‘Did you ever push your wife Lindsey Kilgour down the stairs?’
‘No.’
‘Did you intend for your wife Lindsey Kilgour to die by having her stay in a running car with the exhaust pipe blocked with snow?’
‘No.’
‘Before January 10, 2009, had you ever heard of an instance where a person died inside a running car because the exhaust pipe was blocked by snow?’
‘No.’
Finally, the examiner turns off the machine and looks up at Lange. He shakes his head, his mouth turned down.
Stephanie sees black spots dancing before her eyes.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
PATRICK, STUNNED, REMAINS seated in the chair, bolt upright, arms on the armrests, his heart hammering. No. This can’t be what it looks like. But Lange is standing beside the examiner, studying the results. His face is serious.
Suddenly he hears Stephanie gasping. She’s sucking in air, her hand clutching at her chest, and everyone’s attention is pulled towards her. He watches her, unable to move. Lange bends down towards Stephanie. Patrick’s still hooked up to the equipment, as if he’s already in the electric chair. He watches his wife in disbelief; she’s having one of her panic attacks.
The attorney is telling her to breathe; her head is bent forward, down to her knees. This is what she does, Patrick thinks, when things get rough. He knows about the panic attacks. She’s told him all about them, described what they feel like. He knows he has failed the polygraph – he can tell by the reaction of the examiner and his attorney.
They are all focusing on his wife. What no one seems to realize is that he’s in just as much shock as she is.
Gradually, the distressed noises coming from his wife subside and she starts to breathe more regularly. ‘That’s it,’ Lange says, his voice steady. Patrick feels the examiner’s hands on him, undoing the equipment. Patrick wants to speak, but he can’t seem to make his voice work.
The mood in the room has shifted, he can feel it. He stares at his wife. He hadn’t wanted her to come. She should have stayed home, like he told her to, he thinks, and she would have been spared this.
Lange stands up straight, his hand on Stephanie’s shoulder. She’s still bent over, probably so that she doesn’t have to look at him. Her worst fears realized, Patrick supposes. How wrong she is.
Lange turns his attention to Patrick, exhales deeply, and says what they all now know. ‘I’m afraid you failed the test, Patrick.’
Patrick shakes his head. ‘No. That’s impossible. The test is wrong!’
Stephanie slowly sits back up, but she seems to have turned to stone. Why does she believe the machine over him? He’s told her how unreliable these tests are.
Freed now from the wires, Patrick finds himself stumbling over to his wife, kneeling down beside her. ‘Stephanie, you know how inaccurate these tests are. It was an accident!’
She doesn’t even look at him.
Lange says, ‘Look, we have to make some decisions.’ He nods to the examiner, who is quietly leaving the room with his equipment. ‘Thanks, Roddy.’ He turns to Patrick. ‘Sit down,’ he says, moving back behind his own desk. ‘We’ve got work to do.’
Stephanie faces the attorney. Patrick doesn’t like the expression on her face. He can imagine what’s going through her mind. She thinks he did it. Maybe it’s all over between them now, Patrick thinks numbly. She won’t trust him after this. She won’t love him any more. He wonders how long it will be before she leaves him. The thought renders him frightened and hollow.
‘We’re expected at the sheriff’s. Here’s what I suggest,’ Lange says. ‘We know they will ask you to take a polygraph. You will, on my advice, decline. They will probably, in that event, arrest you on the charge of first-or second-degree murder. It will depend on the level of premeditation they think was involved.’ Patrick can only stare back at the attorney, frozen in disbelief. ‘You will then be in custody. You don’t have to talk to them. I will be there with you. I suggest we allow a brief interview in which you deny the charges unreservedly. You explain, again, that it was an accident. And that’s it. I won’t allow them to question you any further. It is up to them to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt at trial. We don’t give them anything to work with, got it?’
Patrick nods, unable to speak.
‘You won’t be going home tonight.’ The attorney glances over at Stephanie, and Patrick dully follows his gaze. ‘I don’t think there’s anything to be gained by your going to the sheriff’s with us,’ he says.
