by Kate Hewitt
“Alexa?”
She didn’t look at me as she answered. “What?”
“Why don’t you come out and join us again?”
She shook her head as she chewed on her nail. “No thanks.”
“What’s going on, Alexa?” I stepped into the room, dim and messy, clothes littering the floor. In other words, a pit. “Is this about Maria?”
“What?” It came out nearly as a screech as she jerked around to look at me.
“She told me about what happened.”
“She did?” Alexa sounded disbelieving.
“Yes, about the argument you had, and how she… slapped you.” When I said it out loud, it sounded worse.
“She told you?” Alexa sounded vaguely impressed by this news, but then she shrugged. “Whatever.”
“Are you still angry at her?”
“Oh, Dad.” She let out a sigh and slumped back against the pillows. “You really have no clue about anything, do you?”
I didn’t let that sting as I answered. “I guess I don’t, unless you tell me.”
She shook her head. “You wouldn’t believe me.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Alexa looked away, still picking at her fingernail. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, but I thought it did.
I just had no idea how much.
* * *
An hour later, the pizza had arrived. As the dining room was an utter mess of dust and paper, we ate in the living room, the pizza boxes spread out on the coffee table, everyone happily slurping on their slices, even Alexa.
I felt happy. Despite everything, because of it, I actually felt happy. It was fragile, faint, and most certainly fleeting, but it was there. And that was enough; it was a lot more than I’d had before, at least in that moment, for in the next my entire world upended for a second time.
A sharp knock sounded on the door, followed by the unexpected and incredible sound of it being forced open, then banging against the wall. I remember hot pizza sauce on my hand, a bolt of shock running through me at the sound even as I struggled to make sense of it.
“What the…”
“Police!” A gruff voice shouted, and then they were streaming into the living room like something out of a bad action movie, policemen with bulletproof vests and drawn pistols. Ruby started screaming, a continuous high-pitched wail. I flung my pizza away as I raised my hands in the air.
“What do you… why are you here?” I could barely stammer out the words. I fought a bizarre urge to laugh, even as terror gripped my insides, turning them liquid. This couldn’t be happening. This simply couldn’t be happening.
The policemen—there were three of them, which seemed like far too many—advanced into the room, still with their guns drawn.
“Maria Dzino?” one of them said, and he pointed his gun at her.
She rose carefully, her hands in the air, her face full of resignation. “Yes, that is me,” she said softly.
“Maria!” Ella wailed, tears streaking down her face. Ruby kept screaming.
“What do you want with Maria?” I demanded. My voice wavered at the end, because these were policemen and they had actual guns.
“Maria Dzino,” the policeman began, and now he really sounded as if he were in a bad movie, “you are under arrest.”
“For what?” I blustered, trying in my pointless, pathetic way, to take charge of the situation.
The man didn’t even look at me as he kept his gaze and his gun trained on Maria. “For accessory to murder.”
I turned to Maria, and my stomach bottomed out at the expression on her face. She didn’t even look surprised.
“What…” The word came out of me like air from a deflating balloon. I stared at Maria, willing her to say something. To explain. To protest, at least. “Maria,” I began, and then couldn’t finish.
Her gaze flicked to me for only a second. “I am sorry, Nathan,” she said quietly. “I am so very sorry.”
“What?” I stared at her in disbelief, not wanting to process what that apology meant. “What?”
Ruby had stopped screaming and was now simply staring in incomprehension, her mouth a rounded O, while Ella wept softly. Wildly, I looked around for Alexa, and when I saw her standing in the corner, her face pale, her arms crossed, I realized she didn’t look surprised either.
“Alexa…” I began, and again I had to stop. I had no words, no thought, my mind nothing but a buzzing, blank screen.
“She knew him,” Alexa said defiantly. “She knew him, Dad. I saw them together.”
“What…”
I looked back at Maria, who was now being handcuffed, although I hardly thought she needed the restraint. She was utterly docile, almost lifeless.
“You knew him?” I whispered. Of course I knew who him was.
“He is my brother,” she answered in a voice laden with sorrow. “I am so sorry.”
Her brother? Petar, I remembered, who loved music, who was quiet and shy. Petar Dzino had killed my wife? And Maria had known?
I put my hands to the sides of my head, as if to keep myself from exploding. The policemen began to lead Maria out.
“Daddy.” Ruby tugged on my arm, her face streaked with tears. “Daddy, don’t let them. Don’t let them take her.”
I just shook my head silently as four policemen escorted Maria out of the apartment, and out of our lives.
Twenty-Eight
Maria
So it came to this. I sat in the cell, staring at the grey concrete walls, the little metal toilet, and thought, I know what to do in a place like this. I know how to be.
I did not feel scared, which surprised me; I did not even feel worried. I had a strange, heavy sort of peace, a resignation that was also relief. It was over. I had no more secrets to carry, to keep. The worst had happened, and I had got through it.
