You Can Never Tell

by Sarah Warburton

  As it rang, my nerves winched tighter and tighter. And when the call hit voice mail, I dialed again. And again. The fourth time, a woman answered, snapping, “What?”

  “Alondra?”

  “Hold on.”

  And then Alondra was on the phone, listening as I gasped out words that didn’t make any sense, “Michael” and “murder” and “police station.”

  The only question she asked was, “Which one?”

  I hung up the phone, exhaustion flooding me instead of relief. Alondra would take care of Michael, and I’d take care of my baby. Normally Grace could go longer than two hours, but she was already chewing on her fist.

  Returning to Officer Navarro, I asked, “Is there a place, I mean, someplace private, I could nurse?”

  Right on cue, Grace made a gurgle that ended in a complaint.

  The officer smiled. “Sure. We’ve got a community room that nobody’s using right now. Come on through.”

  She buzzed the door open, and I hefted Grace’s carrier and walked in, listening hard, but I didn’t hear Michael’s voice anywhere. When Officer Navarro met me in the hallway, I asked point-blank, “Are they going to question me? Or at least tell me what’s going on?”

  Her friendliness faded a little, as if she suspected that I’d used Grace to try to get some information, but then another cry, sharper, came from the carrier to bolster my story. “I really can’t say.” Officer Navarro reached out a finger to stroke Grace’s hand. “I mean, I don’t know. Let me show you to the community room, you can get this little one fed, and I’ll follow up with Detective Clark.”

  Alone in the spacious “community room,” where a few plastic chairs were scattered about and a series of inspirational posters aimed at children lined the walls, I unbuckled Grace from her car seat, trying not to look at or think about the smudges on her pajamas from Michael’s bloody hands.

  As I’d feared, her diaper was squishy, but she didn’t smell and I hoped it was only wet. She was already making her little complaining, grunting cries, but she wasn’t wailing full throttle. I shut the door to the hallway and chose a chair not in the line of sight from the room’s small window. Although the police station was probably riddled with cameras.

  Even a starving baby will rebel against tension in your body, fight and wail. And Grace had to eat. I didn’t know how long we’d be here, but my nerves were raw and throbbing, and if she started to howl, I didn’t know what I’d do. Break into a million pieces, shatter, howl myself.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, took one breath, slowed it down, and took another. Carefully, I tucked Grace under my T-shirt. She tensed, and I tensed, and she arched her back with a shrill cry.

  One more breath, my slowest yet, and I crooned the first few bars of my mother’s favorite lullaby: “Too-ra-loo-ra.” Finally, she latched on, and my entire body was flooded with visceral relief.

  How had we gotten here? The evening had been so ordinary, so normal. I closed my eyes, remembering. After dinner, Michael had taken Grace for her “bath,” really just a wipe-down with a warm damp cloth run under her chin and around the folds on her arms and legs. I’d cleared the table, savoring the way the light slanted through our front windows. Early evening, and my family was home together. Everything felt so right.

  He’d brought her back and given her to me. If all went well, we’d have an hour or so until she needed to be fed again, and then if I was smart, I’d go to bed early.

  But this night she’d reared up and started rooting on my shoulder, patting with her little hand and making insistent grunts. She wasn’t going to wait an hour. She wasn’t going to wait fifteen minutes.

  “Do you want to watch something?” I’d asked.

  “Sure.” Michael picked up the remote, but before he could do more than click the television on, there was a tap at our back patio door. My arms tightened around Grace, but then I saw it was only Brady.

  Michael tossed me the remote. “Back in a few.”

  I’d found a channel showing old sitcoms, and to the syncopation of the familiar dialogue, I positioned Grace. She latched on and nursed with greedy gulps, her tiny fingers curling and flexing.

  The sound of Michael’s and Brady’s voices from the backyard was comforting, and it made me miss Lena. She’d been gone only a few days, but it would be another week before she was due to return. How quickly I’d become accustomed to having a friend right next door. I looked down at Grace’s little face, her eyes not fluttering shut as they should have been but wide open, impossibly bright, staring at me. She’d stopped nursing and was just looking, like she’d never seen me before.

