* * *
Later that week, I was up in my room, working through the thank-you notes, when someone shouted my name from the first floor, telling me I had a visitor.
I hurried downstairs to find Carl on my doorstep, a proper beard where I’d last seen thirtysome-hour scruff. He’d been gone six days, and it looked as if he’d come straight from the airport to my front stoop. He broke into a toothy, lopsided grin when he saw me descending the stairs, his whole face taking on a clandestine slant that indicated we shared a secret. I was blushing furiously by the time I met him at the door.
“You’re back.” I hoped I didn’t sound too worshipping.
Carl leaned down, his long eyelashes fluttering sleepily. “Is there somewhere we can talk privately?”
I spun on my heel, gesturing over my shoulder for Carl to follow me, using the short walk to the formal sitting room to bring my cool palms to my hot cheeks. It was lunchtime on a Friday, the sun high and white in the sky, and the girls were ferrying lifeblood through the veins of The House again, bustling to and from class, meetings, practices, appointments. In the daytime, you could almost believe none of it had happened, and maybe that’s why the nights hit us as hard as they did. The House was a pressure cooker, but at least during the day we were up and about, back doors and side doors and front doors swinging open and shut. At night, the deadbolts bolted and the drapes drawn, the reality of our situation was detained, compressing in on us with whistling force.
I pulled the double French doors closed. One of my sisters passed by on her way to band practice, her flute in its wooden carrier that I always worried might nick the walls, and she slowed her pace, peering into the narrowing entryway to see who had warranted a meeting in the formal room. I gave her a quick nothing to worry about smile just before shutting her out.
Carl let his duffel bag slide off his shoulder and lie in a heap at his feet.
“Here,” I said, reaching for it, “let me take that for you.”
Carl did a funny karate chop to my wrist, stopping me. He dropped down, butt on his heels, and unzipped the bag. I don’t know why, but I followed, plopping onto the carpet across from him. Because I wanted to. Because I was feeling cute.
Carl retrieved a yellow file folder, and instinctively, I grabbed for it. Carl held it high, out of my grasp. “So impatient, Pamela.”
“Carl!” I laughed.
“You won’t even know what you’re looking at if I don’t explain it to you first.”
I folded my hands reservedly in my lap. “Fine.”
“Seattle wasn’t all that happy when I showed up asking questions, but I wore them down. Especially after I mentioned making a FOIA request. Do you know what that is?”
I shook my head. Carl explained that the Freedom of Information Act was amended in the aftermath of Watergate, in response to the public call for more transparency from the government. “Technically,” Carl said, “the materials Seattle took from Colorado are now federal property, since they crossed state lines. They have to share them with me if I make this request, by law. Seattle knew that, and so they made me a deal.”
I stared at the file folder in Carl’s hand, too keyed up to breathe.
“They made me a copy of the container list, which catalogs every item in The Defendant’s possession during the time he was incarcerated in Colorado.” At last, Carl offered me the folder. With trembling hands, I opened it. “Let me know when you see it.”
I went down the list with my fingernail, cataloging what I was reading line by line. Interrogation tape number one, interrogation tape numbers two, three, and four—
“After he was captured,” Carl explained, “he would only speak to Seattle PD, remember? These are the recordings of those conversations.”
“I want to know what they talked about!”
Carl laughed. “Don’t we all?”
“So this is what we are going to ask about in the FOIA request?”
Carl shook his head regrettably. “You can only request physical files. Anything video or audio is protected.” This would change eventually, but not until 1996, and by then it would be too late. Carl nudged my knee. “Keep reading, though.” There was a third-edition criminal law textbook, a few family photographs, deodorant, and… I stopped. Tears of relief sprang to my eyes. “Carl,” I whispered.
“A 1977 brochure for Florida State University,” Carl said without having to look. “He’d had designs on this place for an entire year before he got here.”