She sits across from me in full makeup with beautiful movie-star lips that she swears are natural, but we all know she’s lying. She’s wearing jeans with a nice blue blouse tucked inside and unbuttoned low enough to show her cleavage and the cross around her neck.
“Okay, are you ready?” she asks, and I give her the nod. There’s no going back now. She signals to the cameras behind me, and they start rolling. “I’m here today with Mrs. Genevieve Hill for her first exclusive interview since the mayor’s wife, Annabelle Chapman, was found dead at Hurricane Creek. Her son, Mason, has been officially labeled a person of interest in this case.” She turns to me. The camera follows her. “Can you tell us what brings you here today?”
“Certainly.” I nod and do my best to look brave. My chair is set at a friendly angle toward her. A small circular table in front of us. I take a huge cleansing breath and begin. “I just know y’all are going to hear really conflicting information about my son in the upcoming days, and since he can’t talk, it’s my obligation as his mother to tell you his side of the story.” My voice wavers. Be strong. I can do this. “My son is a good boy. He is. I want you to know that.” I’m peering straight through Renetta and into the camera’s eye. “He was born with developmental disabilities and cognitive impairments that he can’t help. He didn’t ask for them. He didn’t do anything to get them. They’re not his fault. You hear me? They’re not his fault.”
Renetta reaches over and places her hand on my knee before I spiral too much. “We understand that, Mrs. Hill, we do.”
“Thank you, Renetta. That means a lot.” My lower lip quivers. I take a slow, deep breath, unsure I can do this, but I have to. No one terrorizes me. This is the only way out. “I’m a single mom, and Mason’s mostly grown up without a daddy. Things haven’t been easy for us, but I’ve done the best I could. That’s gotten harder the older Mason gets. He’s got all these hormones racing around inside him, and sometimes they make him a little aggressive. Not much. Just a little, but he can’t help it. That’s what happens to most boys this age. Mason’s no different. But he doesn’t think like boys his age, and he doesn’t understand things like they do either. Most of what he learns comes from copying other people. He’s a great mimicker. The best. You should hear all the voices he can do.” I’m going off on a tangent. I need to stay focused. Come on. This is too important to screw up. “I just want people to see Mason like the young boy that he is, and not the grown man that he looks like.”
“And why is that so important to you?”
“Because Mason did something really bad, and he doesn’t deserve to go to prison for it. He’s a kid, not an adult. He needs help. That’s all. Somebody has to help him.” I bury my face in my hands. Renetta scoots closer, moving her hand from my knee to my shoulder.
“I’m sorry you’re going through this,” she says in her sweet voice. I want to burst right into tears and let her comfort me, but the last woman I did that to turned against me something awful. I hope Casey watches this tonight. I want her to see how bad she’s hurt me and my family. What she’s done to us for nothing.
Renetta reaches for the Kleenex on the table. She grabs the box and hands it to me. I pull a few out, clutching them in my right hand as she speaks. “I know this is incredibly hard, but what did Mason do that’s so bad?”
I dab at my eyes with the Kleenex and straighten up. “Mason did have something to do with Annabelle’s murder. I know I said he didn’t, but I lied, and I hope after everything I just explained that you’ll be able to understand why.”
“Maybe people will be more understanding if you can tell us more about what happened that day,” Renetta urges like she doesn’t already know. I told her everything when I called. Otherwise, she never would’ve rushed over.
I twist the Kleenex in my lap. Sometimes the right thing to do is the hardest thing. Lord help me.
“Mason and I went down to the creek for our morning walk like we always do, and he got away from me while I was collecting dragonflies. I told the police it was only for a second, but the truth is—I have no idea how long he was gone. It could’ve been a minute. It might’ve been ten.” I give the screen a flat stare. Let them judge me all they want. “I panicked when I noticed he was gone. I took off running and screaming, searching for him everywhere. It was awful. All that stopped when I found him . . .”
“What did you find?”
“Annabelle was splayed out all over the rocks underneath the bridge just like I said, and Mason was next to her. Just like those runners said too. She’d already hit her head. She—”
Renetta interrupts, “How do you know she’d already hit her head?”
“Because there was a pool of blood underneath her head, so it was pretty easy to put two and two together.” I smooth my ponytail. “Anyway, like I was saying, she’d already hit her head, and I can’t say anything about how that happened. At first, I thought she’d fallen and hit her head. That Mason had found her or maybe even startled her and she tripped. But then I knew that wasn’t the case. Somebody hurt Annabelle first. That’s why I’ve been so freaked.”
“Over the possibility that someone else hurt Annabelle before y’all got there?”
I nod. “The police set their sights on Mason from the very beginning, and that’s all fine and dandy, but I’m pretty sure someone else was out there and attacked Annabelle.” I put my hands on my chest.
“How can you be so sure?” She leans forward.
“Because of what Mason did to Annabelle. He never would’ve done something like that if he hadn’t seen it done somewhere else. That’s how he learns. By watching other people. The only way he would’ve been able to do something that horrific was if he’d seen it.” My voice slows, losing steam.
“What did Mason do?” She keeps coming back to that question. The one everyone wants to know.
“He hit Annabelle in the head with a rock.”