He comes for me two days later at ten o’clock in the night, Detective Greco by himself. I’m looking out the window when he pulls up, watching a steady rain spatter across the sidewalk and the street. Greco’s driving a black car, perfectly anonymous, backing it into a narrow parking space, stepping out, hustling through the rain, all business, the postman on his rounds. He rings our bell, the intercom, my first instinct to hide behind the couch, under the bed, in the closet, anywhere Daddy can’t find me. Because I’m all alone, my sisters and brother far distant, as though I’d made them up, imagined or dreamed them, our years together an extravagant hallucination.
I press the buzzer, let Greco inside, stand by the door waiting for him to walk up the stairs. Our elevator stands idle on the first floor, three days awaiting a repairman who never comes, I hear Greco’s footfalls, heavy, plodding, steady, determined. He’s coming for me, I’m trapped, I search for my family again, but there’s no one, no one, no one.
Then the door opens, and I’m looking into Greco’s tiny green eyes. He appears tired, shoulders slumped, a day’s stubble making its way along his jowls to the collar of his shirt. “A few things we gotta clear up,” he tells me. “Down at the precinct.”
“I don’t want to speak to you without a lawyer present.”
I’m proud of myself. I remembered. But Greco’s ready for me. He shakes his head and says, “You’re not a suspect, Ms. Grand. You’re a person of interest. Lawyers are only for suspects.”
Bobby warned us, but I’m still not ready, never will be, a coward to my bones and why am I put here to wage a battle I’ve always lost, never won? Why not Kirk or Eleni or Martha? I have no fight in me.
“I’d like to call a lawyer before we go, detective.”
“You’ll have plenty of time to do that at the station.” He glances at his watch. “This shouldn’t take long, so why don’t you just make it easy. If not, I’m gonna have to put you in handcuffs.”
His voice tightens, as if he’s become angry, as if he’d like nothing more than to humiliate me—no point to saying us because there’s no us listening—and he’s hoping I’ll resist. I resist anyway, feebly, true, but still I do resist.
“Am I under arrest?”
“You’re not even a suspect. You’re a person of interest.”
“But I can’t call a lawyer?”
He slides his hand beneath his jacket to a pair of handcuffs dangling from a belt loop. “Look, it’s not my intention to get nasty, but there’s a few things we have to resolve at the precinct and I’m parked by a hydrant. So, you pick, Ms. Grand. Cuffs or compliance.”
The descent is deliberate, through the doors of the Eighty-Fourth Precinct, looking like a small school from the outside but suddenly a cop world, the wicked brought to justice, the virtuous irrelevant, go find yourself a guru, evil abides here and there’s only us cops to keep it contained. Cops swirl about us, cops and suspects, three women chained to a bench, a man in a corner who smells of urine and feces and death. I’m led through the lobby up the stairs to a deserted room, eight metal desks arranged in back-to-back pairs, a room to the side, glass fronted, three closed doors in the back, windows to the side of each. The light is dim and objects seems to float, but then Greco flicks the light switches to his left and my new world reveals itself: dreary, workaday, without inspiration. He leads me between the desks to the middle door in the back. No explanation given, he opens the door to a tiny room, a window that’s a mirror from inside, three chairs and a tiny desk, graffiti-covered cinderblock walls. I sit in the chair facing the window-mirror without being asked.
“I just gotta set a few things up, then I’ll be back.” Greco lifts my purse from my lap. “Now, I didn’t search you for a weapon, which I really should of done, but I’m gonna have to look through your purse. Meanwhile, you try to relax. If you need anything, there’ll be someone outside.”
Then he’s out the door, taking my purse and the cell phone we might (but don’t) have with him. I know it’s deliberate, a kidnapping really, an abduction, but it’s not my body he wants or my money. It’s my liberty, our liberty. Someone has to pay and beggars like Greco can’t be choosers. There are no cameras in this room, no witnesses, my word against his if he claims I never asked for a lawyer.