  She didn’t resist or protest as I lifted her to my shoulder, patting her on the back softly, and then a little more firmly until she burped. Then she pushed up again, twisting to look at me. No chance she’d be going to sleep anytime soon. If she insisted on three hours of this “quiet alert” stage and then I fed her again, maybe, just maybe, I could get to sleep by eleven, then feed her at three-ish in the morning, then get another few hours of sleep before rising at a normal hour.

  I went to the back door and looked out. The yard was shadowy, the sun too low now to light it. Michael was kneeling on the ground, examining some part of the tiered garden structure, and while I couldn’t see Brady, I could hear him shout from the other side of the fence, “Try it now.”

  Then an arc of water rose from beside Michael, curving up and over the top of the garden, falling on the tiers I couldn’t see, the ones on Brady and Lena’s side.

  “Add the pulse,” Michael shouted back.

  And the water changed from a smooth arc to a series of dashes, the flow of the water interrupted even as the arc remained. With a whoop, Michael stood and stepped back to admire his work.

  I turned Grace to face the yard. Maybe she would see the light shining on the flashing water, or just her father and his eager, excited face.

  Then Brady pushed back through the fence. “Looks even better from this side.”

  “Now we just have to get your part rigged up.” Michael glanced back and saw me there. “Hey, isn’t it cool? We’ll have at least one from each side, like a water display. It has to be high-powered enough to sustain the arc, but not so much that it batters the plants.”

  “Looks like the water feature at the Galleria.” Elizabeth and I had walked there just last week, pushing the babies past the designer stores, looking down at the skating rink, and people-watching, observing shoppers from all over the world.

  “Or a mini Bellagio.” Michael slipped his arm around me and kissed the top of Grace’s head. I leaned in, loving the way we made a complete group, ready for our portrait.

  Brady was watching us, a strange expression on his face, but when I met his eyes, he looked like his usual self again. “Success like this calls for a toast. You in?”

  “Go ahead.” I felt like curling up with Grace, snuggled on my own sofa, in a safe world. Without Lena, Brady was too bulky, too boisterous, just too much.

  Now in this cold police station, I would have given anything to be back in that moment with Michael’s arm around my shoulder. If I could have done it all again, I’d have said, “No, don’t go with Brady.” I’d make Michael stay home, and we’d have been safe. None of this would have happened. We’d have spent the evening together on the sofa; we’d wake together in our own bed; the world would have been right.

  This community room was frigid, I was tired, and the little plastic chair was sending spasms of pain through my lower back, counteracting the weight of the hours I’d been awake and the stress dragging down my limbs. I kept trying to force my brain to work, to pick through my memory for the key that would make the police give Michael back to me.

  I ran through the math again in my mind, the things I would say when they questioned me, hoping the numbers would add up to something that would save my husband. Michael had gone off with Brady at nine o’clock; I’d nursed Grace and put her down at eleven. He hadn’t been home when I heard her fussing at
two in the morning. But sometime between two and three, he’d come back in, and this nightmare had begun. A little over five hours. They hadn’t been driving, there hadn’t been anyone else in the house, but something terrible had happened. Not only that, but Michael had been afraid that someone would be watching us. Was it Brady? Or had the mysterious someone killed him?

  No, this whole thing was crazy. Michael could never have been involved in a murder. Never. Nobody was dead. This was just some kind of misunderstanding.

  Nursing Grace in an empty room with my head bowed and my whole body arching in and over my baby like a shell, I felt like I was in the right position for praying. I fell back on the one I’d prayed as a child: Please, God, please let everything be okay. Please, let this be okay. I was praying for Michael, alone somewhere and traumatized; I was praying for myself, frustrated and helpless; I was praying for Grace, who deserved a peaceful life with parents who were in control. And I had a sense I was praying for someone unknown. Someone whose blood stained my sweatpants.

