Thirty-six

“You’re not under arrest, you understand that? And you’re free to leave at any time,” Cranford told Jack, pulling a chair up directly in front of him.

Cranford seated herself within two feet of Jack’s face. She reached out her right hand and put it on Jack’s knee. She bent over slightly to gain eye contact with Jack, who was looking down. She adopted her most sympathetic tone.

“Mr. Barron, get something going for yourself,” Cranford said. “We know about Irene, we know about Roberta, and we know who is responsible. There’s only one person who’s responsible, and it’s time to get something going for yourself. And maybe it was medication that made you act goofy, or whatever. Otherwise, you are a very cold, calculating murderer.”

Jack said nothing, but continued to gaze at the floor.

“This is the first time I ever met you,” Cranford said, “but I know you from talking to many, many of your past friends and acquaintances. And I know you’re hurting.

“You were on medication, isn’t that right?”

Jack said he’d been taking two kinds of over-the-counter cold medicine at the time of Roberta’s death.

“How did that make you feel?” Cranford asked.

“It knocks me out,” Jack said.

“Before you go to sleep, you get kind of woozy?”

“Nope, I just basically hunker down, try to beat it.”

“Do you drink alcohol?”

“No, not when I have a cold,” Jack said. “It was one of those chest ones that you have in there, and just a persistent cough, I’d just take my shot.”

“Do you think that the combination of the medicine could have made you act in a way you normally would not have acted?”

“I don’t think it would have, no,” said Jack. “I’ve had it before.”

Jack went on to describe recent illnesses he had suffered. Suddenly, it was as if Jack were in a sickroom relating his recent health history to a sympathetic nurse. He talked about his knee injury, and his appendectomy. Cranford tried to steer the subject away from Jack’s health complaints and back to the subject at hand.

“Something happened with Irene,” Cranford said, dismissing Jack’s medical history.

“Irene was asphyxiated. Something happened with Roberta. Roberta was asphyxiated, and you were responsible for that. It happened. And if you tell us it happened, you need to talk to me. Because I don’t think any one of us here wants to believe that you are as cold and calculating as you appear to be right now.”

Almost imperceptibly, Cranford’s voice fell into a slow, steady rhythm, almost a monotone. The effect was soothing, almost hypnotic.

“I don’t think you’re a bad person,” Cranford said. “I’ve talked to a lot of people. A lot of people are very, very [convinced] that Jack is not a bad person. Jack has had some trouble in his life. His father left him when he was 12 years old, and his father has gone off and married countless women since Roberta, had other children, who he spends more time with than he ever spent with you.

“And then you have Irene, accusing you. I know she accused you of having an affair, because she talked to your mother about it. Your mother agreed. She talked to Denise about it. She told them that she planned to confront you about it.”

Jack said nothing to this, and the silence dragged on for a minute or two.

Verdouris now asked Jack what had happened when Irene confronted him with her suspicions.

Jack denied that Irene had ever doubted him.

“Why would she tell Roberta that she did?” Cranford demanded.

Jack denied that Irene had ever said anything like that to Roberta.

“Roberta told me herself,” Cranford said. “Did Roberta ever tell you that she had talked to me?”

This was a bit of trickery on Cranford’s part, since she had never talked to Roberta before her death. But giving Jack the impression that Cranford had been investigating him even before Roberta died might make Jack wonder whether Roberta had told Cranford anything incriminating—such as any suspicions Roberta might have had that Jack was responsible for the deaths of Irene, Jeremy and Ashley. In effect, Cranford was poking directly at whatever fears Jack might have that Roberta had told someone else of her suspicions.

Jack again heatedly denied that he had had an affair, that Irene had confronted him, and that Irene had talked to Roberta.

“I talked to Roberta,” Cranford said again. Jack became agitated. “Roberta told me about Irene calling her and talking about the possibility that you were having an affair. Because you were going away. And Roberta agreed. And Roberta agreed that you were being more and more like your father.”

After another silence, Cranford said, “I don’t believe you meant to hurt your wife. I know how hard it is to have a father leave his son. At that critical age. At a time when he needs that father the most. And I know you never wanted to be that kind of person.

“There are things that happen, that other people perceive, other people see things, and they start believing … and I don’t think you ever wanted to be like that. And when someone starts telling you that you were being like that, that’s a hard thing.”

“He was a jerk,” Jack said.

“I know that.”

“It is a hard thing, yes,” said Jack, “and everything, but I don’t think you know how he acted.”

“Jack,” said Cranford, “you are the only person. You are the last person to see Irene, when you went to work. We know that she died right at that time, within half an hour or so, of your leaving for work. We have her liver temperature. There’s only one way it can get that low.”

Another silence ensued.

“Jack,” said Cranford, “now is the time for you. Get something going for you. Because I know you care more about yourself than you’re letting on. And I know that you do not want all your friends to believe that you are a cold, calculating asshole. Excuse my language. Because that’s what they’re going to think.”

Jack seemed very close to the breaking point, Cranford thought. He continued to gaze at the floor. He was visibly agitated.

Cranford again offered the carrot.

“If there was something that was beyond your control, because of the things that happened in your life, that’s an understandable thing, Jack. I work with people like this every day. You’re not the first person who has had an accident. You’re not the first person that something has happened in your life that you wished to take away or you wished never happened. It’s not the end of your life. And the only way to go on in a positive way is to turn this around and start to get something for yourself going.”

There was another pause, and Jack said nothing.

“God will forgive you,” Cranford said. “God has already forgiven you, Jack. If you have come to terms and faced … the truth. But He will not forgive you if you’re lying. Because God knows the truth. And I don’t know, if you lie, how you can believe in God anymore.”