Next came the blood pressure cuff—familiar enough. I had always been a good patient. Then two metal caps—one for my left index finger, one for my ring finger—to measure the conductivity of my skin, which would increase if I broke out in a sweat, however subtle. Keegan attached each finger cap with a long, winding strip of black Velcro, holding my hand carefully. His hand was hot and dry and muscled, his touch awakening the fear that lay so close to the surface then. Oh, calm down, I thought to myself, sternly. The cold metal began warming to my body temperature, bent over the pad of my finger like a thimble, an ironic echo of protection. I remembered, briefly, that Mom had never used thimbles at work—they slowed her down. She preferred her leathery callus, her body’s natural response to her difficult work.
As Keegan sat back down and got his notes together, I tried to breathe deeply and evenly, tried not to think about the sensors on my fingers broadcasting my electric sweat to a second scribbling metal arm. I could hear it scratch against the paper, like a fingernail on a door.
Keegan asked me to keep my feet on the floor, to look straight ahead. The inked metal arms scraped at my ear, tempting my neck to twist. We began.
“Do you know for sure . . . that the person who killed your mother . . . is”—he took a breath—“Cheryl. Peters.”
“No,” I replied. Then there was a fifteen-second pause, to allow the machine to recalibrate.
“Dale. Morton.”
“No.” Long pause.
“Dennis. Lorrain.”
“No.”
He ran the test three times, shuffling the order of the names each time. I felt like a sleepwalker, intoning those no’s against the silence. It was a slow call-and-response litany, a two-person ritual. It was as though we were casting a spell together, trying to conjure the answer we both so desperately wanted.
Keegan spoke softly, and rather slowly, throughout that weekend. In almost all moments, he radiated kindness and concern. He had a comfortingly familiar, but not jarringly strong, Maine accent. But the cumulative effect of his words wasn’t comforting. Once I was free from the polygraph, we began what felt like an unending interview about that night. He thought I had something to say, and over the course of the weekend he became increasingly determined to get me to say it.
He asked the same questions over and over, changing the wording slightly, or the angle; he pretended to explain himself clearly while constantly contradicting himself. When I became confused, he blamed my grief, my fear, my guilt. He looped his theories and stories around me, trying to see what he could squeeze out.
I’m not trying to put words in your mouth or anything . . .
Not to accuse you of lying or anything . . .
Is it possible you know who did this? And if you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. Tell me that. If you don’t want to tell me who did this . . .
There’s some things you’re telling, that you could have only seen, not heard. The words you use, there’s more there. Almost like pulling teeth here; you’re telling us more. And there’s more than you’re telling us. For whatever reason, you don’t want to tell us . . .
Yeah. I’m just trying to sit here and think, if I was in your shoes—if I knew who did this—why wouldn’t I tell? Huh. The only thing I can think of is fear. Fear of the person. I think you’re scared . . .
I think something like this would be something you wanna try to get out. Just like anything, you don’t want to do things you don’t want to . . .
Is it possible you walked out there, and you saw an attack, and you ran back to your room? . . . I’m not trying to put words in your mouth, okay! . . .
If you saw the attack going on, you got scared so bad . . . It could’ve happened to you. It would have been a double murder, would have never been solved . . .
Can you describe the guy? . . .
If you don’t wanna say, you can write it to me. Tell me what you saw . . .
Anyone who did this to your mom is still out there. And it could happen again. You don’t want that man to be that violent again. You don’t want that guy getting away with murder . . .
Do you know who the person is? . . .
On the morning of the second day, before Keegan launched back in, he left to get something from his car, and Tootsie came into the hotel room. She rushed toward me as I stepped backwards, startled by her frenzied energy. “Listen,” she said, raising a bony finger and pointing it in my face. “Stop wasting everyone’s time. We all fucking know you’re protecting someone. Now just tell them who it is. Tell them who it is! You’re driving the family crazy.”
We stood about a foot apart, looking into each other’s eyes. I had almost grown accustomed to her sudden accusations, but this one proved that she could still shock me. What actually hurt, what took a second to process, was that “everyone.” That “family.” I imagined my other relatives standing behind Tootsie in an angry crowd, a force with her leading the charge. As though Carol and Gwen and Glenice, Webster and Wendall and Wayne, even Betty and Gloria, all thought I knew the answer, all thought I loved a murderer more than them, more than my mother, lost now forever.
“I don’t know,” I said, the words edging past my closing throat. “I’m sorry; I really, really don’t know who it is.”
Tootsie put her finger down and turned away with a disgusted snort. And then Keegan came back in and continued.
I’m sure you did a lot of thinking last night. Do you remember anything in more detail? . . .
I’m sayin’, I’m not tryin’ to put words in your mouth. There’s just certain details here that don’t add up. I truly believe that you heard more than you said . . .
’Cause, when people tell stories to us—not you—especially the bad guys, they’ll try to tell lies to protect themselves. Not that you’re telling me a lie, but you don’t remember. And you’re not a bad guy here . . .
I hardly believe that there’s all that screaming going on, that your mom didn’t scream a name, or didn’t tell you to go hide, or the bad guy didn’t tell your mom to shut up or any type of thing . . .
And the thing is, we’re not trying to say that you’re crazy or anything like that. We’re just saying that—you gotta admit—something is happening in the next room, all the yelling and screaming, that probably you heard something. Okay. And you have a reason that you don’t want to tell us, okay? . . .
I don’t want to just sit here and go over and over and over this. I’m not gonna do that. But I’m gonna be quite honest with you. There’s more there. I believe you did hear more . . .
Did your mom say anything? Scream, “I’m gonna kill you!”? Or did the man say, “I’m gonna kill you!”? Even to protect herself. Your mom could have gone to the kitchen, gotten something, to protect herself. And then the man took the weapon away. She was trying to protect you . . .
I’m not trying to put ideas into your head. We’re just going on different theories of what happened. If any of this stuff is coming back to you. If you didn’t see it, don’t tell me you did, okay? But if you saw something happen . . .
Did she see you standing there? Did she not see you standing there? She could’ve thought the bad guy was gonna get you or something. You look at the bloody footprint here, there’s almost an indication . . . that the bad guy started down the hall towards your room, and came back. For some reason, he stopped . . .
Don’t try to make things up to make it—ha!—look good for yourself, y’know? . . .
What do you know? Ha-ha . . .