The Weight of Night

by Christine Carbo

  The room was warm and looked even shabbier than the last time I’d been there, but at least now they could open the windows, unlike before when even cracking the windows just meant getting choked out by dense smoke. Even the cheap room looked as if it wanted them out—that it just wasn’t meant to have a grieving family of four cramped into its space. The old-fashioned fat TV stood crooked on its table, the beds were lumpy and sloped, and one of the lampshades tilted up so that I could see the two bulbs underneath. The boy, Garret, sat and watched some show on Nickelodeon as if he’d not moved since the last time I came. Linda and Cassie weren’t there, and I asked about them.

  “They went to the store, down the road, to get some snacks,” Ron said. “We didn’t really have much of a dinner and the kids were getting hungry again.”

  “They walk?” I asked, thinking that I saw their car still in the lot, and knowing that on foot, they’d be approached by reporters, not to mention that it was already getting dark.

  “The motel office manager offered to drive her. She’s been very helpful. When Linda tried to walk before, the press—there were a lot more of them here earlier in the day—they mobbed her, peppering her with questions. She’s still slightly medicated and can’t drive herself. The chaplain had a doctor prescribe something so she could sleep.”

  “You as well?” I asked. He looked slightly medicated too—a bit glassy-eyed and jittery. Of course, anyone’s nerves would be fried under the circumstances.

  “I finally took one last night.”

  “Good,” I said. “You need sleep.”

  I cleared my throat. “Ron,” I continued, “I have some information to share with you.” His eyes brightened, and I wasn’t sure how he’d react when I showed him the picture of the handheld game. Ali had asked me to swing by and to see if they could verify that it was Jeremy’s. It could make him hopeful, or he could take it as a bad sign, the game left in some teenager’s hands, but no Jeremy yet. “I’ll preface this by saying that we have not yet found Jeremy,” I told him quickly to avoid disappointment.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Have a seat.” I motioned to one of the chairs by the window. I heard a shuffle on the sidewalk outside and peeked out before sitting to see that it was a reporter trying to listen through the open window. “You mind?” I asked Ron, motioning to the window I intended to shut so the reporter couldn’t hear us. Ron shook his head that he didn’t. I closed it, took out my phone, and pulled up the photo. “I have a picture I want to show you. We may have found Jeremy’s Nintendo, but we need for you to confirm that it’s his.” I handed my phone to him. “You can swipe to the left to see it from other angles.”

  He looked at the phone intently, and as he swiped to pull up the next photo, I could see a quick intake of air when he reached the one with the initials on the back. He looked at me, his eyes concentrated with hope and fear, and nodded slowly. “This is it. It’s his game. Those are his initials. Where did you find this?”

  I went to reach for my phone to take it back, but he wouldn’t give it up, as if by holding on to my phone with the image of Jeremy’s game, he was holding a piece of his boy. He turned and continued to stare down at the photo. “Tell me,” he said. “Where did you find this?”

  I told him about how Gretchen got ahold of it, and explained that we were dusting it for fingerprints as we spoke.

  “But what does it mean?”

  “We don’t know yet, but we’re going to do our best to find out. Are you positive, Mr. Corey, that this is Jeremy’s game?”

  “I’m positive,” he said.

  “Okay then. Please don’t mention this to the reporters. This needs to stay between you and Linda and us until we find the teen who had picked up the device and bring him in for questioning.” I turned to go, and Ron stood up.

  “I want to come,” he said. “I want to see the boy who found it.”

  “No, I’m sorry. Until we know more, we need you to stay here. With your family.”

  He recoiled like I’d said something off-color, as if telling him to stay with his family were somehow grotesque. Then he recovered and nodded blankly.

  I went to the door. “Officer,” he said before I walked out. I turned to face him. His face looked ghost-white, his red eyes spectral in the overhead light of the dingy room. I wished we could get them a better place to stay, but I wasn’t sure it would make a difference.

