Greco reappears only a minute after the door closes behind me, expression grave, an oncologist delivering bad news. I’m sorry but … He shuts the door, drops a stack of files onto the desktop, and sits.
“It ain’t good the way it went.” He shakes his head. “Two witnesses from the Golden Inn? You remember, right, the Golden Inn where your father was killed? Well, they ID’d you right away. So, I know you were there.”
“I wasn’t.” The words please me in some way, the truth a mere technicality here, but the truth nonetheless.
“Two people saw you there, Carolyn. They’re not both wrong.”
“I don’t make that claim, only that I wasn’t there.”
Greco lays his hands flat on the desk. He leans forward, mimics my supplicant’s tone: “Somebody else was there, another me, but it wasn’t me. Okay, I’m willing to play that game. So, let’s pretend for a minute. Two witnesses claim they saw Carolyn Grand at the inn, one of them on the stairs, one on the third floor where your old man was killed. That puts Carolyn Grand in the building, at least physically. True?”
If only Eleni were here, or Martha or Kirk, they’d say exactly what I’m thinking: how do I know you aren’t lying about the witnesses? Only I can’t bring myself to pronounce the words. They won’t cross my vocal chords, the barrier physical.
“There is no Carolyn Grand,” I finally mutter. “We’re a collective.”
“I’m not arguing the point. This is more like a hypothetical. If two witnesses ID a suspect within fifty feet of where a man was murdered, and this suspect knew the victim and had a definite grudge against him, what would you think?”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t what?”
“Think.”
“If that’s the way you want it.” He reaches into his jacket pocket, removes a card. “I’m gonna read your rights to you, in case you don’t already know ’em. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you.” He slides the card across the desk, along with a pen. “Sign on the bottom, where it says I explained your rights and you understand them.”
“If I do, will you get me a lawyer?”
“Absolutely.” He watches me sign, then takes back the card and slips it into his pocket. “So, I won’t ask any more questions. I’m just gonna talk. But if you should feel the urge to jump in at some point, don’t hesitate.”
“What about my lawyer?”
“All in good time. Remember, we’re just talking here..” Greco rises, removes his jacket, lays it over the back of the chair and sits down, a gun beneath his armpit fully exposed, the maneuver leaving him diminished, no matter his intentions. “Lemme start with this. You had every right to hate your father. Even more, from where I sit, you had the right to kill him. The man who enslaved you as a child was literally stalking you. And he wasn’t taking no for an answer. If you disagree with that, say so.”
I don’t disagree and I don’t speak. I’m thinking that my father’s death would be a kind of self-defense, except that I can’t bring myself to believe that we’re capable of murder, the taking of life and light. I don’t want to believe it.
“Okay, so that’s settled. You have a right to self-defense. Nobody says otherwise. Plus, you reported the stalking to authorities more than once, but no action was taken. So, I’m asking: What were you supposed to do? Wait around till he caught you alone one day? Were you supposed to hope you survived, hope you had a chance to report him?”
I can’t help it. I raise my hand to my face. The stitches are out and the swelling’s mostly gone, the fading bruises now light enough to conceal with makeup. Yet, despite its ferocity, O’Neill’s attack was nothing compared to what our father did to us, did in cold blood, laid-back, enjoying every second, prolonging the thrill.
“I’m sayin’, Carolyn, if I was your lawyer, that’s how I’d advise you to play it. Tell the jury that you went to the Golden Inn hoping to convince him to stay away from you. But then he attacked you, maybe tore at your clothes, and you knew that you’d always be in danger as long as Hank Grand drew breath. Crazy with fear and knowing a system that hadn’t protected Carolyn Grand in the past couldn’t protect her in the future, you exercised the only available option.”
Unable to contain myself, I finally speak, as Greco knew I eventually would. I do no more than repeat myself: “I wasn’t there.” But I know as I say the words that I’ll speak again. My world tightens around me. This is unbearable.
“Great, let’s say you don’t remember.” He leans over the desk, taps my forehead, the touch like a hammer blow. “But there’s only one brain, Carolyn, which you all share. The memories are stored in that brain, if only you’d take a closer look. So, what I’m gonna do is arrange for that lawyer you mentioned. See, I haven’t forgotten. And you, in the meantime, need to think seriously about what I said. The longer you try to evade responsibility, the worse it’s gonna look to a jury. And by the way, something I didn’t mention. The DNA evidence came back this morning, which is why I picked you up. The witnesses are just icing on the cake.”
And so I sit, the seconds piling up, absorbing the final blow, staring at Greco’s jacket still hung over the back of his chair. What I’m feeling is desolation, that it should come to this, because if one of us was in that room it could only have been to kill Hank Grand, reconciliation never in the cards for any of us, including our father. I rise and pace the room, three steps forward, three steps back. I can’t escape a rising despair, that we’re trapped, that our fate was sealed long ago, an accident of birth, that I might as well confess.
Hank Grand lived in a two-story home with a basement and an attic. So many places to hide, it took Daddy forever to find his daughter because she never gave in to his threats, never made a sound. Did she know, absolutely, that he would eventually find her? Or did she, each time, hope to escape him forever? Or was she merely stubborn, fighting back, the beatings inevitable, even (and maybe especially) when she was good?
