I’m tired of this. Sick of them wasting their time on Mason.
Detective Layne cringes and pulls himself up straighter in the chair. I’m not just some dumb lady he can boss around and manipulate. He underestimates me.
“There are other parts of your story that don’t make sense either.” He ignores my question. He stands and walks over to the fireplace. “Like how you told me you were holding Mason and doing your best to comfort him until the police arrived? Because here’s the thing”—he leans against the wooden mantel—“you didn’t have a drop of blood on any part of you. How do you hug your bloodied son and not get any on you?”
“Very easily when you’re pulling on him from behind.”
“But you told the police that you were holding him. That you ‘squeezed him against you,’ according to the police report.”
“I’m sorry. I had no idea I needed to be so careful with my words. I didn’t know everything I said would be taken literally and examined bit by bit.” He tilts his head to the side like he’s considering what I’ve said but doesn’t believe me. “Maybe you can explain yourself perfectly when you’re terrified, but I can’t. Trust me, if my son ever stumbles on a dead body again, I’ll be extra careful to make sure I record every single minute detail so I can answer your questions correctly afterward.” I stand too. This is my living room. My house. “Are we done here?”
THEN
There I am on a bed. Wheels on a bed. Round and round like the bus used to go.
Silly boy. This is an ambulance.
There I am in those lights. Mama holds my hand. Shh, child, shh, you’re going to be all right.
All. Right.
There we go. Fast. My throat hurts. On fire.
Say you didn’t mean to.
I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to. But not fast enough.
Too slow.
There we go in the hospital. Hate these lights. So bright. Tell them that you’re sick.
She says.
I’m sick.
Too fast.
The world spins when she moves like that.
There I am in the bed. Ugly. White. Itchy. Scratch-my-skin-until-it-bleeds bed. Stick out your hand.
No.
She wants to hold it. But everything hurts.
Not. Now.
How much longer?
You said I only had to play for a little bit.
TEN
CASEY WALKER
“What did you think?” Detective Layne’s voice booms from my car’s speakers, and I turn him down. We didn’t get a chance to talk privately after our meeting with Genevieve, since we both rushed out in a hurry to get other places. Dad has book club tonight, and I promised him I’d be there by six thirty, so I can’t be late. He’s had Harper so much this week. I don’t know what I’d do without him. Gratitude for his presence in my life washes over me for the thousandth time.
I don’t know what to think about what just happened, and I have nothing to compare it to. I barely said anything while we were at Genevieve’s. All I kept telling her was that I was sorry she was going through this and that I understood how hard things must be for her. We didn’t even get to the most important part because she cut the interview short after Detective Layne made her so frustrated with his questions about the inconsistencies in her story that day. He kept harping on that instead of asking her about Mason’s psychiatric history and all the other strange information in the reports. She got so angry with how he came at her that she was done, and nothing he said convinced her otherwise, especially after Mason woke up from his nap. She snapped into mom mode, immediately ushering us out of the house with promises to be in touch.
“I think there’s a pretty good chance that her reasons for not being completely truthful about what happened might have more to do with how she looks as a mom than how it looks in the investigation or Mason’s guilt versus his innocence.”
“Hmmm . . . I’m not sure I agree.” He breathes deep into the phone.
I’m not surprised. It’s different for dads. Nobody judges dads for their kids’ behavior like they do moms. Dads are rewarded just for being around. When Davis took Harper to the grocery store and she freaked out in the checkout lane over not getting candy or a cheap toy, nobody looked at him like he should have her under control or like he was responsible for her misbehavior. People bent over backward to help him all the time. That’s what usually happens with dads. But moms? I can’t count the number of snotty looks I’ve gotten in stores when Harper’s thrown a fit. I’ve never once had someone offer to help me with anything, even in those times when I was clearly struggling and on the verge of bursting into tears. And believe me, there’ve been plenty of those times. So Genevieve’s not alone in worrying about how her kid’s actions will reflect on her.
“Genevieve cares about what people think of her. Maybe more than she does anything else. She knew she was going to be in the limelight over this, which meant her parenting was too. Which sounds better? Your son went for a walk by himself, or your son took off when you weren’t looking?” I pause for dramatic effect. “Or how about this one? You grabbed your son and held him until help arrived, or your son didn’t want you anywhere near him when he was upset? Other people’s opinions are what Genevieve thrives on, and there was no way she was going to say anything that put her mothering in any kind of a bad light. She has to look good in front of the camera, and she prides herself on being a good parent. That’s why she lied.”
There’s silence over the air for a few minutes while we’re each lost in our own thoughts, replaying parts of the interview and formulating our conclusions.
“You make a good point.” Detective Layne finally speaks. “That woman loves the camera, and she wouldn’t want to do anything that might tarnish her pretty perception, but I’m not sure that’s why she lied. I still don’t trust her. She’s hiding something.”
I shake my head even though he can’t see me. “She’s probably hiding something, but I don’t think there’s any sinister reason that she didn’t tell the story exactly as it happened. She just didn’t want to look bad.”
“Maybe.” I can tell he’s not convinced.
“Do you really think there’s a possibility Mason did it?” He wasn’t away from Genevieve for that long. I’m sure she lost it the second she realized he was gone, and even though it might’ve felt like it took forever to find him, it was likely only a few minutes. I have a hard time believing that’s long enough for Mason to somehow stumble upon Annabelle, get into some kind of altercation, and smash her head with a rock.
He takes no time to think about his answer. “You can’t accidently hit your head on both sides. Even if she tripped or someone else was there first and threw her onto the ground, whatever you might be thinking could’ve happened, it doesn’t change the fact that someone still had to bash her in the forehead.”
“Or it really could be exactly as Genevieve says. Someone attacked Annabelle and Mason found her body,” I insist stubbornly. “He’s just a sweet little kid. Did you see the pictures of him in his soccer uniform?” Being inside his home, around his things, and seeing his pictures everywhere made him real to me in a way that he wasn’t before. “Violence like that doesn’t seem possible.”