  “I just wanted to show my family the mountains”—he said, one palm turned upward, helplessly—“let them get to know nature a bit.”

  I stood quietly, but he didn’t offer more. “Of course,” I told him. “You’re a good father. You didn’t do anything wrong.” His statement wasn’t unusual, but it sounded odd, as if nature were a separate entity out west and not surrounding them in Ohio as well. But living and working in Glacier, I’d heard such statements before.

  “We shouldn’t have gone on that hike around the lake. We shouldn’t have left him. Linda wondered if it was okay, and I told her to quit worrying all the time. That he was going to be a mama’s boy for the rest of his life if she didn’t give him a little space, a little independence.” His bloodshot eyes were loaded with guilt and pain. His jaw began to quiver.

  “Don’t do this to yourself, Mr. Corey. Don’t. We’re doing everything possible to bring Jeremy safely back to you and your family.”

  “What if it’s not enough—what you’re doing?”

  I didn’t know how to answer. I could feel a trace of sweat break at my hairline and begin to trail down the back of my neck, and I realized that I was tenser than I thought. “I have to get going now, Mr. Corey. The quicker we move, the better.”

  “Yes, yes,” he said, snapping out of it. “Of course, please, keep us posted.”

  “Absolutely, we will.”

  • • •

  “Are you fucking kidding me? The father confirmed it?” Ali said when I gave her the update over the phone. “So a relative of someone in forensics has the boy’s missing 3DS?”

  “That’s what I’m saying,” I told her. She said to meet them in county forensics as quickly as I could. Now Gretchen, Ken, Ali, Herman, and I were crammed into Gretchen’s office staring at the Nintendo in a plastic Baggie. Gretchen had dusted it and came up with a match to Jeremy’s prints, and with the verification from Ron Corey, we were ready to move forward with Kyle Grove. Ali picked up the file we got on Kyle from Juvenile Detention and Youth Court Services. We’d had to get a judge to order the records released since he was a minor. He had two minors in possession, one count of vandalism, and one for shoplifting, all over the past year and a half.

  “So, we’re ready then. He’s over sixteen; he has the right to waive his rights, and we’ll be notifying his mother anyway since we know she’s with him now. Nor do we need her present in the interrogation room unless he requests her. So we’ve got an address, and we know they’re home right now. There’s no reason either Wendy or Kyle would think we’re coming. Correct?” Ali looked directly at Gretchen, who sat behind her desk. Ken and Herman both stood exactly the same as each other—feet planted wide, arms folded, chins slightly tucked down—as they listened. I leaned against the wall while Ali propped herself on the edge of the Gretchen’s desk. I could see Gretchen was jittery. Her leg bounced up and down and her eyes looked worried. I figured she was nervous at the idea of law enforcement showing up unannounced at her friend’s house—as if she was betraying her somehow. I thought of everything that I’d read online, how much deep guilt Gretchen must carry around every day. The last thing she would want to do—her biggest fear—would be to hurt or betray someone she cares about. But Gretchen also knew that she needed to put Jeremy first; otherwise she wouldn’t have called me so quickly.

  “Correct,” Gretchen answered. “But I want to come. If I can’t give Wendy a heads-up, I at least want to come. You might need me to talk to her or calm her down.”r />
  Ali looked at Herman. He gave the nod that said he thought it might not be a bad idea.

  “Okay then,” Ali said. “But you stay in the car until we need you. You might also set her off if she gets pissed at you for not warning her.”

  I could see Gretchen wince, and I gave Ali my best was-that-­necessary look, but she ignored me.

  “Okay, let’s go, then. But remember, if this kid is involved in taking Jeremy, then he’s damn clever for his age. His mom’s in forensics, so that would explain why he might have known to spray down the truck. We need to be careful, I want to be ready for the unexpected. Gretchen, you’ll stay in the car until we have the kid. I’ll do the knock. Herman, you’ll provide backup for me. Monty and Ken, you’ll cover the sides and the backs of the house to make sure the kid doesn’t slip out while I speak to the mother.”

