Light on snow_ a novel - Anita Shreve [79]
The woman has on a turtleneck sweater, a woolen skirt, and black boots. “Quite a storm,” she says on the elevator.
In the basement she steps out of the elevator, holds it open, and points down a corridor. “The interrogation rooms and polygraph room are down there. That’s probably where Detective Warren is. You actually can’t go in that area, but over there is a cafeteria. If you ask someone, they’ll tell Detective Warren you’re here.”
“Thanks,” my father says.
The cafeteria has brick walls and fluorescent lights. Most of the white Formica tables are empty. My father points to a black plastic chair. “Wait here,” he says.
My father walks over to another table and asks a man in uniform how he might find Detective Warren. He gives his name. Robert Dillon. Hearing it always sends a small jolt through me, a reminder that he is someone other than my father or Dad. He is told to take a seat.
My father returns to our table and sits across from me. A middle-aged couple at the table next to us have their bodies turned toward each other. They speak in soft, coded messages. The woman says, The third, and a minute later the man says, Only eighteen. The woman says, But how will . . . ?, and the man says, Walk.
Detective Warren appears at the doorway.
“Dad,” I say, and point.
My father stands. “I’ll be right back,” he says. “Here’s some money. There are machines over there, or you can get a sandwich.”
I watch my father walk past the detective. Warren’s eyes are steady, his mouth firm. He gives no indication that he’s ever met my father. Just before he turns to follow him, the detective glances at me. He doesn’t smile.
I don’t know what is said in the small room to which Warren leads my father. I’m not there. Later I’ll be able to put some of it together from bits of conversation my father will recall. There’s a two-way mirror and a tape recorder on a table. My father is not offered a cup of coffee or a glass of water. He is told to take his jacket off. He sees no sign of Charlotte, then or later.
He is asked to tell the whole story from the beginning.
From when we found the baby? my father asks.
Right from the beginning, Warren says.
My father tells the story of finding the baby in the sleeping bag. He relates it slowly and carefully, trying to remember all the details.
Had you ever met Charlotte Thiel before that night? Warren asks.
No, my father says.
You’d never seen her before?
No.
My father says he first met Charlotte in our back hallway when she arrived in the blue Malibu. She said she wanted a present for her parents for Christmas, a story that, now that my father looks back on it, seemed thin to him even at the time. He remembers the way Charlotte later confessed that she hadn’t come to buy something; she simply wanted to see my father.
Why? Warren asks.
To thank me, my father says.
Thank you?
Yes.
For what?
For finding the baby. My father thinks a minute. She also wanted me to take her to the place where we found the baby.
In the woods?
Yes.
Did you take her?
No. Well, yes. I didn’t, but Nicky . . . started out. The next day.
My father explains that he wanted Charlotte to leave at once. Actually, she tried to leave, my father says.
He tells Warren about Charlotte fainting.
He tells of feeding Charlotte, of letting her sleep.
Of not wanting to know more than he had to.
Of Charlotte tripping over the sleeping bag. Bruising her palms.
He tells the story of her story.
Let me get this straight, Warren says, hitching his chair forward. She told you that James said the baby was in the car. No last name?
No.
And that when she got to the car, she touched the baby?
No, she touched the mound of blankets. She thought the baby was in them.
She didn’t suspect a thing.
No.
And you believed her?
I did, yes.
What my father doesn’t know, and will not learn until later, is that Warren has already heard this story. My father’s version—apart from the possibility it might reveal new facts—is a way to check the consistency of Charlotte’s confession.
Are