Page 42

Closing Time – Tom Waits

The police swarmed us, cold metal and scratchy black fabric and hands moving my arms forcefully, but surprisingly carefully, behind my back. Lights flashed, red and blue, red and blue, and the dank smell of standing water from last night’s rainstorm wafted up from the ground.

People were shouting, but I felt myself drifting away. It didn’t matter anymore. My mind was blank and my body was numb, and it didn’t matter.

I turned my head, and Brooke was bent over the trunk of the Mustang while another police officer put handcuffs on her. Like the ones on me. Our eyes met, and she grinned. Cat-like. Shark-like.

Brooke-like.

‘I love you, Norma Jeane!’ I yelled. This was it. I might never get another chance to tell her. I couldn’t let them take us away without saying it. ‘I love you!’

‘I love you too, Jolene!’ she screamed over the noise of everything going on around us.

Brooke turned her face so her forehead was pressed to the red paint on the car, and I saw her shoulders were shaking with laughter.

Or maybe not laughter. Maybe something else.

I stopped paying attention to everything after that.

I was put in the back of a cop car and taken to an Atlanta police station. They didn’t bother taking my photo or fingerprints, which confused me, but multiple people asked for my name and date of birth, and whether I had any identification on me.

I didn’t, but I recited my name and birthday every time I was asked.

The officer who had driven me to the station led me to an interview room and took off my handcuffs.

‘Wait here,’ he said gruffly.

I was panicking now, desperate to know where Brooke was, what was happening to her, if she was getting the same treatment I was or if it was worse for her because of the gun.

Or if it was worse for me because of the murder charge.

Something lurched in my stomach and I thought I was going to throw up.

It was definitely going to be worse for me.

I paced back and forth across the worn carpet, glancing up at the clock on the wall every minute as the second hand made its slow, relentless circle. After fifteen minutes, a harried-looking woman came into the room.

‘Jessie Swift?’ she asked, and I nodded. ‘I’m Claire Morris. I’m with the judicial service. I look after minors when their parent or guardian isn’t available to represent them.’

She was short, though still taller than me, with reddish hair pulled back into a braid, wisps of it coming loose around her face.

Wearing jeans and a white shirt, and carrying a tan leather backpack, she had the smart-casual vibe nailed.

I wanted to trust her, but it was impossible to trust anyone right now.

‘Law enforcement have contacted your mother to let her know you’ve been found safe. We can wait for her to get here if you want,’ she said in a rush, ‘but we’d have to put you in a foster home until she arrives in Atlanta.’

‘I don’t want to wait,’ I said quickly. ‘Where’s Brooke?’

‘I don’t know. I’m sorry,’ Claire replied.

‘Can I see her?’

‘Not right now, Jessie. Please sit down,’ she said, gesturing to one of the chairs. She settled into the other one and pulled a notepad from her leather backpack.

‘I’m good.’ Walking was better. I was full of nervous energy, and I needed to get it out somehow. I drummed my fingers on my thighs as I moved. ‘Are you, like, a lawyer?’

‘No,’ she said with a sharp laugh. ‘I’m a social worker.’

‘Do I need a lawyer?’

She looked up at me, not laughing anymore. ‘I don’t know. Do you?’

I shrugged.

Before I could say anything else, there was a quick knock on the door and it swung open.

The police officer who walked in was a woman who wore her hair in long, thick braids past her shoulders.

She wasn’t wearing a uniform, just jeans and a T-shirt, with a blazer covering her weapon harness.

She looked calm and elegant and totally in control.

I immediately envied her. I wanted to be calm and elegant and in control, and instead I was a snotty, splotchy, terrified mess.

‘Take a seat, Jessie,’ she said, putting a folder down on the table.

I finally stopped my pacing and sat down on the edge of the chair, clasping my hands between my knees.

‘I’m Detective Audrey Beaufort. I’ve just got a few questions for you.’

‘Okay,’ I rasped.

Detective Beaufort checked one of the pieces of paper in her file and didn’t look at me.

‘I didn’t do it,’ I said in a rush.

‘Didn’t do what?’ she asked, raising her eyebrows a little.

‘I didn’t kill him.’

From next to me, I heard Claire sigh. I glanced at her, and she had her eyes shut, her fingers pinching the bridge of her nose. ‘Do you want a lawyer, Jessie?’ she asked.

‘No,’ I said. I was sure I was making the wrong decision, but I couldn’t stand the idea of having to wait to get this conversation over with.

‘Who didn’t you kill, Jessie?’ Detective Beaufort asked calmly, finally turning to look at me. Her dark-brown eyes were piercing, and I felt myself shrinking under her attention.

‘Mitchell,’ I whispered.

