“But she shot your father, dragged his body out of the house, and, what—strapped him onto a snow machine—and drove up to Glass Lake in the winter and cut a hole in the ice, loaded him with iron traps, and dropped him. Alone. Where were you?”
Leni sat very still, her hands clasped in her lap. “I don’t know. I don’t know when it happened.” She felt the need to add on, layer words to solidify the lie, but Grandpa had told her to say as little as possible.
Chief Ward set his elbows on the desk and steepled his blunt-tipped fingers. “You could have mailed this letter.”
“I could have.”
“But that’s not who you are, is it, Lenora? You’re a good girl. An honest person. I have glowing reports about you in this file.” He leaned forward. “What happened on the night you ran away? What set him off?”
“I … found out I was pregnant,” she said.
“Matthew Walker,” he said, glancing down at the file. “People said you two kids were in love.”
“Uh-huh,” Leni said.
“Sad as hell about what happened to him. To both of you. But you got better, and he…” Chief Ward let it hang there; Leni felt her shame hang on the hook of the unspoken. “I hear your dad hated the Walkers.”
“More than hated them.”
“And when your father found out you were pregnant?”
“He went crazy. Started beating me with his fists, with his belt…” The memories she’d spent years submerging broke free.
“He was a mean son of a bitch, from what I hear.”
“Sometimes.” Leni looked away. Out of the corner of her eye she saw MJ reading his book, his mouth moving as he worked to sound out the words. She hoped these spoken words didn’t find purchase in some dark corner of his subconscious, able to rise one day.
Chief Ward pushed some papers toward her. Leni saw Allbright, Coraline in the corner. “I have sworn statements from Marge Birdsall, Natalie Watkins, Tica Rhodes, Thelma Schill, and Tom Walker. All of them testified to seeing bruises on your mother over the years. There were a lot of tears when I took these statements, I can tell you that, a lot of folks wishing they’d done things different. Thelma said she wished she’d shot your dad herself.”
“Mama never let anyone help her,” Leni said. “I still don’t know why.”
“Did she ever tell anyone he beat her?”
“Not that I know of.”
“You have to tell the truth if you want real help,” Chief Ward said.
Leni stared at him.
“Come on, Leni. You and I both know what happened that night. Your mom didn’t do this alone. You were a kid. It wasn’t your fault. You did what your mom asked of you, and who wouldn’t? There’s no one on the planet who wouldn’t understand. He was beating her, for God’s sake. The law will understand.”
He was right. She had been a kid. A scared, pregnant eighteen-year-old.
“Let me help you,” he said. “You can get rid of this terrible burden.”
She knew what her mother and grandparents wanted her to do now: to keep lying, to say Leni hadn’t witnessed the murder or the drive to Glass Lake or her father sinking into the icy water.
To say: not me.
She could blame it all on Mama and stick to that story.
And forever be a woman with this dark, terrible secret. A liar.
Mama had wanted Leni to come home, but home was not just a cabin in a deep woods that overlooked a placid cove. Home was a state of mind, the peace that came from being who you were and living an honest life. There was no going halfway home. She couldn’t build a new life on the creaky foundation of a lie. Not again. Not for home.
“The truth will set you free, Leni. Isn’t that what you want? Why you’re here? Tell me what really happened that night.”
“He hit me when he found out about the baby, hard enough to fracture my cheek and break my nose. I … I don’t remember all of it, just him hitting me. Then I heard Mama say, Not my Leni, and a gunshot. I … saw blood seep across his shirt. She shot him twice in the back. To stop him from killing me.”
“And you helped her get rid of his body.”
Leni hesitated. The compassion in his eyes made her say quietly, “And I helped her get rid of the body.”
Chief Ward sat there a moment, looking down at the records in front of him. He appeared ready to say something, then changed his mind. He opened his desk drawer (it made a scratchy, creaking sound) and pulled out a piece of paper and a pen. “Can you write it all down?”
“I’ve told you everything.”
“I need it on paper. Then we’ll be done. Don’t lose steam now, Leni. You’re so close to the end. You want all of this behind you, right?”
Leni reached for the pen and pulled the paper toward her. At first she just stared down at the blank page. “Maybe I should ask for a lawyer? My grandfather would recommend that. He’s a lawyer.”
“You can do that,” he said. “It’s what guilty people do.” He reached for the phone. “Shall I call for one?”
“You believe me, right? I didn’t kill him and Mama didn’t want to. The law knows about battered women now.”
“Of course. And besides, you’ve already told me the truth.”
“So I just have to write it down and I’ll be done? I can go to Kaneq?”
He nodded.
What difference did it make to write the words? She began slowly, word by word, rebuilding the scene of that terrible night. The fists, the belt, the blood, the gore. The frozen trek to the lake. The last image of her father’s face, ivory in the moonlight, sinking into water. The sound of ice slushing over the rim of the hole.
The only omission was about Large Marge’s help. She mentioned nothing about her at all. She didn’t mention her grandparents, either, or where she and Mama had gone when they left Alaska.
She ended with: We flew from Homer to Anchorage and then left Alaska.
She pushed the paper across the desk.
Chief Ward looked down at her confession.
“I’m done reading, Mommy,” MJ said. She waved him over.
He slapped the book shut and half charged across the room. He climbed up onto her lap like a monkey. Even though he was too big, she held him, let him stay, his skinny legs hanging as he kicked the metal desk with his sneaker toe. Bang. Bang. Bang.
Chief Ward looked at her. “You’re under arrest,” he said.
Leni felt the world literally drop out from under her. “But … you said we’d be done if I wrote it down.”
“You and I are done. Now it’s up to someone else.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “I wish you hadn’t come in here.”
All the warnings over the years. How had she forgotten? She’d let her need for forgiveness and redemption trump common sense. “What do you mean?”
“This is out of my hands, Leni. It’s up to the court now. I am going to have to lock you up, at least until your arraignment. If you can’t afford an attorney—”
“Mommy?” MJ said, frowning.
The chief read Leni her Miranda rights from a sheet of paper, then finished up with: “Unless you know someone who can take your son, he’s going to have to go to Social Services. They’ll take good care of him. I promise.”
Leni couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid and na?ve. How could she not have seen this coming? She’d been warned. And still she’d believed the police. She knew how unforgiving the law could be to women.
She wanted to rail and scream and cry and throw furniture, but it was too late for that. She’d made a terrible mistake. There couldn’t be another. “Tom Walker,” she said.
“Tom?” Chief Ward frowned. “Why would I call him?”
“Just call him. Tell him I need help. He’ll come for me.”
“What you need is a lawyer.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Tell him that, too.”
THIRTY
Processed.
Before today, Leni associated that word with food that had been stretched out of recognition and changed into something bad for you. Like spray cheese.
Now it had a whole new meaning.
Fingerprints. Mug shots. Turn to the right, please. Hands patting her down.