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“And where is your sister now?”

“She’s performing at a dance club.”

“What’s the occupant’s name?” the second policeman asked.

“Cory Lewis,” I said. I could feel cold tears coming into my eyes.

“And your name, miss?”

“Robin Taylor.”

“All right. For now, we’ll take Mr. Dawson here and you, Miss Taylor, to the police station.”

“Can I bring the truck back?” Keefer asked.

“Not until the matter is settled,” the policeman said.

“Well, why do you have to take her, too? I’m the one who was driving,” he said.

“Procedure,” the policeman replied. “She was a witness to the events. Maybe next time you’ll think about all the ramifications that occur when you break the law. Let’s go,” he said. Then he paused. “How old are you, miss?”

“I’m sixteen,” I said.

The second policeman took his cell phone off his belt.

“Where is your sister performing?”

I started to speak and then realized I didn’t know. I really didn’t know. They never had told me.

“I don’t know,” I said. “She forgot to tell me.”

“I would think,” the first policeman said, “that you would have realized by now how serious this situation is.”

“I’m telling you the truth.” I turned to Kathy Ann. “Did she tell you where she was working when she called earlier?”

She shook her head like someone who was incapable of speech.

“All right, come along,” the policeman said.

Kathy Ann remained in the doorway.

“What should I do?” she called after us.

“Go home,” the policeman told her.

She nodded and quickly closed the door behind her. She remained far behind us as we walked down to the parking lot.

“I won’t go anywhere,” Keefer told the first policeman. “At least let me take the truck back.”

“You can do that later if you’re not incarcerated,” he said.

They put us into the patrol car. This was the second time within a twenty-four-hour period that I had been in a Nashville police car. The fact didn’t escape me, nor would it escape Mother darling when she found out.

At the police station, Keefer confronted the owner of the vehicle he had hit. He was a short, plump man, a chef in one of the local restaurants. Keefer apologized and told him he was an auto body repairman and he would fix whatever damage he had done.

“I’ll get on it immediately,” he promised. He explained we were in a big rush, and he apologized again.

In the end he decided not to press charges against Keefer. We were there almost two and a half hours. I saw the policeman who had been talking to Mother darling and Cory. He looked at me for a long moment, went to the desk sergeant to find out what it was all about, and then shook his head and left.