I feel as though I’m hiding right now, that we’ve been hiding all our lives, every hideout also a trap. I’m trapped in this room, my world closed off. I stare at the mirror-window, certain I’m being observed, a white rat on the vivisectionist’s table. Let’s take a look at that liver, that kidney, that heart. Let’s core the girl out, leave her empty and lost.
When I can’t stand the tension, my nerves screaming, I go to the door and pull it open. My policewoman is in place. She barely looks up. Behind her, Greco’s face-to-face with a taller black woman, pleading. The woman’s gold badge is pinned to the lapel of a navy suit and she’s listening with her arms crossed below her breasts. As I back into my little room, her attention flicks to me for a moment and I’m again that specimen under the microscope, awaiting the touch of a scalpel.
Greco comes in a few minutes later and I’m already thinking you’ll never get out of this room unless you give him what he wants. He’s all smiles, though, and he’s carrying a bag of corn chips and an orange soda.
“I called for that lawyer,” he says. “But he might be a while getting here. Bein’ as it’s so late.”
I can’t help myself. I open the soda and drink from the bottle, my dry throat responding gratefully to the carbonation, the sugar rush instantaneous.
Greco pulls his chair closer to the small desk between us. “Right, so what we spoke about before, the witnesses, the DNA, you gotta agree with one thing. Carolyn Grand was in that room. If I’m wrong, say so.”
I shake my head but decide not to speak.
“Then we agree. Excellent. You were in the hotel on the night your father died, spotted on the third floor where your father rented a room. So, what do you think Carolyn Grand was there to do? Because here’s another thing you should know. Hank Grand was unconscious when he was killed.” Greco nods his head several times, the gesture seeming rote. “Yeah, that’s right. When Carolyn Grand entered her father’s room, she found him helpless. Plus, Carolyn knew exactly where her father would be at eight o’clock that night. My partner saw the note.”
“I don’t have anything to tell you,” I explain. “That night is empty, blank, unseen, the far side of a moon I’ll never visit because the only way to get there is to die.”
“Here we go again. This Carolyn didn’t kill her father. A different Carolyn did it. But you will admit that some Carolyn drove a knife into Hank Grand’s back. Am I right or wrong?”
Greco’s asking a direct question and I know I’ll never see that lawyer. I look around the room, no tape recorder, no cameras. Greco can do whatever he wants to me, just like Daddy. I start to rise, then slump down again. “I can’t speak for anyone else.” I’m barely whispering. “I’m not responsible.”
“But you do live in the same apartment with all the other, the other whatevers. That’s true, right?”
“Yes, it’s true.”
“And you’ve been living there for a long time?”
“Yes, right.”
“So, if something you use all the time, say every fucking day, suddenly went missing, you’d have to know about it.” Greco’s smile is wolfish. He’s been setting this up from the beginning. “Any knives missing, Carolyn? Any long sharp knives that were there one day and gone the next?”
“I wouldn’t know, detective. I don’t cook.”
“Bullshit.” He slaps his palm on the table. “Fuck it. Just fuck it. Everyone says you’re crazy, but I’m not buyin’. I think you know exactly what happened and I want you to tell me. So, let’s start at the beginning. Your old man hands you a note. The Golden Inn Hotel at eight p.m. You didn’t have to go, but you did. Because you were afraid of your father? That makes exactly zero sense. No, you went because you wanted the scumbag out of your life once and for all.”
“It’s not true.”
“Really? You know that for a fact, Carolyn? Because a minute ago you told me you weren’t there. You told me you didn’t even exist on the night your father was killed. So how can you be sure I’m not right? Unless you’ve been lying all along.” He grinds to a halt, then leans over the desk and sneers. “Time to cut the bullshit, honey. Those movies your father made? The movies with you in ’em? I watched them. We all did, the whole precinct. And there’s one I remember especially. You went into the woods to pick berries and stumbled on these boys? Carolyn, I ran that movie four times and one thing I can say for sure. It looked to me like you were enjoying yourself.”
The game continues on, Greco alternately berating me and leaving me to stew in the swamp of my own thoughts. I want to give up, to feed Greco whatever he needs to hear even knowing that I can’t be held forever. I believe myself eternally damned, a trapped and battered woman seeking any escape, a crack in the wall, a crack in the world, let me out, let me out. Eleni’s whispered advice—endure, just endure—becomes my shield, a barrier, not against Greco’s assault but against my own words, until Greco’s frustration dissolves into sentences that are no more than profanities dangling from a string, until finally the door opens and the black woman I saw earlier appears in the opening.
“Detective, a word outside.”
“Lieutenant, please.”
“Outside, detective.”
I wait and I wait and I wait. I eat the corn chips and I wait. I drink the soda and I wait. I’m expecting an arrest, the physical evidence too strong to ignore. Instead, the door finally opens, and Bobby walks into the room. I should be angry, should be enraged. Instead I’m ready to fall into his arms, to be cradled, to feel my head against his chest. He looks at me for a minute, his features tight, his breath shallow. Finally, he drops his chin and sighs.
“C’mon, Serena, let’s go. It’s over.”