The policemen had not spoken to me as they’d taken me to a station somewhere in the city, I did not know where. I’d sat in the back of a van, a policeman crouching near me, looking at me as if I were someone dangerous. I could tell from the curl of his lip that he assumed the worst—accessory to murder, must have planned it all, perhaps even a terrorist. Who knew? I had stared at the inside of the van and let my mind empty out. I did not want to think about Ruby looking so terrified, Ella so heartbroken, Nathan so betrayed. And Alexa… she must have seen Petar and me from the windows. She must have called the police. I did not blame her. I did not blame anyone.
At the station, they fingerprinted and photographed me and then locked me in this room. They said I could have a lawyer, and so I called Cathy at Global Rescue, because I knew she could recommend someone.
“Maria, you’ve been arrested?” She sounded shocked.
“It is a long story.” I felt so tired, wanting only to get through these necessary steps. Needing to have it all be over. Whatever sentence they gave me, I knew I would accept it. How could I not?
I was only in the cell for an hour or so when Lisa and Tom, those old friends, summoned me to an interrogation room, just as before, except now of course it was so different. Now they informed me I could wait until my lawyer came, and I said I did not need to. Perhaps that was foolish, but I was afraid that waiting for a lawyer would make me look guilty, and I was not guilty. I was not.
Yet I felt guilty as I sat in front of them; now there were no conciliatory smiles, no conversational tone. They were both giving me stony looks as I waited for them to speak, my head slightly bowed.
“Where is your brother, Maria?”
“I do not know.”
“And I don’t believe you.” In all of our interviews, she’d never sounded so hard.
“I am sorry. If I knew, I would tell you.”
“Really? Because you didn’t tell us when you recognized the photo. You didn’t tell us when he found you near the Wests’ apartment, and spoke to you.”
“I know. I should have. I wanted to…”
“Yeah, right.” This from Tom, a sneer. “I think
that’s a load of crap, Maria. I think you’ve known Petar Dzino was in this country all along.” He leaned forward, one elbow on the table, so he could thrust his face near mine. “I think you planned this the whole time, together.”
I shook my head, feeling the futility of it all. “No.”
“Then how did you end up in the Wests’ apartment? In Laura’s life?”
Again I shook my head, over and over, knowing it was useless. “No. I did not. I never would.”
“Then it’s a pretty strange coincidence, isn’t it? Pretty damn strange.”
I straightened, lifting my head to gaze at them both. “I will tell you the truth, if you want me to.”
They stared back at me, looking distinctly nonplussed, and wearily I realized, as with so many others, they did not want to know the truth. They wanted to shape and twist the facts to fit their own story, the one where they captured two killers, assigned motives, wrapped it all up so neatly. I could even understand that. How often we want things in this world to be neat.
“All right, Maria,” Lisa said in an equable tone that managed to convey her utter skepticism. “Why don’t you tell us the truth?”
And so I did, explaining about how Petar had been taken away from me back at Vojno, how I had never seen him again, never recognized him in any of the sketches or photos they had shown me, until less than a week ago. Monday. It was Friday, and it had only been on Monday that I had seen that terrible photograph and known who it was. Five days, and yet a lifetime.
“Why didn’t you say anything at the time?” Lisa asked. “Instead you assured us you didn’t recognize him. You lied.”
“I was scared,” I said as I looked down at my hands. “I didn’t know what to do.”
“The obvious thing to do would have been to—”
“I know that,” I cut her off, raising my voice a little. “Of course I know that. But what you do in the moment and what you know you should do are often two different things.”
“There was time later,” Lisa persisted.
“I know that too. All I have been thinking about these last five days has been Petar, and what I should do.”
“And when he approached you, as you say he did? Why didn’t you call the police then?”
“I begged him to turn himself in.”
“Not good enough, Maria.”
Of course it wasn’t. I shook my head yet again. “I made a mistake,” I said. “I realize that, and I will pay for it. But I did not have anything to do with my brother killing Laura West.” My voice trembled.
“Why did he kill Laura West, if not for you?” Tom asked.
My shoulders slumped at this. “It was for me, but not in the way you think. He saw me with Laura.” The admission brought a rush of pain as well as guilt. “She was leaving to go home, I was in the way. She grabbed me by my shoulders…”
Tom snorted in disbelief. “Are you saying your brother killed a woman he didn’t know because she touched you?”
“It seems crazy, I know, but that is what he said. It seemed to spark something inside him, some memory…” Of Vojno. Those old ghosts rising up again, and yet I longed to lay them to rest forever. “My brother… he is a broken man. You do not know the things that were done to him, that he was made to do…”
“Oh, we know all about Petar Dzino,” Tom informed me. “We know the false name he was traveling under, we know he spent three years in Syria, we know he has links to—”
“Do you know he was beaten and tortured in Vojno?” I cried. “Do you know they made him shoot another prisoner?” My voice broke. “Do you know he pulled me on a sled, or that he liked to play piano, Mozart, always Mozart…” And then I began to weep, my shoulders shaking, as I mourned my brother. I did not know what would happen to him, only that he was already lost. I couldn’t save him; I couldn’t save anyone. Not Laura, not the Wests, not even myself.
