Light on snow_ a novel - Anita Shreve [81]
And then what?
He told her the baby was dead.
And did you believe her, that a new mother would walk into a house and leave her baby in a basket in the backseat of a car?
Under those circumstances, I felt it was possible. Yes, I felt that she was telling the truth.
Why didn’t you call the police?
Warren has asked this question before. My father’s chest tightens. I’ve explained that.
Warren folds his hands on the table. She was with you, what, forty-eight hours? At any minute during that time, you could have picked up the telephone. That’s a lot of minutes to decide not to call the police.
My father remains silent.
I could put you away for a year, six months anyway. Who would take care of your daughter?
Don’t threaten me, my father says, standing.
Sit down, Mr. Dillon. Why didn’t you pick up the phone?
I told you, he says. I wanted her to leave immediately. When she sensed I wasn’t going to take her to the place . . . in the woods . . . she said she was leaving. But then she fainted. I was worried. I said I’d call an ambulance, but she grabbed onto my arm. She said that if she went to the hospital, they—you—would arrest her. Which was true.
And? Warren says.
And I couldn’t force the woman into the car. She wasn’t going to go willingly. On the other hand, I didn’t want her leaving the house because she might faint again.
So why didn’t you call the police? Warren asks for the third time.
What is this?
Tell me why you didn’t pick up the phone.
I’m done here, my father says. I’m leaving.
What else? Warren asks.
What else? I don’t know what you want. I remember thinking, If I take this woman to the hospital—assuming I can get her in my truck—it won’t be long before the police hear about the postpartum patient and the old beat-up truck she arrived in. And I’d be more implicated than I already was. Which, to be truthful, didn’t trouble me all that much. No, what troubled me was Nicky. If I were to be detained, or, worse, arrested, what was going to happen to her? Every decision I make now includes her.
My father leans toward Warren. And there’s something else, he says. My daughter watches everything I do. She counts on me to do the right thing. It was possible Charlotte was innocent. I didn’t pick up the phone. I waited. And the longer I waited, the more complicated it got.
Warren continues to stare. My father has the distinct sense that he is setting his own court date, but still he feels the pressure to explain—to himself now, if to no one else.
I wasn’t willing to just walk away from her, my father says. To leave her to you, if you want to know the truth. Every time I thought about picking up that phone, a bad taste would rise in my throat.
My father stands up from the table again. He zips up his jacket.
She gave up the guy, Warren says.
The news startles my father. You’ve already talked to her?
He’s in Switzerland.
She’s already told you the whole story?
Skiing, Warren says.
The detective and my father appear at the entrance of the cafeteria. I jump up when I see them. “It’s all right,” my father says.
“What about Charlotte?” I ask.
“She’ll be arraigned,” Warren says, “and then a court date will be set.”
“Can I go in and see her?” I ask.
“That’s not possible,” Warren says. He turns to my father. “Look, I’ve got some things I have to take care of, but you said you were going to be around.”
“Yes.”
“I may need to speak with you again.”
“How did you know to be at the house this morning?” my father asks.
Warren jiggles the change in his trouser pockets. “The owner of the hardware store said he’d seen only three new people in the store in the last day—a couple from New York and a woman asking where she could buy a table.”
The detective glances my way. He doesn’t mention that the reason he might have questioned Sweetser a second time was that I said the Kotex wasn’t for me, or that I lied about my father and the ax, or that a house far from town, dependent upon a well, might need electricity to power a pump to provide enough water for a shower during a power outage.
“It’s why