsteady and slow, the overwhelming smell of the marsh in my bedroom that has since aired out. The water on the carpet that squished between my toes, now close to dry. Running into the bathroom, finding towels on my floor; towels that my dad picked up and dropped into the washing machine, tidying up behind him. The fact that I was wearing a different nightgown from the one I fell asleep in, or the dried mud I felt smeared behind my ear. I lift my hand now and touch that same little patch of skin. It’s clean. Before the police got here, I had scrubbed it raw. Erased the fingermarks like I had tried to erase the footsteps on my carpet.