108: “I received a rather interesting call from the police this morning. Would you like to know what they asked me?”
Red argyle.
Today’s sweater.
The doctor had had pancakes or waffles for breakfast. There was a small syrup stain below the collar. I could smell the sugar. This made me hungry. I had been given Cheerios and milk, a favorite of mine to be sure, but most definitely not as good as pancakes or waffles.
I missed Mother’s pancakes. She made terrific pancakes.
“Anson, you’re wandering again. When someone is speaking to you, you need to attempt to focus on their voice. It helps to look them in their eyes, try to shut down the babble in your head.”
I had been looking at the doctor’s eyes, although I didn’t see him.
I could look right through the doctor if I wanted to, just as easily as I could see inside that head of his and—
“Anson.”
I smelled the syrup on the air.
I looked at his eyes.
I smiled.
“Yes, Doctor?”
“Would you like to know what the police asked me?”
“Yes, Doctor. I would like that very much.”
He glanced down at his notes. “This was a Detective Welderman with the Greenville PD. He said they have been out to your house a number of times to interview your neighbors, the”—he fumbled through his notes again—“Carters, Simon, and Lisa. Apparently they haven’t returned home. That prompted them to check with Simon Carter’s place of employ, and he hasn’t been to work in some time. His wife, who did not work, appears to be missing as well.”
The doctor’s eyes remained on his notepad for a second, scanning the text, then he looked up at me and frowned. “So we have four adults, including your parents, either missing or dead. Three bodies found after a horrible fire in your house, a fire that has been confirmed as arson, and we have one boy, a boy who does not appear to cry, left behind and now sitting across from me in my office.” The glasses came off again, but this time there wasn’t the showmanship behind it. He pulled them from his nose and let them drop to his chest. “I’ve got to tell you, Anson, this doesn’t look good. This doesn’t look good at all. The police are most certainly in an uproar. They want to talk to you. They want to talk to you desperately. Of course, I told them that they couldn’t. You’re a minor under my care, and I wouldn’t subject you to that.” He leaned forward, lowered his voice. “Not an hour after I hung up the phone with Detective Welderman, I got another call from that attorney general I mentioned to you the other day. Do you remember him? The one who wanted to speak to your mother. He told me it would be in my best interest to allow the police to speak to you, with me in attendance, of course. He was fairly insistent. He asked to see my notes as well. I told him our conversations were strictly confidential, that absolutely everything you’ve told me is considered private, and there was no way that was going to happen. I pushed back, Anson, I pushed back hard on your behalf. But these people, the police, the attorney general . . . they seem to think you were somehow involved in all this, and I have to be honest, you haven’t told me anything that would make me believe otherwise. I can only hold the wolves at bay for so long, Anson. You need to tell me what happened.”
My knife was sitting on his desk again. I don’t think he’d left it out, because today it was on the corner of the desk, nearest me, not where he had placed it yesterday. I could reach the blade if I wanted to. I could have it out of that plastic bag and embedded in the good doctor’s neck before he could scribble potentially dangerous on his little notepad, certainly before he could underline it.
Potentially dangerous
He was watching me again, allowing the ticks of silence to stack one atop the other like Jenga blocks. I knew he would spend the next hour sitting here quietly, waiting for me to speak. He used this tactic repeatedly, his efforts so transparent.
“Father set the fire and left with Mother.”
The glasses went back on. “Well, that’s an interesting thought, but why would he leave his car? Why leave her car too? Where did they go? Why leave without you?”
“I don’t know where they went, and I don’t know why they left me behind.”
“Who were the dead men in your house?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where are your neighbors?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who set the fire?”
“Father.”
He wanted to ask me about the picture. I knew he had it, probably on him, probably in the pocket of those khaki pants or hidden somewhere between the pages of his notepad.
“Why would your father set the fire?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who were those other men, the ones we found in the house, were they there to hurt him? Did they try to hurt your mother?”
I didn’t like this.
I didn’t like this one bit.
The rapid fire of questions. I was answering too fast.
I was providing answers without taking the opportunity to fully think them through. He was controlling the conversation. Father would not approve. I needed to control the conversation. Paint and corners, paint and corners. I was being—
“Anson, do you know the term kinesics?”
I shook my head.
“Kinesics is the interpretation of body motion, body language. Facial expressions, gestures, nonverbal behavior related to any part of the body. I have had extensive training in kinesics, the interpretation of body language, and this training allows me to know when someone is not being honest with me. We’ve already discussed how I feel about people who lie or fib. When someone lies or fibs verbally, the rest of their body offers clues that allow me to see through these lies and fibs. The longer I speak to someone, the easier this becomes. Eventually, it becomes impossible for someone to effectively tell me a lie. You and I, Anson, are nearing that point. What does this mean for you? Well, it means that you can continue to lie to me, and I will know you are lying, or you can tell me the truth, in which case I will also know you are telling the truth. It means you have arrived at a crossroad and you need to make a decision. You can begin to answer my questions truthfully, which will fall under the protection of doctor/patient privilege and cannot be used against you. Or you can continue to try and lie to me. Should you decide to take that path, there will be little I can do for you.” Oglesby leaned back in his chair. “As your doctor, I will allow the detectives to question you and pursue whatever course of action they deem fit. I will aid that attorney general in his pursuits. You will be transferred from this facility to someplace far less hospitable, the kind of place where a young, good-looking boy such as yourself is considered currency, nothing more than a thing, a possession to be used and discarded. You will be broken and die a little each day, and there will be no coming back. Once a boy finds himself in a place like that, there is never coming back, there is only deeper into the abyss. You’ll spend your days with a shovel, digging a deeper hole to hide in only to find the monsters prefer the dark and will gladly follow.”
He removed his glasses. “I want to help you, Anson. I hope you see that, but we’re running out of time.”
He concluded our session then, nearly ten minutes later than usual, and led me back down the hall, past the nurses’ station, to my room.
The girl’s door was open as we passed, Nurse Gilman delivering her lunch. The girl sat on her bed, her legs pulled tight to her chest.
She watched me as I walked past, and I watched her.
I could not look away, even if I wanted to.