Time consumes my spirit, I’ve no watch to count the seconds, the minutes, the hours, but each unit gnaws at me. I know I’m supposed to draw on some kernel of resolve, to gird my loins for the battle sure to come. But I’m helpless, only wishing for oblivion as I’ve been wishing all along. I’m not up to this, not sufficiently courageous or stubborn or defiant, never was and never hope to be, my purpose in the greater scheme of Carolyn Grand residing on the opposite end of any spectrum you’d care to name. And who’s to help me now?
I read the graffiti on the walls, as I imagine every suspect confined alone to this small space has, a step forward, a step to the side, the walls too ugly to touch. FREEDOM FOR ALL; RESIST; NEVER PICK UP A DEAD MAN’S GUN; WE ONLY HAVE TO BE LUCKY ONCE; KILL ALL COPS. I’m wondering how they did it—in here, close confined—and if they were punished when the detectives returned. Were they slapped, punched, did they scream out their defiance as they wiped the blood from their many faces?
And where is Bobby right now, right this minute?
I know my every move has been choreographed: you will pace, you will read the graffiti, you will curse yourself and your fate, you will, finally, try the door that you know is unlocked, just to see if maybe Greco was bluffing, maybe there’s no one out there. But there is, of course, a policewoman who barely looks up before I’m back inside, the door closed, trapped and afraid.
The door reopens only a minute later, the same policewoman, short, stocky, a block of flesh, eyes as cold as they are indifferent. She wears a wedding ring on a thin gold chain, a widow with mouths to feed.
“I need you to come with me.”
“I want to call a lawyer.”
“I don’t know anything about that. You’ll have to speak with the detective. But right now, I need you to come with me.”
I realize that’s how they do it, dumb insistence, rote repetition, a physical threat at the ready, do it or else. “Where am I going?”
“A lineup.”
I’m in a room with five other women, their chatter relaxed. They know each other, cops probably, volunteering in casual dress. I’m in jeans and a red sweater, an outcast nonetheless, standing alone, no one to counsel me. I have to fight for myself. The white paint on the back wall is broken by numbers, one through six, spaced four or five feet apart, ten feet up.
A uniformed cop, an officer, a man, walks into the room, the others hopping to attention, me off alone in a corner. “Almost ready, so let’s get under the numbers. And you”—he points to me—“here, number four.”
Almost in the middle, I walk up, summoning the will to demand a lawyer, but he holds me off, his tone when he speaks a blank nothing, the voice of a robot. “When your number’s called, take three steps forward and wait for further instructions. Don’t do anything on your own.”
He’s retreats and I’m left staring at a mirror I know is a window on the far side, others gathered to bear witness. I want to appeal to the women around me, state my claim of innocence, but I don’t really exist for them, just a chore, like morning coffee spilled on the bedroom carpet, blot it up and move on.
The lights brighten and a voice barks through a speaker: “Number one, step forward. Turn to the left. Step back.”
I’m taken through the same routine when my turn comes, step forward, turn to the left, step back. The procedure only changes with number six. She’s asked to turn to the left, take another step forward, tilt her head down, then it’s over and I’m being led back through the building, room by room, the precinct oddly empty this late on a weekday. I follow, tired, disheartened, meek, when the policewoman finally breaks the silence.
“You need to use a bathroom?”
“No, not now.”
“Do yourself a favor, lady. Use the bathroom. Who knows how long it’ll be until you get another chance.”
Her indifferent tone doesn’t change, nor does her manner or the reserved distance in her brown eyes. There’s just this much, a confession of her own impotence, do the job, do the job, this is all I can give you.
I use the bathroom, splash water on my face and neck, straighten my hair, dry myself with paper towels. I’m turning to go when I feel Tina surround me and I know she’s been there all the time. But it’s Eleni’s voice I hear: “Endure,” she tells me. “Endure.”