  I wasn’t braced against the flood of feeling, the deep well of sorrow, that I tapped into. I tried to choke it down, but my throat was full of the wail I couldn’t utter.

  Finally, Grace’s frantic nursing stopped. I tickled her cheek, but instead of resuming, she pulled off and gave me a loopy, milk-drunk smile. Cuddling her against my shoulder, I patted her back until she gave a little burp. I tucked Grace back into her seat, feeling a pang of guilt as I maneuvered the buckle over her swollen diaper. Maybe the police station had a spare one somewhere.

  When I stepped out into the hallway, I wasn’t alone. Coming directly toward me from the lobby was Brady, his hands cuffed in back, his head raised defiantly. Two officers were following behind him and another was leading the way down the hall, but all I could see was the familiar face. His T-shirt was too dark for me to make out any stains, and his jeans were black as well. I fell back a step into the doorway of the room, moving Grace’s seat so she was behind me.

  And he noticed. Of course he did. This time his gaze held mine and his wink was slow, knowing. Then he bared his teeth in a smile.

  CHAPTER

  15

  THROUGH THE FRONT windows of the station, I could see the sun had risen and cars were taking people to work or to school or to the shops, but Grace and I were stuck in limbo without Michael. At least he wasn’t alone now. Nothing short of my first sight of Grace had ever been as welcome as Alondra, walking through the door in her pencil skirt and matching blazer. She looked like a professional badass, and her brisk nod of greeting had warmed me more than the broadest smile. When she disappeared through the doors into the bowels of the station, I knew someone was finally on our side.

  After a long time, such a long time, while other people and officers, all strangers to me, passed through the lobby, Alondra came back. Her hair was just as sleek, her pencil skirt uncreased, but there was tension in the corners of her mouth and eyes. And Michael wasn’t with her.

  I stood, accidentally brushing the handle of Grace’s little seat, and I heard my baby stir. “Where’s Michael?”

  Alondra drew me back down so that we were sitting beside each other. She kept her hand above my elbow, a tight grip. A few seats away, an elderly man watched us with unabashed interest.

  Alondra lowered her voice. “They haven’t charged him with anything, but they’re going to detain him for a while. It could be all day. And they want to question you.”

  “What will I do with Grace?” I couldn’t leave her behind, but bringing her with me would divide my attention, a part of my consciousness always hovering over her. And I needed to be fully focused for Michael’s sake, and my own.

  “I think at her age she can go into the interview room with you if she stays in her carrier, or they’ll have an officer sit with her.”

  My heart started to pound even harder, and I opened my mouth to protest, but Alondra held up a hand. “I’ve heard Michael’s initial statement, and before we go any further, I want you to tell me quickly and quietly exactly what happened last night.”

  “I was nursing Grace.” I paused. “I mean, Brady came over.” But that wasn’t right either. “He knocked on our back door, and he and Michael worked on the garden. They showed me they’d fixed the sprinklers.” Those flashing fountains seemed a thousand lifetimes ago. “Then Michael went over to hang out with Brady, and I nursed Grace.”

  “So he was only gone a few minutes?”

  Grace sighed in her sleep, and I let myself watch her, taking in her round cheeks, her plump uncovered legs. Uncovered because I hadn’t grabbed so much as a blanket or a Binky as we fled. “No, this was the last feeding before I went to sleep. I got up again at two, and he wasn’t home. But while I was rocking her, he came back. He …” I wasn’t sure how to describe the urgency, the fierce pantomime. “He wouldn’t talk; he cut off the lights and took me, us, into the closet. He said—he wrote down—that we might be watched, that we had to run to the car. We couldn’t go to the garage because I’d parked in the driveway, blocking him in.” I stopped. Alondra must think I was out of my mind. Because we didn’t live this kind of life. The worst thing that had ever happened in our neighborhood was kids joyriding. Michael and I had been next door a hundred times. Maybe I was insane. This couldn’t be real. “He took the baby, and we ran through the house to the car. We drove away, and he said to come straight here.”