‘Mitchell …?’ she prompted me.

‘Mitchell Covier. He’s … He was my mom’s boyfriend. He’s dead now.’

A moment of fear gripped me, because – No, I’d seen his body, he was definitely dead.

‘He’s dead, right?’ I asked desperately.

‘Yes,’ she replied, her expression totally unreadable. ‘How do you know that?’

‘It was on the news,’ I said. ‘And … I saw his body. Before I ran away.’

She nodded slowly. ‘When was this? When you saw Mitchell’s body, I mean.’

‘Right before I left Seattle. On the Monday afternoon.’

‘What time did you get home from school, Jessie?’

‘About five thirty, I guess. Choir was canceled.’

Detective Beaufort kept asking questions, guiding me through what I’d seen, what the kitchen looked like, where Mitchell’s body was.

My stomach was heaving, my fingertips were icy cold, and the back of my neck and my face hurt from clenching my jaw so hard.

My body was reacting to the stress, but my mind was shockingly clear.

It was almost, almost , a relief to finally tell someone all the details. For it all to be over.

The detective picked up another piece of paper from her folder.

‘Why didn’t you call the police when you found Mitchell’s body?’ she asked, and even though I knew that question was coming, I didn’t know how to answer it.

I looked desperately at Claire.

‘Do you need a minute, Jessie?’ she said softly.

‘No,’ I murmured. ‘I thought you – the police – would think I’d killed him.’

‘Did you kill him?’

‘No,’ I said as clearly as I could.

‘Did you want to kill him?’ Detective Beaufort asked.

‘I wanted him to stop hurting me.’ That wasn’t an answer to her question. We both seemed to know that.

‘He was hurting you?’ she asked, her tone a little more gentle now.

I nodded.

‘Did he rape you?’

‘No,’ I whispered.

‘But he was physically abusive,’ she clarified.

‘Yes.’

‘You don’t have to tell me about it now, if you don’t want to,’ she said, leaning forward a little. ‘But I’m here to listen if you do.’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t know if I can.’

‘That’s okay. I have a few more questions. Can we keep going?’

‘Sure,’ I croaked.

‘Did you tell anyone about the abuse? Did you maybe ask someone to kill him for you?’ Detective Beaufort asked.

I wondered where Brooke was. What they were asking her. I wondered if her parents were already on a flight down to Atlanta to pick her up, and what would happen to her then. My breath hitched, and I could feel the clawing panic creeping over my chest.

‘Jessie?’ Detective Beaufort prompted, shaking me out of my downward spiral.

‘No,’ I said again. ‘No, I didn’t kill him, I didn’t ask anyone to kill him for me and I don’t know who killed him. I don’t. I’m sorry.’

‘Okay, Jessie,’ she said. ‘We’re going to arrange for you to be sent back to Seattle. Seattle PD will want to talk to you since this is their case.’

‘I’m not …’ I’d already been arrested. ‘Being charged?’

‘We’re not detaining you, no. Since you’re a minor, we’ll make sure you get home safely.’

I wanted to scream. This was all wrong, so wrong, and I didn’t know how to tell them that going back to Seattle and my mom was worse than anything they could do to me.

I looked desperately at Claire. ‘Is Brooke coming too?’

‘I’m sorry – as I said, I can’t tell you anything about Brooke.’ She’d put her notebook away in her leather backpack and it looked like she was getting ready to go. I couldn’t understand how the conversation could be over already.

‘But … but …’

This didn’t feel right at all. The panic rose up inside me again, clutching at my throat.

‘I don’t understand,’ I said, my voice catching and breaking.

Detective Beaufort put her papers back in the folder and caught me with her intense gaze.

‘You haven’t been charged with a crime, Jessie,’ she said, and maybe it was my imagination, but she sounded a little kinder now. ‘Seattle PD have been looking for you because you disappeared after a man close to you was found dead, and no one knew where you were.’

‘They thought I killed him, though …’ I said desperately.

‘Did they?’ she asked.

‘They must have.’ I couldn’t comprehend any other reality.

Detective Beaufort leaned forward a little. ‘Jessie, listen to me,’ she said clearly. ‘You say you didn’t kill him. My colleagues in Seattle don’t think you killed him.’

Claire jumped in. ‘You were brought into custody partly to make sure you were safe, to ensure no one was making you do something you didn’t want to do, and partly so the police could ask some questions for the investigation into Mitchell’s death.

We’ve established all of that now. So you can go home. ’

‘Do I have to go back to my mom?’ I asked, hating how pathetic my voice sounded.

The two women exchanged glances.

‘Not necessarily,’ Claire said.

‘I still don’t get it. The police were chasing us …’