I took a breath. Swallowed. My mouth felt impossibly dry, but there was no more water in the paper cup Rummel had given me. Even if there had been, I thought it best not to speak for fear he might pick up some signal—a wavering in my voice, like ripples on water—that would give birth to new suspicions. And so I said nothing more. I stood from the table. I picked up my father’s tote. I tucked my journal away.
“Guess you write about more than school in that little book of yours. Those things you read to Ms. Hock and me before? Not exactly notes on a homework assignment.” Before I could respond, he turned and stepped out into the hall.
I took a minute to compose myself, then followed. Rose was sitting on a bench, flipping through one of the random safety brochures we both took to reading while we waited. The Heimlich Maneuver. Stop, Drop, and Roll. Pedestrian Precautions. By now, we were prepared for just about anything. I wondered if the detective might want to see her alone again, but he simply informed her in a more formal tone than usual that we were both required to be back at the station Monday morning at nine. As they spoke, I glanced down the hall where Dereck hunched over a water fountain, his height making it appear like one meant for children.
After Rummel walked off, my sister turned to me and asked what happened inside that room. Again, I glanced at Dereck, guzzling away still. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about it here—”
“Old Seven drinks more than a farm animal,” Rose told me, “so it’ll be a while. And the guy wonders why he has to pee all the time.”
“He’s your boyfriend,” I told her, testing the label.
“I wouldn’t go that far, Sylvie. Now what happened?”
Quickly, quietly, I ticked off the details about the second snowbird, about the dog that broke loose, about Lynch saving it from running into the street. I was about to tell her more when she stood from the bench. I watched her walk to the bulletin board, tack the brochure back where she found it next to one I’d already read about the dangers of going near a live wire after a storm. “I already knew that stuff,” she told me, turning around again. “They talked to me first, remember?”
The doubt I felt about who I’d seen inside the church was something I’d never confessed to anyone before—not even Rose. I was afraid of how she would react if she knew I’d let it slip out at last, but she needed to know, so I pushed on, “Mrs. Dunn gives him a stronger alibi, which means—”
“It means it’s some senile old couple’s word against yours, Sylvie. You watch. It’ll turn out she’s half blind and he’s bat-shit crazy. Or that the time was set wrong on the crap register at the station. So whatever you do, don’t start panicking.”
“Panicking about what?” Dereck had made his way back from the fountain. He towered over us, wearing the same barn jacket and clingy sweats as when we met.
“Nothing for you to worry about, Seven,” Rose said.
“You okay, Sylvie?” he asked. “You don’t look so great.”
“I’m fine,” I told Dereck, which was hardly the case. I spotted a clock on the wall, and the calculation seemed to do itself in my mind: sixty-five hours and forty-two minutes until I had to report back here and give Rummel and Louise an answer.
“Okay, then,” my sister said. “Let’s try to forget all this for a little while and go get some money.”
All week long, we’d been waiting for the day when we could go to the Dial U.S.A. office and pick up Rose’s check. Since striking our deal, my evenings had been spent making calls to faraway cities listed on number sheets Fran provided. At the start, most people cut me off to ask, “How old are you, young lady?” The ones who didn’t wanted to know if it was some kind of prank. So I practiced making my voice sound mature while memorizing the instruction sheet Fran included for Rose but she never bothered with: 1. Be direct and clear with questions. 2. If respondent wavers, state exactly what you want to know, thus keeping respondent on point. 3. Never say, “Thank you for your time,” because time is money and Dial U.S.A. does not pay for opinions. Ridiculous as those rules sounded, they helped me rack up more surveys than Rose predicted. It meant I could begin replenishing my savings and buy Boshoff a cookbook.