Jodi Compton - Sympathy Between Humans

The bottom line: if you want to be able to say you tried, you can call an anonymous clerk. If you really want the information, you find a personal connection.

“All right, kid,” Kilander said. “What are you looking for?”

“Birth, death, school, change-of-name… I’m not sure exactly what I need.”

“So you’re trawling, not spearfishing,” he said. “Okay, I’ll dig up a couple of phone numbers. In fact, I’ll make a few calls, to get you started.” He sat behind his desk, flipped through a Rolodex, spoke without looking up. “Is it casual day over at the detective division?”

“No,” I said. “It’s my day off.”

I stakedout an empty conference room and spent the day making follow-up and return phone calls to Rockford. When my cell rang at 4:25 in the afternoon, I was expecting another call from Illinois. That was why I couldn’t place the masculine voice on the other end. “Detective Pribek?”

“Speaking,” I said.

“This is Gray Diaz. I know it’s your day off, but I was wondering if I could have a few moments of your time today. I’d need you to come downtown.”

The BCA. The tests were back.

“That’s fine,” I said slowly. “Where are you? I’m downtown right now.”

Diaz hadmade himself fairly comfortable in the office of a vacationing prosecutor, Jane O’Malley. He’d spread out his materials on her desk, so that pictures of her two children and her nephews and nieces looked out over the Royce Stewart paperwork.

“Thank you for coming,” he said. “Please, have a seat.”

O’Malley had good wide armchairs she’d bought herself, low and soft, that guests sank deeply into. I was familiar enough with them to know that they’d be too comfortable to be comfortable, particularly if Diaz continued to stand, thus towering over me. I settled onto the arm of the chair, a half-standing position, instead.

There was a beat while Diaz accepted this. Then he walked over to the window and looked out, although I doubted he was really looking at anything.

“Sarah,” he said, “I haven’t told you anything about myself.” Pause. “I came to work in Blue Earth because my father-in-law is ill. My wife doesn’t want him to have to move, at his age. He’s lived in that town nearly all his life. He’d probably stroke out from the stress of packing everything up and moving out of his farmhouse. You know?”

“I know,” I said.

“I’d much rather be up here, working with you guys, in Hennepin County.” He paused. “If I were, you and I would be colleagues, Sarah. We could have been working cases together.” He turned from the window. “I wish that were the situation here. I wish I didn’t have to meet you under these circumstances.”

“So do I,” I said.

“Because of that,” Diaz said, “because we’re virtually colleagues, I want to give you an opportunity. I’m getting close to the end of my work here.”

I said nothing. Diaz walked over to stand between me and O’Malley’s desk.

“When I first interviewed you, Sarah, I asked you if there was any reason someone might have seen you outside Stewart’s house the night he died. You said no.”

“I remember,” I said.

Diaz sat on the edge of the desk, like a teacher having an informal moment with a student after class. “I’m asking you now,” he said, “would you like to reconsider your answer?”

Don’t hesitate here. “No,” I said. “I wouldn’t.”

Diaz looked away, toward the window, then back at me. “We found blood in the carpeting of your car,” he said. “There’s also a diagonal groove in your right rear tire, damage caused by something it ran over. It’s as distinctive as a fingerprint.”

I didn’t say anything, but felt the muscles in my throat work, swallowing involuntarily.

“Sarah, I know what Royce Stewart did to your partner’s daughter. I know that the night Stewart died, you believed your husband was dead and that Shorty had an opportunity to help him and didn’t. There are highly, highly extenuating circumstances here.” He leaned forward until his half-folded hands almost touched mine. “I’m familiar with your record. I know you’re a good cop, Sarah, and I want to help you. But we’ve come to the point where you need to tell me what happened that night. If you don’t come out and meet me halfway, I can’t help you.”

In that moment, I wanted to tell Diaz the truth, and for the worst of all reasons. Not because I feared what would happen to me if I continued to obstruct justice, as I had been doing since that night in Blue Earth. Not because he had forensic evidence that might convict me whether or not Genevieve returned to confess. I wanted to tell him solely because I wanted so badly to believe what Gray Diaz was telling me with his words and tone and posture: that he wanted to help me.

I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry, Gray,” I said. “I have nothing further to add to what I’ve already told you.”

Diaz sighed. “I’m sorry, too, Detective Pribek,” he said, standing. “I’ll be in touch.”

Back in theconference room, I couldn’t remember what I’d been doing before. I looked at my notes, and they made no sense to me.

“Are you all right?”

I hadn’t heard Christian Kilander come in. “I’m fine,” I said, turning from the window.

I wasn’t lying. Calm had settled on me unexpectedly, and I understood why. Gray Diaz had made it pretty clear that this was my last chance to level with him. Maybe I should have taken it, but now it was too late. First-time skydivers must feel this way, just after they jump. There are a dozen chances to back out of a dive, but once they’ve stepped out into the air, they’re committed. Whatever happened, safe landing or bloody impact, the weight of decision was off their shoulders. Like them, I’d made my choice. Whatever happened from here on was out of my hands.

Kilander held out a fax. “This came for you, from Rockford,” he said.

I took it from his hand. Certificate of Live Birth, it read at the top.

“Sorry there wasn’t anything else,” Kilander said.

“No, that’s okay,” I said, still scanning the text. “Sometimes one thing is all you need.”

In retrospect,it might have been better if I’d taken some time to think, to sleep on what I’d learned. But I didn’t. At five-thirty that evening, I drove out to the lake.

The weather really was beautiful, a sunny day without a hint of the humid gray scrim that takes the bloom off many of Minnesota ’s summer days. I wasn’t surprised that the Hennessy kids were outdoors on this bright evening.

All four boys had divided up for a football game by the lake. It was an oddly matched game, but probably the best they could do: Aidan and Liam against Colm and Donal. Above them, Marlinchen presided over a grill on the porch, painting sauce onto chicken breasts and wings. She was wearing a white T-back tank shirt, cutoffs, and sunglasses with a copper-wire frame and greenish-silver mirrored lenses, a Discman on her hip. When she saw me, Marlinchen pulled the earphones off her head, to rest around her neck. “Sarah!” she said, looking pleased. “We’re having a little barbecue to celebrate school being out. We’ll probably have plenty to spare, if you can wait.”

She seemed in excellent spirits. That was going to change.

“I’m afraid I’m here on business,” I said.

“What kind of business?” she said.

“Your father has limited ability to answer yes-and-no questions, right?” I said. “That’s how you did the conservatorship hearing, as I understand it.”