Eventually, they led me back to my cell, still seeming unconvinced, unimpressed, by either the truth or my tears. I sat on the thin mattress and stared at the wall, my mind tired and drifting.
It hurt too much to think about Nathan or the girls, and so I let my mind wander back to Sarajevo; I found myself picturing my childhood bedroom in minute detail—the pink bedspread, the soft rabbit toy I’d had since I was a baby, the row of Matryoshka dolls on my shelf, fat and rosy-cheeked and smiling.
When I opened my eyes, I was startled to see the concrete walls of the cell. Like the camp in Vojno, where this all began, and where, perhaps, it would end.
Eventually I slept, and the next morning I was escorted to yet another room, where my lawyer was waiting for me. I recognized him from Global Rescue, a dark-skinned man with warm eyes and an efficient manner. He wore a nicely pressed button-down shirt in the same pink as my old bedspread.
“Maria. Damien Banks.” I shook his hand before sitting down. “I’m so sorry you’re in this situation. I understand you spoke to the police last night?”
“I told them the truth.”
“It would have been better if you had waited until I could be there.”
“I am sorry.” Again, for everything.
“Why don’t you tell me what happened, from the beginning?”
And so I did, sparing nothing. I stared at the wall as I recited the facts. Damien took notes, interrupting me to clarify a few points, and when I finished there was a heavy silence. I felt drained and empty.
“Will I go to jail?” I asked and he sighed; that was a heavy sound too.
“The thing is, Maria, this case has blown up already. It was on the front page of three newspapers this morning.”
“What?” I straightened. “Why?”
“Because it seems sensational. Refugees… terrorists… conspiracies…” He shrugged, an apology.
“But it wasn’t like that.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
So the papers were saying the same things Lisa and Tom had been—that I’d planned it all, that I’d been involved from the beginning, in such a terrible crime.
“The police are going to interview Nathan West. What he says will, of course, help to determine your case and what they decide to charge you with, if anything.”
And what would Nathan say? Would he believe like all the rest? I hoped not. I prayed not; my fledgling prayers rising like vapor to the sky. Would he remember that he had asked me to come into his home, and not the other way round? Or would he rewrite the past, because that could be so easy and tempting to do?
“When will you know more?” I asked Damien.
“They’re interviewing Nathan this morning. I should know more later today.”
And so, I waited some more in my cell, the hours drifting by with surprising speed as my mind wandered back to the past, lingering in the rooms of my childhood. I could hear Petar playing the piano, my father’s dry chuckle. The kitchen smelled of spicy cevapi. It was such a pleasant place to be.
Then I was called back, and Damien told me all that had happened.
“I’m so sorry to tell you they found Petar this morning.”
Found. It did not sound good.
“He’d killed himself. I’m so sorry, Maria.”
I nodded slowly, strangely unsurprised, the grief too old to hurt. I had mourned my brother years ago. I realized some part of me had been expecting this since he had walked away from me.
“I’m very sorry for your loss. Unfortunately, that means he can’t answer any questions about your involvement, or lack thereof,” Damien continued.
“What about Nathan?” I asked quietly, steeling myself for whatever Damien said next.
“That is much more positive, I’m happy to say. Nathan has told the police he does not believe you had any involvement in his wife’s killing. He said he was the one who sought you out on every occasion and also made the suggestion that you become his family’s nanny, which he said was a great shock to you at the time. That’s all very much in your favor.”
I nodded, a wave of bittersweet r
elief going through me, making me shudder with the force of it. “That is good.”
“Actually, he wishes to see you. To talk with you.”
“He does?”
“Yes. I’ll see if I can arrange it. He’s petitioning for the accessory charges to be dropped. Considering all the negative press, I’m not sure if that’ll be possible, but I will keep you updated.”
“Thank you.”
“In the meantime, they have applied to be able to hold you for a total of thirty-six hours until they decide whether to charge you.”
I nodded my acceptance; I did not mind. If they released me, where would I go? I could not go back to the Wests. I would probably never see Alexa, Ella, or Ruby ever again. That brought more pain than I could bear, and so I did not think about it. I could not.
“Maria, there is another possibility I feel I have to mention to you.” Damien sounded so hesitant, I wondered what on earth he could be worried about telling me.
“What is it?”
“You are not a U.S. citizen…”
“I am a permanent resident.”
“I’m afraid that doesn’t matter in these circumstances.”
“What are you saying?”
“Even if the charges are dropped, there is a chance you could be deported back to Bosnia.”
Bosnia. I sank back against my seat, my mind reeling all over again. What would I do there? Where would I go? How would I live? “What would that mean? Would I be charged in Bosnia? Would I go to prison there?”
“It depends what they put on your deportation sheet.” He paused. “If they do decide to deport you, it will happen very quickly.”
“How quickly?”
“Most likely you’d be removed to a detainment center within the next few days.”
A shiver of shocked realization went through me. It sounded as if this were a very real possibility, perhaps the likeliest. Deported.
“Your case would be referred to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service. I’ll know more soon. In the meantime, I’ll talk to the authorities and see if Nathan can visit with you,” Damien murmured, and then I was being escorted back to my cell again.