“I need to go over some things concerning the developing situation with Penny Young.”
There it is. And even though I expected it, hearing it is different. The shock of it turns everything in front of me to black spots for a second. I blink them away, and when they’re gone, Mom, who I expect to crumble, doesn’t. She straightens, looks from him to me. I open my mouth; nothing comes out.
Mom says, “Of course. Let’s … sit and talk about this.”
She gestures to the kitchen. Sheriff Turner looks like the last thing he wants to do is settle in, but she stares at him until his boots walk him there. The clomp of them on the floor is something I never want to hear again. The sound of him moving the chair, sitting in it. I stay where I am and Mom says, “Romy, come on.” And then she makes a promise she can’t keep, that no one could. “It’s going to be okay.”
She holds her hand out and I move forward tentatively, and then, behind her, through the door, I see the New Yorker pull up to the front of the house. Todd is forced to park on the curb because Turner’s Explorer took the driveway. He gets out empty-handed, but I see bags in the backseat. He moves quickly up the walk and pushes through the door.
“What’s going on?” he asks. “What’s he doing here?”
“Levi wants to ask Romy some questions about Penny,” Mom tells him. Todd stares into the kitchen and he looks like he wants to say something but he just shakes his head and goes in.
“Romy,” Mom says. I step forward, facing the kitchen. Turner sits at the head of the table. Todd sits across from him. Mom positions herself beside Todd and I stay where I am, just in the doorway.
“Romy, sit down,” Mom says.
“I’m fine here,” I say, and I cross my arms. She doesn’t push it, but Turner looks like he wishes he could, like he had no intention of having this conversation, whether it’s about Penny or not, from a place where he had to look up at me to do it.
“It’s just a few questions,” he says. “Romy, you have no memory of Wake Lake and you have no memory of ending up on Taraldson Road afterward, am I correct?”
“Yes,” I say.
“We have multiple accounts that this was owing to the fact you were extremely intoxicated, is this also correct?” I nod. “Is that a yes?”
“Yes,” I say.
“That Saturday, when we first talked, you gave me the impression you must have blacked out and wandered to the road but that evening, Tina Ortiz called us. She told us she drove you out there and left you there as a joke—”
“What?” Mom looks at me, and then Turner, and I watch her become as furious as she was the day she told Dad to get out, something I thought I’d never see again. “You’re telling me that Tina Ortiz endangered my daughter and you didn’t tell us—”
“Alice, come on,” Todd says. “That’s Ben Ortiz’s kid. Think of the golf club.”
“Your daughter knew,” Turner says and Mom looks at me, a slow realization of what it means, if I knew all along. Her face falls and I can’t stand seeing it. Turner eases into his seat a little, likes that he did that. He asks me, “You have no recollection of this?”
“No.”
“And when I asked if you were injured in any way, you told me you were unharmed,” he continues. “Is that correct?”
“Is this about the Garrett boy?” Todd asks, before I can say yes, even as I’m seeing myself in the dirt, with my bra undone and those words on my stomach.
At first I don’t understand what Todd is saying, but the question does something to Turner. It makes his face red, a red that hints at the level of control it’s taking to not give something away. Except it’s too late.
The Garrett boy.
“Brock?” I ask.
“Yeah, that’s who they have in custody,” Todd says. “And you’ve got to charge him soon, don’t you? If you haven’t already.”
Turner leans forward. “Where did you hear that?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Todd says.
“Like hell it doesn’t. That’s not officially released information yet. If you don’t tell me where you heard it, Bartlett—”
I don’t know how I have room for this, more of this. Every time I think I’ve been maxed out, there’s something else. Brock Garrett, in custody for Penny’s death, and every memory I have of him knifes through me. The fucked up things he did, things I believe he’d do—to me.
But her?
Penny?
“Why are you asking me questions, if he—” I bring my hand to my mouth. I see a road. I see a road and two girls on it. No … no, no, no … “Was I there when she died?”
Sheriff Turner doesn’t answer. But he doesn’t have to. Mom moves to me, wants to bring me back from this, but I shake my head, keep her where she is. There is no coming back from this. I was there when her light left her.
I’ve had that inside me.
“Bartlett, where did you hear it?”
“What’s Romy got to do with it?” Todd asks.
“It. Doesn’t. Matter,” Turner says tightly. “I came here today to establish that she’s not a viable witness and that’s what I’ve done. You tell me where you heard—”
“You can’t just come in here and do this to my family. What she’s been through—” Todd nods to me. “I won’t have it, Levi. You tell me what Romy has to do with this right now and I’ll tell you where I heard about Brock. It’s someone from your department. I promise you, you don’t want to fuck around with this one.”
Turner clenches his jaw, and the arrogance of him, that he can’t think of a single name in his office who would betray him, not even one as easy to reach for as Joe’s.
“If any of this goes any further than this room—”
“It won’t,” Mom says.
Turner’s frayed, worn down to the bone. Something I’ve never seen in him before. He glances at me, and there’s an anger I recognize. Why her? Why her, and not me. And because of that, he can’t bring himself to tell me directly. He hates me that much. He tells it to Todd, to Mom, instead.