Shatter My Rock (12 page)

A
trooper so young he looks as if he’s playing dress-up in his daddy’s formal,
French-blue uniform leads Tim and me through a maze of corridors to the cusp of
an interview room. From the hallway, I note the room’s spare furnishings and
institutional décor: prison-gray walls; commercial-grade carpeting with the
texture of Astroturf; a table and three armless, steel-framed chairs.

Tim
reaches for my hand and squeezes, and for a moment I forget that he doesn’t
know everything, that he still believes Owen was his and the tragedy was
nothing more than a simple accident. “Let’s get this over with,” he tells me
with a note of sympathy I don’t deserve, “so we can get back to Ally.”

“Have
a seat,” the trooper says, a wave of his hand indicating where he wants me to
go. “Detective Hanscom is on the way.”

As
I cross the threshold, I sense the course of my future shifting, settling into
a new pattern. Gone is the pulled-together version of Claire Fowler, the
professional who kicks ass and takes names, always gets the job done. In her
place survives an arrested facsimile of me, an emotionally stunted half-breed
who wishes only to escape with her freedom and her sanity. Everything else can
wither on the vine, seed the earth anew.

Tim
tries to follow me, but the trooper sidesteps into his path. “I’ll need you to
come with me.”

The
way he says this makes me nervous, first puts the idea in my mind that Tim is a
suspect too. “Why?” I ask.

“We
need detailed statements from both of you.”

“Can’t
he…?” I say.

The
trooper predicts where I’m going and quickly shuts me down. “It’s more accurate
if we take them separately,” he says, “so your recollections don’t affect his,
and vice versa.”

This
explanation is as logical as could be, and yet it leaves me unsatisfied. If Tim
were set to lie, such a tactic might be effective, but my husband is as
oblivious as the police.

“You
okay?” Tim asks me.

It’s
probably better that he doesn’t witness me perpetrating these fabrications. “Go
ahead,” I say with a flick of my wrist.

He
shoots me a hopeful look that I read as sad and desperate, the embodiment of
his desire to save me from myself. As much as I wish to release him from this
obligation, it is neither the time nor the place. Instead, I dig deep, draw a
peppy smile from somewhere in our charmed past and tell him one more time, “I
love you.”

The
interview room has no windows, no clock, not even the static buzz of an old-school
radio. It is me and my thoughts alone, a setup devised to test a suspect’s
strength of mind. And it’s working.

For
what seems an hour or more, I am left to ponder the patent wrong of what I have
done, the culturally condemned evil of it. If it weren’t for Tim and Ally, I
would confess now, let the police arrest me, persecute me, string me up as a
warning for those so deficient as to consider following in my footsteps. But in
a convoluted way, I have done this for my husband and daughter, to spare them
the kind of destruction that stole everything I ever loved before them.

The
door bursts open, and in saunters Det. Hanscom, a stack of coffee-splattered
papers clutched in his grip and a determined look fixed on his flushed face.
The young trooper slips in behind him, more a shadow of the detective than an
autonomous being.

Det.
Hanscom says nothing, drags a chair from the table and settles in across from
me. The papers he deposits between us, facing more my way than his. I glance at
the top sheet and notice, among other things that cause my breath to catch, the
words:
Post-Mortem. Fowler, Owen Richard.
 

Before
we get anywhere, the detective draws a small handheld recorder from his pocket
and breezily places it near the edge of the table, where he clicks it on. Then
he delivers the Miranda warning, which I have heard an untold number of times
on television and in the movies but now assumes a whole new gravity. “Do you
understand these rights?” he asks with mild condescension. He studies my
reaction, awaits my response. But when I fail to speak, he sighs. “I think you
know why we’re here.”

I
shrug lightly, tell him without words that I don’t intend to make this easy for
him.

“Your
baby didn’t drown,” he says outright, and again he waits.

I
consider his eyes, wonder if he has a wife or daughter at home, someone whose
existence may buy me his sympathy. Or perhaps his pity. I feign surprise. “Huh?”

Briefly,
I notice the trooper scratching notes on a small pad, but soon he becomes so superfluous
it’s as if he has dissolved into the wall.

“Your
baby was asphyxiated,” the detective continues, the hint of a knowing grin
crawling across his lips. “But you already knew that.”

I
shake my head, remind myself to breathe. “No.”

He
rolls his eyes. “His lungs were dry. You know what that means, don’t you?”

I
figure he is being rhetorical.

“He
was dead before he hit the water.”

The
gruffness with which he handles me seems uncalled for, even if I am a killer. I
have still lost a child, a boy I cherished despite the complications he was
born into. “You’re wrong.”

This
time the detective chuckles. “I don’t think so.”

“The
deck was wet.”

“Most
are.”

“I
slipped,” I claim.

“People
slip all the time, but they don’t launch their babies overboard. And if they
do, their babies drown; they don’t asphyxiate.”

I
shove the autopsy report aside. “It’s wrong. They made a mistake.” I gulp. “Owen
drowned.”

“So
that’s how you’re gonna play it?” he huffs, his nostrils flaring. “Lie and
deny?”

As
much as I try to halt them, the tears come anyway. But at least they do so
quietly, in a soft trickle that barely wets my cheeks. “Whatever.”

This
word prickles him, jolts him from his chair. “
Whatever?
”

I
stay silent.

From
nowhere, the detective switches direction. “Are you thirsty?”

I
am and he must know it, this closet of a room so claustrophobic it makes me
dizzy. “No.”

He
stands. “You sure? ‘Cause I’m gonna hit the vending machine.”

I
hold my ground, even on this trivial point.

He
doesn’t ask a third time; instead, he clicks the recorder off, exits and leaves
my brain to eat itself alive. The trooper trails him out the door.

