Flesh and Blood

“What did you say the name of the luggage store is?” he asks from the kitchen, turning his broad back to us.

“What?” She seems numb.

“The luggage store where you took the bag with the broke zipper.”

“It was just a luggage store. I … I don’t remember the name of it.”

“Tommy Bahama? Nautica?” He’s checking, seeing what stores are located in the outlet mall she claims to have visited.

“Yes,” she says.

“Yes?” Marino walks back to us, his footsteps heavy, the blue plasticized paper shoe covers making a sliding sound over hardwood. His feet look as big as Frankenstein’s.

“It could have been one of them,” she says warily.

“Ms. Cather, you don’t remember what kind of luggage you own? The suitcases in the bedroom are Rockland. A leopard pattern with pink trim, and I’m guessing those are yours. The others are American Tourister, black, and I’m guessing those are your husband’s.”

“How do you expect me to think of something like that right now?” She knows she’s been caught.

“If you find the receipt maybe it will refresh your memory.” Marino reseats himself, looking right at her as she blushes, staring down at her hands and when she talks her mouth sounds dry.

“Okay. I think I have it. I think it’s in my wallet. It should be there.” Her tongue sounds sticky as she continues evasions she knows are failing.

I go to the refrigerator and get her a bottle of water while she sits and Marino waits. Her pocketbook is on the couch and she starts digging inside it, inside her wallet, but it’s an act and not a skillful one. There’s no receipt. It’s useless to pretend.

10 (#ulink_84d84385-66d3-59cb-82c3-46efb52ad1a3)

“You know anything about cell towers, Ms. Cather?” Marino is scrolling through text messages, and she’s not Joanna anymore.

He’s gotten information and is distancing himself. His tone has chilled. He’s playing the role he’d already scripted and getting external validation for it, finding out things that aren’t good for her.

“Cell towers?” She takes a swallow of water, talking to him but looking at me. “I know what they are. But I don’t know anything about them.”

“That surprises me. The FBI didn’t tap your phones? They didn’t check out your locations or more specifically his? They weren’t in your email when they thought Jamal was a terrorist?” he says.

“How could I possibly know what they did? It’s not like they tell you.”

“They would have notified your lawyer.”

“Jamal would know more about it than I do. He’s who they were after. It was his lawyer not mine.” She’s crying again but there’s anger and beneath it is rage. Beneath all of it is grief that hurts so much it’s physical. And fear. Whatever she’s afraid of is prompting her to lie.

“I need you to tell the truth whatever it is,” Marino says. “But first I’m going to remind you of your rights. I always like to get that out of the way …”

“My rights?” She looks bewildered, her eyes on me as if I might save her. “You think I did this? Are you arresting me?”

“It’s just a preventive measure,” Marino replies casually. “I’m making sure you know you don’t have to talk to us. Nobody’s forcing you. If you’d rather have an attorney present that’s what we’ll do. What about the attorney your husband used? Maybe you want to call whoever that was? We’ll sit here and wait until he shows up or he can meet us at the station.”

He goes on bluffing and Mirandizing while she stares at him without blinking, her eyes turning hard and furious, thoughts flickering like static on an old TV. She’s been through this before when the FBI raided their home and hauled away her husband in handcuffs.

“I don’t want a lawyer,” she says and a calm comes over her, flat and still. “I would never do anything to physically hurt Jamal.”

I notice her use of the word physically. It seems important she make the distinction between hurting her husband physically as opposed to in some other way. I think of the boy on the bicycle she was seen chatting with.

“We don’t own a gun so I don’t know why you think … Except it’s easiest, isn’t it?” Her eyes are hot and resentful on Marino as he reads a message that landed on his phone. “All of you people are the same.”

“You weren’t in New Hampshire today,” he says as a matter of fact, typing a reply to someone who is texting him. “Let’s talk about where you really were.”

Before she can answer Marino lets her know he has proof of exactly where she’s been since seven-fifteen a.m. He knows every mile she drove and every call she made on her cell phone including three to a moving company.

“But I’d rather you tell me the details yourself,” he adds. “I’d rather give you a chance to be truthful so maybe I start feeling better about you than I do right this minute.”

“I’ve been falsely accused.” She directs this to me and she’s not talking about her husband’s homicide.

I can tell she means something else.

“When Detective Machado reached you on your cell phone,” Marino asks her, “what did he say to you exactly?”

“He identified himself. He told me what happened.” She stares down at her hands tightly clasped in her lap.

“And you told him you were in New Hampshire. Even though it wasn’t true.”

She nods yes.

“You lied.”

She nods again.

“Why?”

“I’ve been falsely accused.” Again she says this to me. “I thought that’s why he was calling, that the police were coming after me. I wanted to buy myself time so I could figure out what to do. I panicked.”

“And you didn’t change your story about where you were even after Detective Machado informed you of the real reason he was calling,” Marino says.

“It was too late. I’d already told him … I was scared. So scared I was stupid.” Her voice shakes badly, tears spilling. “And then all I could think about was Jamal. I wasn’t thinking about the lie or why I told it. I’m sorry. I’m not a bad person. I swear to God I’m not.”

She digs into her pocketbook and finds a towelette. Tearing open the packet she wipes ruined makeup off her eyes, her face and I smell the fresh scent of cucumber. She suddenly looks years younger, could pass for twenty but probably is closer to thirty. A career as a high school psychologist requires college then a master’s degree. She’s been married three years. I calculate she’s twenty-seven or twenty-eight.

“This is a nightmare. Please let me wake up from it.” She stares at me.

Then she looks at the items I took out of the bags her husband carried in, the food, the drugs. Her attention fixes on the drugs.

“Your husband had prescriptions filled at a CVS this morning,” I say to her. “Including one for Klonopin.”

“For stress,” she says.

“His stress?”

“And recently mine. Both of us.”