“Happen to who?”
“My daughter. Joni Lindman.”
The young cop’s gold nametag reads Fletcher. He’s maybe twenty-five or thirty. Ginger-haired, cut short, with neat sideburns. The type of kid that was doing keg stands at his frat just a few years before turning law-and-order.
“Ma’am,” he says, “We’re here because of a disturbance call. Someone on the lake said they heard lots of noise coming from this direction. Screaming and shouting and things breaking. They weren’t completely sure it was your house, but with the stuff that just happened yesterday . . . Was that your son?”
“Yes. My son, Sean. But that was an accident.”
“Sure. But that’s what caused us to zero in on your house when we got the domestic call. Ma’am, are you all right? You’ve got a bruise there on your face . . .”
“Oh, that . . .” I start to explain, but I’m distracted by more headlights coming up the drive.
Thinking it might be Joni, I walk past the local officer.
“Ma’am,” he says. When I don’t respond, he whistles.
The other cop, who’s been wandering around the property with her flashlight, is a little closer. She gets in my path. “Ma’am, let’s just sit tight for a minute, okay?”
“This is probably my daughter,” I say. But it’s not. The vehicle comes into view. More police. This one is a state trooper’s car, darker with a yellow stripe. Two figures inside. Good grief.
“That’s our backup,” the female officer explains. “The caller dialed 911, and 911 sends it out to everyone in the vicinity. They’re just checking that everything’s okay.”
The state troopers exit the vehicle, each sliding a nightstick through their belts once they’ve stood. One’s a little taller, but both are fit and dark-haired, like brothers. They each give me a glance, then start to chat quietly with the female officer.
“Ma’am,” says the other local cop, Fletcher, easing up behind me. “Who else is in the house?”
“You can call me Emily.”
“Okay, Emily. Who else is home?”
“No one is here. Not right now. My daughter just left.”
“And who’s your daughter?”
It goes on like this until they have the basic details down. Fletcher says, “And so it was you and Michael here in the house about a half hour ago?”
“Yes.”
“Were you fighting?”
“No.”
They’re waiting for an answer. I tell them the first thing that springs to mind. “I’m treating Michael. I’m doing regressive therapy.”
The woman, identified on her uniform as Coyle, speaks up. “He’s your daughter’s fiancé, and you’re treating him?”
“Not formally. It’s a long story. I can’t really discuss it all, because of patient confidentiality.”
Coyle nods. “I see.” She glances at the others.
One of the troopers says, “Ma’am, we’d like to just take a look around. Make sure everything is all right. Is that okay with you?”
“No one is here. I’m not hiding anything. I used to work with law enforcement. As a consulting clinical therapist.”
“That’s great,” Fletcher says. One of the troopers goes past him, and past me, inside. The other starts around the back of the house.
Coyle asks, “Have you had much to drink tonight, Emily?”
“No. Why are you asking me that?”
“Just getting a sense of things. And the bruise on your face?”
“I hit a deer.”
Coyle and Fletcher trade looks. Fletcher: “You hit a deer and got a bruise on your face?”
Coyle points at my forearm, which shows some black and blue. “You got that, too?”
It’s likely from Candace’s husband, Greg. But they don’t need to know that. “Yes. I hit a deer two nights ago. No, three nights ago . . . I’m sorry. My son is in the hospital. He’s in a coma. And my daughter . . . We’re in the midst of a family crisis here, really.”
“You feel like you’re in crisis?” Coyle looks concerned.
“That’s not what I — I mean, we’re dealing with some major things, like families do. When it rains, it pours. I’m sorry that we were loud, that Michael was loud . . .”
I trail off when Fletcher pulls his phone, as if checking a message. After he reads it, he levels a look at me. “Ma’am — Emily — did you have an altercation on the second floor? The room is torn up pretty bad. Should we go have a look?”
I take them inside. Coyle and Fletcher are clocking everything as they walk through my house. In the bedroom, both seem to have made up their minds — this is more than family problems. “Did your daughter’s fiancé do this?” Fletcher puts his hands on his hips. We stand in the mess with Coyle and the taller trooper.
“I told you, this was part of his regression. He acted out.”
“And his name? You said Michael Rand? Could you maybe find out where he and your daughter went? I think everything’s going to be okay, but we might just like to have a quick talk with him. Then we can leave you to your business.”
I’m trembling slightly. My words have a bite I can’t quite control. “I don’t know where they are. I can’t keep track of my daughter every five minutes. She’s a grown woman.”
The three cops in the room give each other knowing looks, then Fletcher leads them out.
After we return downstairs, I try to make amends by offering them all something to drink. Each politely declines.
It’s after one in the morning when they finally have filed out of my house and returned to their cars. The last one, the trooper, is coming up from the boathouse. He stops and talks to Fletcher and Coyle, his words lost under the sound of the idling engine. Fletcher gets out. He and the trooper approach me. The trooper says, “Mrs. Lindman, can you come with me for a minute?”
“What is it?”
“Just come with me, please.”
*
The state trooper walks me to the boathouse. Our feet make hollow noises on the wooden dock as we walk to the door and open it.
The dinghy and the sailboat are bobbing in the water. The water gently slops against their hulls and the wooden boathouse foundation. The trooper snaps on a flashlight and shines it on the sailboat.
The blood is dark, having mostly dried. It spills over the wales and then smears alongside the hull. I can almost discern a handprint.
“That’s my son’s blood,” I say, answering the unasked question. “That’s Sean’s blood.”
The trooper: “You said this happened out over the water?”
“Yes. Sean took Michael sailing. Show him a few things.”
“Uh-huh. And Sean was hit in the head? By . . . that big thing there?”
“Yes. The boom.”
“Is that a common accident in sailing?”
The resentment starts to build. I’d already had these feelings, these suspicions, and put them away. Now it’s being re-litigated by the police. “Common enough,” I say.
“Uh-huh. And so the boom hits your son in the head, and he goes into the water. Is that right? Michael then gets in the water, swims to him, and then what? Keeps his head out of the water? Tries to get him to shore?”