  Gretchen looked at me and the question on her face said, Are you sure all of this is necessary? And are you sure Ali should be the one to speak to Wendy? I gave her a reassuring nod. I’d met Wendy once before in a previous case, and she seemed like a reasonable person who understood how law enforcement worked. Clearly she knew her son had been in a lot of trouble. She would know that she had no choice but to respect what Ali asked—having someone bullish like Ali do the talking to a protective mother might be just what we needed.

  “I’ll assess the situation with the mother first. If she lets us in, we, Herman and I”—Ali motioned between the two of them—“will ­approach the target. If he’s noncompliant, we cuff him and I’ll let you know.” She adjusted the radio on her belt. “Make sure your channels are all the same. And on second thought,” she said. “Even if he is compliant, I’ll cuff him. I want to scare the shit out of this kid.”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary,” Gretchen said, but Ali was already heading out the door. Gretchen looked at me, and I held up my hands. Ali was running the show, and for the most part, we had to follow. And this time I agreed with her. I hadn’t met Wendy’s son, and I didn’t know what to expect, but because he had the kid’s Nintendo, we should be prepared for anything.

  19

  * * *

  Gretchen

  WENDY LIVED IN a quaint beige and cream house on the east side of Kalispell where huge maple trees lined the sidewalks. We pulled up the block in the dark, parking a few houses down. The lights were off in most of the homes except in one on the end on the corner, the yellow glow from inside spilling out onto the bushes and making a parallelogram of light across the well-manicured lawn before the front window. I felt sick to my stomach that I was betraying Wendy, the only person in the world who had been maternal toward me in the last fifteen years.

  After everyone adjusted their radios, checked their gear, and took their positions, I watched Ali stride up to the door. Herman stood behind her at an angle, poised with his hand on his weapon. Ali pressed the bell, and I knew it would take a bit of time to roust them out of bed. I watched Ali’s hand move up and press it again. I counted the seconds: one one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand . . . and made it to five one-thousand before the inside lights began to go on and twelve one-thousand before the front door opened. Wendy stood in her robe, her hair messier than usual, a look of total surprise on her face.

  I could see Ali’s head move up and down as she spoke. She motioned with her hand for her and Herman to be let inside, and Wendy, still confused, opened the door to let them in. She looked briefly out toward the cop cars, toward me in my own car, which I insisted on driving separately, before she shut the door. I was in the dark, so I didn’t think she saw me, but I felt exposed anyway.

  I sat in my own car alone and looked around at the quiet neighborhood and at the agents’ and Monty and Ken’s cars across the street. I couldn’t help but think of the night in the police unit outside our house in Sandefjord, how it was on that ice-cold night with the blue lights flashing on the snow and icy divots forming across the sidewalk where the roof had dripped a few days before during a warm spell. The lights reflected off the divots as if to send me a signal about irrevocable things in life, the things for which no take-backs or replays existed. I could remember the feel of the cold glass on my palm that December night, the whir of the heater blasting from the dashboard with all its fancy police knobs and screens, the icicles hanging from the side roof of our house like spears, the sound of the policeman’s pencil scratching notes on his notepad, and the unbearable look on my mother’s face.

  The conclusiveness of that night slammed like a steel door in my head. Contrary to what I had grown up thinking—that all of us had bright futures ahead, the world was my oyster—I suddenly knew that I had done the irreversible, unknowingly delivered the final blows that would destroy everything, and that nothing, nothing at all would ever be the same again. I can’t say with certainty that I understood all of the implications of what I’d done while sitting in the car at that exact moment, but I felt them, sensed them as sure as I felt the cold glass under my palms. It would take years for me to learn that only the slow daily passage of time could help a person cope with matters of the heart, and that in the end, it was just you and the thoughts bleeding in your head. And bleed they did—endlessly, minute after minute, hour after hour—into cracks of self-doubt and self-hate unless you worked hard to not let that happen.

