I have another visit from the police. Not the same guy-’n’-girl team as the night of the accident, though. I mean, it’s a man and a woman, but they’re different people. They don’t wear uniforms.
“We know you’ve already been interviewed by our colleagues, Danielle,” the woman begins, “but we need you to tell us again what happened that evening.”
“We were walking home from the park,” I begin. “We were walking on the side of Quarry Road.”
“Were you walking along the eastbound lane or the westbound lane?” she asks.
It’s only the first question, and I’m stumped. When they see my confusion, they try again:
“Were you on the north side of Quarry or the south side?” the man asks.
Isn’t that helpful. I know the points of a compass—but I don’t think about north, south, east, or west when I’m going somewhere. I was on Quarry Road, heading home.
“She doesn’t drive yet, detectives,” offers Dad by way of an excuse as I sit there mutely. Mom and Dad are in the living room with us.
I have an idea: “I was on the same side of Quarry Road as the playground.”
“Okay. You were on the north side of Quarry Road,” the woman says. “Which puts you along the westbound lane. You were walking east along the westbound lane.”
If they say so. I would say I was walking up Quarry Road, because there’s a hill that you have to go up when you walk home from the park. When I walk from home to the park, or farther on toward the street that then takes you either to the mall or to the highway, I would say I’m walking down Quarry Road.
But I’ll go with walking east along the westbound lane.
“To clarify, when you say you were walking on the side of the road, you mean on the shoulder?” the man asks.
Um—I look at my parents. They don’t give me any clues.
“Well, I was on the side there,” I offer, “where you’re supposed to walk. To the left of the yellow line. Is that technically the shoulder?”
“No driver’s education yet,” Mom notes.
This is what you learn in driver’s ed? The official parts of a road?
“Okay. And then what happened?” the man prompts.
“I dropped the ball and Humphrey ran after it into the street.”
They pause. Appropriately, I think. It’s like it’s out of respect for Humphrey.
“When you say you dropped the ball,” the woman says after our moment, “how did that happen? It slipped out of your fingers?”
I don’t want to cast blame on a dead five-year-old, but they are making me.
“Humphrey tried to tackle me and the ball popped out,” I explain.
“And then.”
“And then the ball bounced into the street. You know how a football doesn’t bounce neatly or predictably—it goes all over the place. That’s what it did. It hit a couple of cars.”
“So Humphrey ran into the street,” the woman continues. “Did you run after him?”
Is this a trick question? I know better than to run into traffic. I’m alive.
I say: “No.”
“Now, Humphrey ended up in the eastbound lane of Quarry Road. You say you were walking along the side of the westbound lane,” the man says.
This eastbound and westbound thing again. It makes my brain hurt. Concentrate, Danielle. He ended up across the street. In the lane with cars headed up Quarry. Which meant he first crossed the lane with cars headed down Quarry. Okay, we’re on the same page. I wait for the question.
Which apparently they asked while I was mapping things out in my head.
“I’m sorry. What was the question?”
“Did you see any vehicle hit Humphrey as he was crossing the westbound lane?”
“No, I didn’t.”
I didn’t see any vehicle hit Humphrey in any lane. Somehow, I was there, I was an eyewitness, and missed the whole thing.
“So you saw Humphrey cross the westbound lane and make it to the eastbound lane,” the man says. “Did you see a vehicle hit him there?”
I shake my head. “I’m sorry. It was all a blur.”
“Do you remember seeing a blue minivan on the scene after the accident, when emergency and rescue personnel were there?” This is the woman.
“Yes. I saw it. It was near Humphrey, at the head of the line of cars backed up to go up”—I want to be helpful—“to go eastward on Quarry Road.”
“Had you noticed that car before?” she asks.
I shake my head again. “I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t see that car as it drove up”—the man detective trying to be helpful—“Quarry Road. Didn’t see whether it was driving fast or slow, carefully or not carefully.”
“No. I’m sorry.” I pause, trying to remember anything. “I think I saw the football hitting a couple of cars. I noticed a white car, and a pickup. They were on the other side of the street—so driving, uh, driving east, in the eastbound lane. You know, it was still rush hour, and that’s where most of the cars are in rush hour, I guess—heading east, toward Montgomery Heights. By then, Humphrey had run after the ball.”
I try to re-create the awful scene.
“On our side of the street—in the westbound lane—I don’t remember many cars. You know, because Quarry Road isn’t so crowded going in that direction that time of day. And I remember some kind of silver car coming down the—um, westbound lane, but I don’t remember the ball hitting it or anything.”
I don’t remember a thud or a thump or anything to indicate that Humphrey had been hit. I don’t remember anything until the screech of brakes. Just—silence. Like a break in the sound spectrum.
“The silver car was where?”
“Coming toward us, on our side of the street. Driving in the westbound lane.”
“Not in the same lane as the blue minivan.”
“No.”
“The silver car wasn’t speeding away after possibly hitting Humphrey.”
“No.”
“Anything else about the silver car, or the white one, or the pickup?” the woman asks.
I push my brain to retrieve a memory. It lets me down.
“Can’t the police tell how Humphrey was hit?” I ask. “By looking at his, you know, his body?”
“Forensic evidence is very helpful,” the man says. “But so is eyewitness evidence.”
Okay. But if we’re going to be using words like “forensic,” then, if this were a Law & Order rerun, wouldn’t the cops be matching up the deceased’s injuries to a particular type of car bumper or hood or something? Wouldn’t they be taking paint samples and examining skid marks? Wouldn’t the detectives be exchanging significant looks when I said something significant? These detectives haven’t exchanged any looks, but it is possible that I haven’t said anything significant.
They shift gears.
“What color was the pickup?” the woman asks.
“It was … I don’t know,” I say, surprised at myself.
Isn’t that weird? You’d think color would be the first thing I would remember. It is what I remember about the white car, and the silver one. But all I can retrieve is: pickup truck. No color. Or some color. Just not white.
“Getting back to the blue minivan,” the man says, “at what point in the chain of events did you first notice it?”
“When I was sitting in the road with Humphrey after he was hit.”
“Really think hard, Danielle,” the man presses. “We’re trying to determine if the blue minivan was speeding or driving recklessly.”
I shake my head for the millionth time. I only saw it stopped, afterward.
“What does the driver of the blue minivan say?” I ask.
“That he was driving normally—even slower than normal, because of the traffic—and never saw Humphrey coming,” says the man.
“Did someone else see the accident?” I ask.
“We’re not sure,” the woman says. “There have been some reports from other drivers, but often people think they saw things that they really didn’t in these situations.”
There are more questions. Finally they’re done. They leave me their cards in case I remember anything.
When the detectives are gone, Mom tells me I did as well as I could have. She means to be supportive. But when it mattered, out there walking east along the westbound lane of Quarry Road, clearly I did not do as well as I could have. As well as I should have.