Thirty-seven

Again, Cranford tried to get Jack to talk about his feelings on the night before Irene was discovered.

“How did you feel that night at work?” she asked.

“Fine, I was just concerned about Irene, that’s all,” Jack said.

“Knowing that she was laying there on the bed and the kids were going to find her.” Cranford made it a statement, not a question.

“I didn’t know any of that,” Jack said. “I don’t know anything I can tell you.”

“Jack,” Cranford said, “we know about all of it.”

“All of what?”

“All of it. Irene. Roberta. Ashley. Jeremy.”

Jack was silent.

“It’s over, Jack,” Cranford said. “You can walk out of this room right now and that’s not going to change a thing. It’s not going to go away. Because we’re not going to go away. And Jill already told us that she did not tell the whole truth on that casualty report. She told us that you told her that you’d just checked on Ashley, and that she was okay, that she was going to sleep. She originally said she’d checked on her. We now know that she didn’t. We also know that Ashley was suffocated shortly after she ate dinner.

“Do you remember what she had for dinner that night?”

“I didn’t have her, my mom had her,” Jack said.

“What time did she come home?”

“About eight. My mom put her to bed. Then I had to go to work.”

“Jill came and you told her, ‘I just checked on Ashley,’ so there was no need to.”

Verdouris broke in.

“Come on, Jack. Tell us what happened,” he said.

“There isn’t anything else.”

“Yes there is,” Cranford said.

“I didn’t do it.”

“Yes you did. Yes you did,” Cranford said. “I know you don’t feel real great about it. But at least we’d like to believe that you feel bad.”

“I don’t, because I loved my family, my kids and my mother,” Jack said. “Everybody’s putting me down to be the bad guy here.”

“Jack,” Cranford said, “it’s not a matter of being a bad guy. I don’t think you’re a bad guy. That has nothing to do with it. I think that you’re a good man. From everybody I’ve talked to, you’re a good man. But there are issues in your life that you need to work out, that have caused things to happen. There are issues that stem back to when you were a child. That you have never been able to deal with. And they’re coming up now. And you can’t go on like this. And I don’t think you’d want it to happen again.”

“Tell the truth, Jack,” Verdouris urged.

“The only way anybody can help you is for you to tell the truth yourself,” Cranford said. “I want to get you the help you need to start dealing with some of the issues that you have bottled up inside of you, since your father left you. Probably for some time before that.”

Cranford again said she thought Jack was a good man, but one who had been hurt very deeply, and that he was “working out these issues.”

“Jack,” she said, “it’s been a long time coming. This is the only way you were taught. This is the way your father taught you. You didn’t want your children to have a father who left them. You weren’t going to do to them what your father did to you.

“Jack, it’s time to get off this runaway train,” Cranford continued. “We know about all the lies.”

“What lies?”

“The lies are going to be coming home. About your being there when Roberta died. You know, checking on Ashley. About Irene suspecting you were having an affair. With every … lie, Jack, you’re digging yourself deeper and deeper and deeper, and making yourself look worse and worse and worse. You do. To everybody, Jack. To everybody, because, you know what? Pretty soon, everybody’s going to know. And you are going to look like one cold son-of-a-gun. One cold fish, unfeeling, just like that.

“And I don’t think you’re like that. I can see the hurt in your eyes right now,” Cranford said. “Your true friends will stand by you. The only thing a true friend asks is to be honest. Just be honest. And if they’re your friends, they will love you anyway. They will understand that there were things outside of Jack’s control that caused Jack to do what he did.”

“Jack,” Verdouris interjected. “We know, but we need you to tell us why. We need to be able to understand, Jack. Help us to know. We don’t know why. What was going on in your mind? Tell us what you were feeling. Tell us what you were feeling.”

“I don’t know how I feel right now,” Jack said.

“We’re not asking right now, Jack, we’re asking how you felt at the time the things that caused the accident happened,” Cranford said. “Unless you want me to believe that they were cold and calculated killings.”

“They’re not, okay?” Jack said.

“Then tell us how the accidents happened,” Cranford said.

“I don’t know.”

“You do know, Jack. Deep in your heart. Deep in your heart, and it’s not going to go away. Deep in your feelings, Jack, and it’s not going to go away. It’s in your brain, and it’s not going to go away. You can push it to the farthest part of your mind, and wherever you go, it’s always going to be there. It’s going to weigh you down like a ton weight.”

Jack said nothing.

“This is the way your father would be,” Cranford said. “You don’t care.”

Jack grew agitated.

“I’m, I’m very, very irate right now,” he said.

“But you do care, don’t you?” Cranford asked.

“Yes, I do.”

“Then get something going for you, Jack,” Verdouris said. “Let’s get to the bottom. What was going through Jack’s mind? What was hurting Jack? Making him angry?”

“We just want to get you the help you need, so it doesn’t, it isn’t going to happen again,” Cranford said.

“I wasn’t feeling anything because I didn’t do anything,” Jack said.

“So you didn’t feel anything?”

“I didn’t feel anything of a violent nature because I didn’t feel violent,” Jack said.

“Jack, this was not a violent act,” Cranford said.

“Well,” Jack said, “these people are dead.”

Cranford again probed for Jack’s feelings about the deaths.

“I was just trying to get over it,” Jack said, “and then a daughter, and a son, and now my ass is in a sling.”

“We’re trying to help you,” Cranford said.

Jack didn’t respond, and Verdouris appeared to lose his temper. He got up and circled around to Jack’s right.

“You sit there and say, ‘No, I didn’t do this,’” Verdouris told Jack, his voice rising. “Yes, you did! Your wife’s dead. It’s time to be a man, to own up to it. Your father never did that. So, can you?”

“Act sensible,” Verdouris continued. “The only way to help yourself now is to be honest with us. If you loved them.”

“That’s something your father never did for you,” Cranford told Jack.

“Have the balls to be a man like your father never was,” Verdouris said.

Jack drew back inside himself, and Cranford knew he was slipping away. She wished that Verdouris had stayed down. I almost had him, she thought. But here comes that mask again.

“I’m going to tell you something, though, Jack,” Cranford said. “We will be seeing you again. And I’m sorry that your father taught you so well.”

“He didn’t teach me anything about what you’re talking about,” Jack said.

Both detectives stood up. So did Jack. They gave him their business cards. As she handed her card to Jack, Cranford tried one last zinger.

“Your dad was around long enough, Jack, to teach you not to be man enough to accept these things,” Cranford said.

“I’m going to tell you something, Jack. We’re not going to go away,” Verdouris said.

“And I’ll tell you something too, okay?” Cranford added. “I would much rather that you come to me and say I need help, than for me to have to come back here and hunt you down, or wherever you go. Because there’s nowhere you can go, Jack.”

The interview was over.