  I wondered what kind of a blow was being dealt to Wendy and Kyle as I sat alone in the dark before her house, this time in the heat of summer, the inside of my car warm and comfortable. I thought again about what kind of blow had already been dealt to the Coreys, and could Kyle have been responsible for doling it out? I prayed not. It made me shudder to even consider it.

  Eventually they came out the front door with Kyle cuffed. Wendy stood on the front porch with a shocked expression, her hand over her mouth, the same way she had looked in the derelict hotel. Moths frantically darted in the cones of light behind her head. I got out of the car and went over to her. “Wendy, it’s going to be okay,” I said.

  She looked at me with terror in her eyes. “Gretchen,” she said. “What’s happening? They said they want to question Kyle. What’s this about?”

  “I’ll fill you in, but first you need to get dressed so I can take you to the station.”

  “No, tell me now. Why are they saying they have evidence that Kyle may be involved in the abduction of that boy?”

  “The 3DS,” I said.

  “3DS?” She looked at me, confused.

  “The Nintendo game. The one Kyle had in your office matched the one the boy had. It had his initials on it. I’ve dusted it and the prints match the boy’s.”

  “You’ve dusted it? You didn’t call me?”

  “I couldn’t. They wouldn’t let me. I’m sorry, Wendy, but this is serious. A boy’s missing.”

  Wendy’s confused, shocked expression turned to pointed anger. She looked at me with sheer hate, her eyes seeming to go black as the surrounding night. “You can leave,” she said. “I’ll get myself to the station.” She turned and shut the door in my face.

  • • •

  Wendy’s words turned my stomach. I sat and waited for her for only a few minutes and saw her pull out of her garage. I followed her to the county headquarters, no more than six blocks away from her house, right next to our own offices in the justice center.

  Inside, the attendant told me that Ali and Herman had placed Kyle in the main interrogation room, and that the agents had brought Wendy back immediately. I went and sat down in the reception area for a few minutes and was debating whether to go back or not when Wendy came back out. She walked over without looking at me and sat down beside me. She stared at the off-white wall, nervously biting her nails. Finally she looked at me, a deep pain welling in her eyes.

  “Kyle’s over sixteen, so he’s able to choose whether or not to have me in there,” she sighed. “And guess what?”

  I didn’t answer.

 
“He doesn’t. They told me to wait out here while they talk to him.”

  “Wendy,” I said. “Everything will be okay. All Kyle needs to do is tell them how he got the game so that they can find this poor kid.”

  She stared at me, her brow furrowed. “How do you think he got it?” she asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  “Gretchen, there’s no way he could have hurt some boy. I know he’s a screwed-up teenager, but I know inside he’s not someone capable of hurting . . .” Her voice caught and she began to cry. “Oh my God, how has it come to this?”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself,” I said. “They’re only questioning him.”

  “How did they find it? Did you tell them about it?”

  I nodded, but didn’t add anything. I wasn’t ready to tell her the details.

  “Why didn’t you call me? Why didn’t you give me time to talk to him myself ?”

  I looked at her and didn’t say anything. She knew the answer already. Kyle had just taken off for a few days without her even knowing where he was. He was certainly capable of running. “You know why,” I finally said.

  I looked at the off-white floor. I didn’t know how he got ahold of the game, and a part of me believed Wendy when she said he couldn’t hurt some boy. I hoped they were careful with his name, that it didn’t get leaked to the press. When my name was published in Norway, everything, as awful as it already was, got even worse. Take someone who is wounded and add ostracism to the mix, and the situation becomes unbearably, exquisitely painful—a brutal punishment akin to solitary confinement.

  I thought of my classmates singing, “Gretchen’s gotta gun; Gretchen’s come undone.” Everyone in Sandefjord came to see me as a freak show. The media—specifically a magazine called Se og Hør—tried to get an exclusive interview with me six months after it happened, but my therapist instructed me to decline, telling me that people love to get a glimpse of people’s pain and trauma: Skadefryd, he said. Schadenfreude.