Patrick has to agree with him. Stephanie looks like she thinks it’s a foregone conclusion that her husband will be convicted of murder. He wants her to go home. She’s certainly not helping.
The attorney turns to him, and he must look as frightened as he feels because Lange says, ‘Chin up. It’s up to the state to prove it was murder, beyond a reasonable doubt. You sit tight. The burden is on them. And honestly – I don’t think they’ll go through with a trial.’
Patrick wonders if his own lawyer thinks he’s guilty. Does Lange care? To him Patrick’s just another client.
Lange comes from behind his desk and helps Stephanie up with a hand at her elbow. ‘I’m sorry, but I think it’s best if you just go to the airport. I’ll have my secretary call you a cab. Let’s go see her.’
Patrick watches her leave the room with his attorney without a backward glance. He feels terribly alone, and despite his attorney’s reassurances, what he’s facing terrifies him. And it’s all because of that treacherous bitch Erica.
Stephanie wanders around the airport, killing time until her scheduled flight. How strange, to be in an unfamiliar airport, drifting in and out of shops, while her husband is at the Sheriff’s Office, being charged with murder.
Finally, exhausted, she stops at a Starbucks and sits at a little table with a coffee. What she needs is someone to talk to. Someone she can trust. She has so much turmoil inside her, and no one to unburden herself to. She thinks about Hanna. Can she trust her? Can she tell her what happened at the attorney’s office today? No, she decides. She can’t.
She can hardly come to grips with it herself.
He hadn’t passed the lie detector test. What does that tell her? He did it. He killed his wife and unborn child on purpose.
She wrestles with the information, trying to get hold of it in some way that makes sense. Polygraphs can’t be counted on. Everyone knows that. He didn’t mean to kill her. He couldn’t have.
But the police believe in polygraphs. They will believe that her husband is guilty, if they ever find out about the test. The lawyer had turned to her, outside of his office, and assured her in a low voice that the police will never learn that he failed the test. The information is privileged.
Maybe she wants them to know.
It was a strange, surreal moment.
She’s the only one, besides Patrick and his lawyer – and the examiner – who knows. It’s such a heavy burden to bear. But she knows she can’t tell anyone. She must keep it to herself.
And now, she must decide what to do.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
PATRICK STANDS UP straight and walks towards the building that houses the Sheriff’s Office. He arranges his face into an expression of resolution. He is an innocent man, unfairly treated, doing as his attorney is advising him to do.
‘Ready?’ Lange says, beside him.
As they walk up the steps, Patrick thinks back to the last time he went up these same steps, the morning that Lindsey died. It was winter then. He can’t believe he’s back here. He feels sick to his stomach. He was sick that day. He threw up in the snow.
They are expecting him. He is taken into an interrogation room, Lange close beside him. The sheriff and a uniformed police officer are there. This is all just a formality. It’s what comes after that is terrifying him. The nights spent in jail. The trial. He’s projecting into the future, barely able to pay attention to what’s happening in the here and now. He hears his attorney explain that, on his advice, he will not be taking a polygraph, as they are unreliable and inadmissible in any event. Patrick sits up straighter then and meets the sheriff’s eyes firmly, unwilling to look guilty. He sees the sheriff’s knowing smirk and realizes then that the sheriff assumes from this that he’s already taken one and failed. He feels like he’s been punched in the gut. Suddenly his situation seems much worse. The sheriff sitting across from him already thinks he’s guilty.
‘We’d like to ask you a few questions, if that’s all right with you,’ the sheriff says.
‘He’ll make a statement, but that’s it. Patrick?’ The attorney sits back and waits for him to say his piece. They’d discussed this – what he was to say – in the car on the way up.
Patrick clears his throat and speaks in a firm voice, with conviction. ‘I did not intend to kill my wife. It was an accident. I didn’t know that the exhaust pipe was plugged, or that she was in any danger.’