Detective Webb pauses outside the door of the interview room. Moen is already in there, with Paul Sharpe. Webb is tired, and takes a moment to prepare himself mentally. Then he opens the door.
Sharpe is slumped in the chair, his cuffed hands on the table in front of him. He looks terrible. His eyes are watery, as if he’s trying not to cry.
What had he expected? Webb thinks. Why do they always think they can get away with it? He remembers what Sharpe was like at the beginning. He denied knowing Amanda Pierce. Then he admitted to being in the car with her, but only after they told him that he’d been seen. The story about Larry Harris – it had had the ring of truth because it was true; they’d subsequently confirmed that Larry had been seeing Amanda. But why had he been ‘warning her off’ Larry, as he claimed? Maybe it wasn’t because he was trying to protect a friend; maybe he was jealous. Maybe he was involved with Amanda himself. He’d argued with her that night, a little more than a week before she went missing. What happened that Friday night? They couldn’t confirm he’d been at his aunt’s. He could have been at the cabin. He could have met Amanda there, killed her with the missing hammer, thrown the murder weapon in the lake. He could have driven her car to that spot at the neighbouring lake and sunk it and walked back to his own car at the cabin. The walk would have taken a little over an hour. He could have done it. They don’t know what time he got home that night.
Webb sits down across from Sharpe and looks at him for a moment. ‘You’re in a lot of trouble,’ he says. Sharpe raises his eyes to him and gives him a look of pure fear.
‘I want a lawyer,’ Sharpe says. ‘I’m not talking to you without a lawyer present.’
‘Fine,’ Webb says, standing up again. He hadn’t expected anything else.
Glenda hears the ping, glances down, and sees the text on her cell phone. I’m at the police station. Please come. It’s from Olivia.
What is Olivia doing at the police station? Glenda doesn’t tell Adam, just home from school, where she’s going, just that she’s going to see Olivia.
She parks the car and rushes up the steps into the police station. She asks for Olivia, and is directed to a small waiting area. The smell of vomit assails her and she sees immediately that Olivia has been sick, but someone has tried to clean her up.
‘Olivia, Christ, what’s the matter? What’s happened?’
Olivia starts to tell her, crying, and Glenda gets the gist of it, feels her body growing colder and colder as she pieces things together from Olivia’s sobbing account. The worst possible news. She’s stunned. Paul, arrested for the murder of Amanda Pierce. Evidence of blood found in the cabin. Olivia has her face buried in Glenda’s shoulder; Glenda is grateful that for the moment, at least, Olivia can’t see her horrified expression. Glenda must pull herself together; Olivia needs her.
Finally, she pushes Olivia away gently, so that she can look at her. ‘Olivia,’ she says. ‘I’m going to help you get through this.’ Olivia looks back at her as if she is the only thing keeping her together. ‘Okay?’
Olivia nods dumbly.
‘You need to get Paul a lawyer. The best one we can find.’
Olivia nods again, almost distractedly, and whispers, ‘What am I going to tell Raleigh?’
I don’t know, Glenda thinks. They can’t hide it from him. She says, ‘We’ll figure it out. We’ll tell him together. Come on, let’s get you home.’
‘Wait,’ Olivia says.
‘What?’
Olivia looks at her desperately and lowers her voice to a whisper. ‘Do I tell Raleigh that he didn’t do it?’
Glenda doesn’t know how to answer. Finally she says, ‘What did Paul say?’
Olivia averts her eyes. ‘He said he didn’t do it.’
‘Then that’s what you tell Raleigh,’ Glenda says.
She bundles Olivia into her car and drives her home. Paul’s car can stay there overnight – she’ll come back for it in the morning. The sight of the familiar house as they pull up makes Glenda’s heart sink. She’s dreading what’s to come. But she will stick by Olivia, no matter what. No matter how ugly it gets. That’s what friends are for.
Raleigh must wonder where she’s been all day, Olivia thinks dully. She’d texted him somehow from the station, saying she’d be home soon. Olivia doesn’t know where to find the courage to tell him. How do you tell your son that his father has been arrested for murder?
She wants to believe it’s all a terrible mistake. The police make mistakes all the time. But then she remembers the bloodstains. She can’t forget them.
When she opens the door, she hears Raleigh’s steps hurrying down the stairs to greet her. His face falls when he sees her and Glenda; he can tell something’s wrong.
‘Mom, where have you been?’ he asks.
Olivia wants to protect him. But she can’t protect him from this. Everyone will know. She can’t keep it from him. Her son’s life is going to be ripped apart in the next few minutes. You try so hard to do everything right, but then—
Suddenly she is so tired that she can hardly stand.
‘Let’s sit down,’ Glenda says, and leads Olivia into her own living room, guiding her by the elbow until she slumps down on the sofa.
‘What’s wrong?’ Raleigh demands, in a hollow voice. ‘Where’s Dad?’
‘Your father is at the police station,’ Olivia says finally, trying to keep her face from crumbling.
He looks back at her with blank incomprehension. But then he seems to get it; she can see it in his face, the dawning dread.
‘He’s been arrested,’ she says.
‘What?’ Raleigh asks. ‘For what?’
‘For the murder of Amanda Pierce,’ Olivia says, her voice breaking.
There’s a stunned silence.
‘That’s crazy!’ Raleigh protests after a moment. ‘Why? Why did they arrest him?’
This is so hard. She has to tell him. ‘They searched our cabin today. And they found – evidence.’
‘What evidence?’ Raleigh demands, his face contorted with emotion. ‘Dad didn’t kill her! He didn’t really know her, right? He just saw something, he was covering for somebody, that’s all. That’s what he said.’
It hurts her to look at her son, struggling with this. It feels so brutal, what she must tell him now. ‘They found some bloodstains in the cabin. They’re going to do some tests and see if it’s Amanda Pierce’s blood.’ Her voice is a rough whisper.
‘How can they arrest him if they don’t even know it was her blood?’ Raleigh says desperately. ‘They must have something else.’
‘Our hammer is missing.’ There’s another long silence. Finally Olivia says, ‘Your father has told them he didn’t do it.’
‘Of course he didn’t do it!’ There are tears in Raleigh’s eyes.
She says, her body limp, ‘The police want all of us – Keith and Adam, too – to give our fingerprints tomorrow, because we’ve all been at the cabin. They want to see if there are any other prints there that they can’t account for.’
Olivia lies in bed, rigid, eyes wide open and staring sightlessly at the ceiling, thinking of her husband in a cell. Glenda is in the next room, staying over for support. She’d made Olivia have a bath, thrown her soiled and smelly clothes in the washing machine, and made everyone soup and toast that mostly went uneaten.