Once Paul disappeared, I hustled everyone into the rental car. I’d barely put the shifter in drive when the first state trooper showed up. Starzyk — alive, but barely — was whisked away by the first ambulance, and then Michael in the next. Joni went with him.
I almost forget that the cop is still standing beside me. He gazes into the woods. “This property abuts state land. Lots of wilderness out there. He doesn’t even have any water, you said?”
“Not that I saw.”
I feel weak in the knees and find a stump near the chicken coop. The chickens were mercifully — miraculously — saved from the blaze. Only one got a bit singed, its white feathers blackened.
“Are you all right?” The cop, a state trooper, looks worried.
“I’m fine.”
“Can you keep going?” He has a notebook and has been taking my statement.
“I can go on.”
“Okay. So at what point did you discharge the weapon?”
Discharge the weapon. That’s police talk, always so formal. Always so calm and detached. The way I’m supposed to be, too, when administering therapy. Objective. Unattached to outcome.
“I shot at him when he was on top of Michael. Well, near him. To scare him.”
What if you’re wrong? What if Paul is the one being manipulated? Joni, too? What if Paul took you back to Sean just to get you out of harm’s way?
“They were wrestling, you said? Can you show me where?”
“Right over there, I think. There was a lot of smoke.”
“Mmhmm.”
What plans had Laura Bishop made with her son? How long had they been in communication? How can this possibly be my life?
“Let’s move back in time a moment,” the trooper says. His phrasing is so close to what I’d said to Michael during our sessions, it chills my skin. “What about the officer who suffered the gunshot wound? Investigator Steven Starzyk. Were you able to see who fired the weapon?”
No. I wasn’t. I assume it was Paul, but I’m having trouble keeping everything straight.
“Ma’am?”
I try to answer the trooper but am overcome with a coughing fit. I’m sitting here on this stump, wrapped in one of those silver blankets, being interrogated, and I probably have smoke inhalation. Another trooper intervenes. I think I recognize her — but from where? My house the other night? Events are jumbling together.
The first cop says, “Trooper Kane, let’s get her the attention she needs. I’m seeing second-degree burns, and she’s having trouble breathing.”
They help me to my feet. The next thing I know, I’m on a stretcher, breathing in pure oxygen, being lifted into the back of a waiting ambulance. I see a helicopter overhead and feel it cutting through the air. Beside it, a massive column of blue-black smoke.
Poor Madison and Hunter. What am I even going to say to their loved ones?
Sorry, my family is a little fucked up.
The doors to the ambulance close. It’s a tumultuous ride back to the paved road, and I’m wincing with each bump.
“Are you in pain?” a paramedic asks me. “Can I give you anything for it?”
I nod gratefully. A moment later, I ask, “Where are we going?”
“Adirondack Medical Center. Saranac Lake.”
At least, I think, I’ll be back with my son.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
It’s getting late, going on nine p.m. The hospital room is quiet. Just the sound of my heart monitor, the mumble of people in the hallway.
It doesn’t last.
Two detectives come into the room saying they’re from state BCI. They ask me all the same questions the state troopers did at the scene.
I ask about Paul. They assure me that they’re looking for him, that it’s a full-on manhunt. He’s a fugitive from justice. But I also get the impression that, for them, my husband is just one piece of a mysterious picture.
“We’re trying to reconstruct events,” one of the detectives says. His name is Parker and he has a scar over one eye, splicing his eyebrow. The other detective is just inside the room, by the door. He stands like a marine.
“We’ve got a lot of information,” Parker says, “but it’s a matter of putting it all together.”
I get it. The fire erased any ironclad evidence that Paul killed Madison and Hunter. And whether he shot Starzyk can’t be corroborated. Neither can the fact of him locking us in the yurt, attempting to burn us alive. It’s just my word. And Joni’s. And Michael’s. Are our stories the same?
The detectives inform me that Michael and Joni are in the same hospital. Michael has been treated for a broken arm, as well as minor cuts and bruises and some smoke inhalation. Joni is in better shape and will be released presently. But until all their questioning is complete, the police are asking that we remain separate. Someone from the state troopers has even been posted outside my door as a gatekeeper.
My injuries are apparently more extensive than Joni’s. At least, the doctor I saw about a half hour before the detectives told me that he wanted to check on a few things. He asked me if I’d had any other accidents prior to the fire, because he suspected a recent concussion. I told him about hitting the deer.
The detectives ask me about that, too. They want to know why I’m driving a rental car. Explaining about the deer makes me feel like I’m on less stable ground with them than before. Once again, an unreliable — or at least questionable — witness.
“What about Laura Bishop?” I ask.
They exchange looks. “We’re talking to her, too,” Parker says.
I worry that’s all he’s going to say, but then he adds, “Mrs. Bishop gave us quite a story.”
The detective by the door, Reynolds, speaks up. “According to Laura Bishop, she’s innocent.”
“But she pled guilty.”
Parker arches his spliced eyebrow. “She says she pled guilty only to spare her son. She didn’t want to contest his statement to the police, to fight it in court, to drag the family through a lengthy trial.”
Bullshit, I think.
What I say is, “She doesn’t seem like the type to spare her family.”
“No, I agree,” says Parker. “I think she knew she was cooked. She may have hoped to sell a jury on an alternative suspect, but there was no evidence to support it. And the DA had witnesses that she might’ve been cheating on her husband. Plus, there was the kid. If she went to trial, it would basically be his word against hers. And who was a jury going to believe? A sweet eight-year-old kid, or his unfaithful mother who threw swanky, drug-fueled parties in the city?”
“And who had a temper,” Reynolds adds.
“Right,” Parker says. “A temper. Plenty of witnesses to say she was a feisty character. So? Her counsel advised her to take a deal. She pled to a lesser offense and got twenty-five years with the possibility of parole. I guess she’s been an angel inside, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t been stewing. About what happened, about the cops, her son . . .”
“You,” adds Reynolds.
“You,” Parker agrees, looking at me with a kind of pity in his eyes.
“Me,” I say.
“And your family. Your daughter.”
Reynolds comes forward. “We think that Laura Bishop got herself back in her son’s good graces some time ago. A couple of years—”