Light on snow_ a novel - Anita Shreve [80]
We’ll get to that when we get to it.
My daughter had nothing to do with this, my father announces.
I thought you said Nicky tried to take Charlotte Thiel to the spot in the woods.
Well, yes.
What happened there?
Nothing. I discovered they were missing and overtook them before they’d gotten to the place.
Someone’s been there, Warren says. Messed it up pretty badly, too.
My father realizes his mistake at once. He doesn’t know that Charlotte has already confessed, but he thinks that she might in the future. And he has no idea what went on inside the orange tape.
I had the distinct impression they were traveling away from the house and not returning to it, my father says in a halfhearted attempt to recover his credibility and to protect me.
But he is no match for Warren.
Why didn’t you call the police? the detective asks.
I knew if I picked up the phone, she’d leave.
But you wanted her to leave.
Well, yes. But she was sick. She wasn’t well.
Why not call an ambulance?
I didn’t think an ambulance could make it up the drive.
I made it up the drive.
My father pauses. Is this the point when I need to call a lawyer? he asks.
Warren ignores the question. She was leaving your house this morning for good, he says.
Yes.
Where was she going?
I don’t know.
You didn’t ask?
No.
Why?
I didn’t want to know.
A teenage boy is brought into the cafeteria and delivered to the middle-aged parents sitting next to me. The son is sullen, and the father seems nervous to see him in the flesh. The son will be released to the parents, an officer says, but he has to return that afternoon for the arraignment. I watch the threesome leave the cafeteria, the bewildered parents shuffling behind their boy.
I get up and walk over to the vending machines. There’s one with soft drinks, one with candy. I select a Coke and a bag of M&M’s and return to my table.
I finish the Coke and the candy. The officer in uniform gets up to leave. I think about getting some Fritos. After forty-five minutes I begin to worry. What if they arrest my father and forget to tell me about it? How will I get home? Who will pick up my grandmother at the airport? Will my father have to spend Christmas in jail?
Did she tell you anything else about the boyfriend?
That he was at school with her. That he played hockey. His parents live outside Boston. She says she called his family house, and his mother told her he’d gone skiing.
Incredible, Warren says.
Incredible, my father repeats in a rare moment of camaraderie.
My cramps, I realize, have disappeared. The Motrin is a miracle. I wonder if I need another pad. How do you tell? Do they sell them in the ladies’ room, like they do at school? I still have some change left.
I leave the cafeteria and look for a sign that says Restrooms. I find it and follow the arrows, wondering as I go which closed door my father is behind. I listen for voices. I find the ladies’ room. No one could miss it. It has the biggest symbol of a woman on the door I have ever seen.
When I return to the cafeteria, I’m disappointed not to see my father waiting for me. What if he came while I was away? I see a man in a suit in a corner with a cup of coffee and a newspaper. I take a deep breath and walk to where he is sitting. “Excuse me?” I ask.
“Yes?” he asks, looking up.
“Do you work here?”
“I do,” he says.
“I’m just wondering,” I say. “My dad went somewhere with Detective Warren?”
“Well, he’s probably still with Detective Warren,” the man says.
“He won’t, like, have to leave without me, will he?” I ask.
“No, I’m sure someone will be out to talk to you.”
It is not a reassuring answer, but I can see I’m not going to get a better one.
“Thanks,” I say.
What happened after Charlotte and James got into the car? Warren asks.
They drove home.
And then what?
She said she wanted to bring the baby in herself, but he said he wanted to get her—Charlotte—in first, and then he’d bring the baby in. She did go in. She said she drifted off, because when she woke up, James was sitting across from her and