“What’s there to think?” I say. “I should’ve protected her better. That was my job.”
“Now that’s something you should never do,” he says. “Blame yourself. I don’t think you can honestly say any of that was your fault.”
“This wasn’t supposed to be about feelings, remember?” I say. “That’s not why you’re here.”
There’s something struggling behind his face, but after a moment’s thought, he nods. He flicks through his notes. “What motivates someone to kill?” he asks.
I look up at him. “How should I know?”
“Just take a stab at it.” He smiles. “No pun intended.”
“It could be a million things.”
“Such as?”
I glance at my affirmation wall. “Anger.”
“Good. What else?”
“Insanity.”
“Yes,” he says, nodding. “There’s also heat of passion and revenge. There’s killing to claim life insurance, there’s euthanasia. Do you know what we call these things?”
I shrug.
“Motive,” he says. “If you determine the motive, you can sometimes determine the murderer. Why might someone have been motivated to kill the Prophet?”
“Revenge, I guess.”
“Very good. He punished countless people. We can add any of them, plus any of their loved ones, to the list of suspects. How about insanity? Was anyone in the Community prone to erratic behavior? Emotional distress?”
“Besides the Prophet himself?”
He nods.
I consider this. “My mother.”
“What sort of emotional distress?”
“Just being sort of . . . numb. Dead to the world.”
“But she helped you escape.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that she was absent, in every way, for almost my entire life.”
“That sounds remarkably like resentment.”
I almost laugh. How do I articulate it to him so he’ll understand? Maybe the image of her sitting in the dirt, her eyes locked on a crop of wild buttercups while my father hided my naked back for stealing a rye roll from my sister’s plate. Or should I describe the humming sound she made after Vivienne slapped me across my face for refusing to call her mother? It’s no use. Nothing could convey what it was like growing up with a ghost.
“Do you know why your mother was this way?” he asks.
I set my jaw. “She was weak.”
He nods again and pulls a manila folder out of his bag. He places it open on my knees and reads it aloud.
Missoula County Hospital
Patient: Olivia Bly. DOB: 10/08/72
Admitted: 15 August
Department: Obstetrics
Patient gave birth to a healthy daughter. 8 pounds, 3 ounces.
At 6:30 PM, patient requested to hold her newborn and had a severe panic attack. Shortness of breath, dilated pupils, inflation of facial capillaries. Attack was unmotivated by any known medical condition. After sedation, blood work showed patient’s calcium and magnesium levels were extremely depleted. Patient was put on an intravenous drip to replenish low nutrients. In the morning, patient suffered another attack and was sedated again. Patient was discharged from obstetrics the following day and referred to Dr. Camille Wilcox in psych. Probable chemical imbalance as a result of giving birth.
I blink at the paper, my eyes taking in individual words that stand out. Sedation. Birth. Panic.
“I think you like seeing your mother as weak, Minnow.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because the idea of her being sick, not weak, makes you feel guilty. Makes you realize how unfairly you treated her.”
I shake my head, pressing my stumps together in my lap until lines of pain shoot down my arms.
“How many times was your mother pregnant after you were born?”
“Eight times, I think,” I whisper to my knees. “A few miscarriages.”
I hear the rest as though from a cloud space, miles up. She was drowning, he says. She dealt with it all on her own, he says, her world out of balance every time my father pushed another baby up her.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“It’s just more evidence.”
“You’re lying,” I say with certainty. “Tell me the truth.”
He purses. “She’s a suspect.”
A bomb may have gone off. Time may have frozen. I shiver like you do when hearing something that rewrites the entire world. “So, what you’ve just told me . . . you’re building a case against her.”
“Not necessarily. She’s one of many leads.”
“No . . . you’re going to tell them I was wrong about her being asleep my entire childhood. You’ll tell them she was just sick. Sick but capable of killing.”
“I shouldn’t have mentioned this,” he says, closing the manila folder.
“Who else is there?” I say. “Who else is a suspect?”
“Minnow, please.”
“No!” I shout. “I’m angry. I’m angry because this always happens. The wrong person is punished for the wrong crime. And it’s people like you who make it happen again and again.”
“People like me?” he asks.
“You’re a cop,” I say.
“You’re very certain I’m a bad guy, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m certain you’re here to help me,” I say mockingly.