Only
now do I allow myself to ponder how long one might spend in prison on a murder
conviction and whether Maine is a death penalty state, something I should
already know with certainty. Rhode Island abolished such a merciful option
somewhere in the mid-1980s, a change that doomed any murderer with a conscience
to hell.  

Another
half-hour passes, maybe an hour. When the door next swings my way, what I first
see are the shapely legs of a woman. Det. Hanscom slinks in behind her, his
vintage suit jacket gone, his tie loosened.

The
woman smiles, and when she does, I feel something that surprises me: empathy. Contrary
to popular wisdom, not all women posses this quality, a quality I crave with
such ferocity it rivals my need to breathe. “Hello, Mrs. Fowler,” the woman
says, her dark eyes peering through me with ease. She motions at the detective.
“I’m helping Jack with your case, trying to get to the bottom of what happened
to your son.”

My
case? It sounds as if they have already banged the gavel and clunked the prison
door shut behind me. Weakly, I say, “Oh.” If I must tell someone the truth, it
will be her.

The
woman takes a seat and shakes my hand in a warm, soft way. “Charlotte Tupper,
Assistant Attorney General.”  

My
mother’s name was Charlotte. A sign.

Det.
Hanscom drops a tattered notepad on the table and hovers over Ms. Tupper’s
shoulder as she peruses it. If I were smart, I would study it too, try to glean
what they know. Then again, I doubt the authorities can prove a case for murder
or anything else, since I am the sole witness to Owen’s demise.

“Can
you remind me what happened on the evening of May 27th and the morning of May
28th, from the beginning?” Ms. Tupper asks, a polished chrome pen poised over
her legal pad, where she has headed the page with the date and time of our
interview.

I
have shared some of this story before, the sanitized version. But never from
start to finish. I nod, knowing I will give her more than she expects but not
everything. “We had a hard time finding the place,” I begin. “Those roads by
the beach are a maze.”

The
detective rolls his eyes, annoyed I have started the telling here. Ms. Tupper
shifts in her seat, settles in for the duration.

“It
was raining,” I go on, “and we had to stop for directions.” Truthfully, I move
through our arrival at the cottage, the clambake dinner, our ridiculous level
of alcohol consumption, and even a glossed-over version of my sexual encounter
with Tim.

Now
and then, Ms. Tupper halts me, requests I repeat myself, underlines items in her
notes, which now overtake Det. Hanscom’s. “So you were the last one to go to
sleep, at approximately three a.m.?” she backs up to confirm.

I
nod. “Yes.”

“And
your husband, Tim? When did he go to bed?”

I
pause, think before I speak. “Right before I did. He’s a heavy sleeper. As soon
as his head hit the pillow…”

“Did
he pass out?”

“No.”

She
cocks an eyebrow. “Did you?”

“No.”

“And
your daughter was where?”

“The
salon.”

She
flips a number of pages in the detective’s notepad until she finds what she
seeks. “The baby was already asleep in the stateroom when you went to bed,
correct?”

“Yes.”

“What
about the Dearborns? When would you say they retired?”

I
shrug. “Maybe an hour before me and Tim. Two o’clock?”

“So,
to your knowledge, everyone on the boat was asleep by three a.m., including you
and Owen.”

“Yeah.”

“Then
what happened?”

Det.
Hanscom leans in, prepares to catch the confession I may lob his way. “I heard
him crying,” I mumble.

Ms.
Tupper allows me a moment to settle my nerves. “Go on.”

I
would rather stop here, let my mind accomplish what it aches to do naturally:
lock those early morning hours somewhere so inaccessible that even I don’t know
how my child died. “I picked him up,” I say with a little sniffle, “so he’d
stop fussing. I didn’t want to wake Tim.”

The
detective gulps down the last of his ginger ale and deposits the empty bottle in
my line of sight; if I am to look at Ms. Tupper, I must confront the bottle
too. A bold-faced taunt.

“It
was cold outside,” I rush to say, “and wet. I started to slip, and when I grabbed
for the railing, Owen fell.”

“Hold
on,” Det. Hanscom says with a shake of his head. “When did you go above board?”

“As
soon as I took him out of the basket. I told you…”

“And
what were you planning to do up there?” he asks.

I
glance at Ms. Tupper for guidance, forgetting she is on the detective’s side.
“I don’t know. Rock him back to sleep? Sing him a song? Feed him?”

“But
you didn’t do any of those things?” Ms. Tupper asks.

“No.”

A
few moments of silence ensue, during which the State’s attorney tips her legal
pad out of my view and furiously scribbles something that convinces me I have
been caught. Then she glances at her watch. “I need to use the restroom. Excuse
me.”

She
exits and the detective follows, but not before shooting a smug glare my way as
he pinches the ginger ale bottle between his fingers and spirits it off. When
he returns, he is outside the company of the assistant attorney general. And
the trooper has returned.

The
detective spins an empty chair around and straddles it. “Let’s get serious
here.”

I
shake my head. “I don’t know what you’re…”

“You
smothered Owen, didn’t you?”

“No.”

“Then
Tim did.”

“He
did not,” I say, louder than anything I have yet uttered.

He
reaches for the stack of documents, atop which the autopsy report still rests. But
instead of the report, he retrieves a plain manila folder. “Well, somebody did,”
he says matter-of-factly. He draws a handful of photographs from the folder and
strews them across the table.

I
do not turn away soon enough to avoid the grisly sight of my dead baby.

“Go
ahead,” he says. “Take a good look. Somebody suffocated this baby, and there’s
bruises to prove it.”

There
is no way I can respond to this line of questioning, my throat seized.