  “Did he tell you what happened?”

  I shook my head, ashamed to look at her. Alondra would never just obey a man blindly. She would have demanded answers; she would have stormed into Brady’s house and saved the day.

  But then I saw a dark smear against the light-gray fabric of my sweatpants. Michael’s hands had been bloody.

  My whole body flashed hot, then cold. “Please, please just let me see him.”

  Abruptly she hugged me, awkward and angular but real. When she pulled back, she met my eyes. “We’re going to get through this, but you have to hold it together. If I end up representing Michael …” She shook her head. “I may need to pull in someone else from my office. But that’s a concern for later. Right now, your next step is answering some questions. And I’ll be with you. First, they may read you your Miranda rights—”

  I yelped in protest, my whole body recoiling. I should have known that the innocent got blamed and framed, that no one would believe me or Michael, it would be just like before, only instead of embezzlement, this would be something bloody. They’d take Grace away, they’d throw me in jail, they—

  Alondra gave me a little shake. “Hey, it’s protocol. And they might not. But even if they do, it doesn’t mean they’re charging you. You won’t have to answer a thing, not a single thing, unless I give you a signal. Look at me. Focus.” She gave me a small, unmistakable nod. “I’m here for you. Okay?”

  She waited until I nodded back, and then she said, “Okay. So they may read you your rights, they may give you papers to sign, but I’ll look at each and every one first. Then they’ll want you to tell them the events of last night, just the same way you did for me. You’ll have to repeat parts and tell them out of order, they may go over the whole thing several times, but don’t get flustered. Don’t guess or try to speculate. Just say that you don’t know and stick to the facts you’re completely sure about.”

  I felt so alone. “When can I see Michael?”

  She shook her head. “Don’t worry about that right now. The only thing you need to focus on is this interview. Then we’ll get you and Grace out of here.”

  “Whatever happened, they know it was Brady’s fault, right?” Brady had been the one in handcuffs, and he could be lying his ass off this very minute, trying to put all the blame on Michael.

  Alondra stood, and as I rose to my feet, she said, “I know you have questions. Let’s get through this interview, and then we’ll deal with what comes next.”

  I followed her back into the depths of the station, lugging Grace in her carrier. There were two detectives waiti
ng in the hallway—a man about a decade older than me and a woman with close-cropped hair and a narrow face who looked about my age. While they were introducing themselves as Detectives Haley and Clark, I couldn’t help looking past them, yearning for a glimpse of Michael. I could hear the hum of voices, but they belonged to anonymous strangers, not my husband.

  The detectives exchanged glances, and the man held open the door to a bland room with a table, a few chairs, and a camera set up in the corner. The woman, Detective Clark, motioned me in, and Alondra followed right behind. So it would be just us girls. Maybe this detective thought she’d have rapport with me?

  She motioned to a chair. “Please have a seat. Do you need a glass of water or a cup of coffee?”

  I shook my head. Nothing Detective Clark gave me would set me at ease. I still remembered every detail of the case in Jersey, how the oily detective’s questions all implied I was guilty, everyone knew it, I was a thief and a liar, so I should just come clean. Eventually he’d even threatened me, but there wasn’t any evidence. I’d gotten off that time, but I knew the truth. This detective was not my friend either.

  Setting Grace’s carrier gently on the ground, I sat. Alondra’s expression was impassive, but she studied me intently. I must look as strung out and terrified as I felt. I’d never had much of a poker face, and it was taking all my effort to remain upright and lucid. I didn’t have enough energy left to try to hold anything back. Maybe criminals were better at compartmentalizing or multitasking. Maybe they just believed their own lies. I had to hope that truth and Alondra would save me.

  The questions Detective Clark asked were like the “active listening” questions I got from Dr. Lindsey. I’d describe what happened, from the time Brady knocked on our back door to the time Michael and I pulled up in front of the police station. And then she’d ask about a small part of it again, repeating what I had said. “So, Mrs. Tremaine, you said Michael left with Brady at nine?”