And she proceeds to recite them with me standing there. When she gets to the part about having the right to representation by an attorney, it dawns on me that I don’t know an attorney. Certainly not one who could represent me in a criminal case. A moment of indecision paralyzes me. Then I know who I need to call, and I bring out my phone.

“Are you calling an attorney?” Bowman asks.

“Can I have some damn privacy? You can’t just sit there and watch and listen to everything I do.”

Bowman weighs her options for a moment while she looks at me like I’m a bug she wants to squash. Then she flips her manila folder shut and stands up with it in her left hand. “Are you saying you won’t submit to being fingerprinted?”

“Not without talking to a lawyer,” I say. “I want someone to talk to.”

At the door she stops and turns back. She speaks more harshly than at any other time all day. “Okay, go ahead and call a lawyer. Then we can continue our conversation.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Preston knows everyone in Gatewood.

Preston the Politician.

He’s the one I call from that conference room in the police station, asking for help with finding a lawyer. I give him a quick rundown of my situation, and he listens without losing his cool.

“I know just the person,” he says. “Sit tight.”

Bowman comes back once I’m off the phone, sticking her head in the open door.

“You decided to stick around? Does that mean you’re willing to be fingerprinted?”

“I have a lawyer coming.”

She clucks her tongue. “I told you you’re free to go. Bringing a lawyer into things just makes them messy. I can call a judge and get a court order for fingerprints and DNA.”

“I’m going to wait for the lawyer.”

“Suit yourself.”

Bowman leaves and makes me sit here and stare into space until that happens. During that time, my despair grows, and I begin to imagine myself on trial, in a jail cell, shipped off to prison. It’s bad enough to live with the guilt over not calling 911 that late-summer night when I saw Sophia fighting with her husband. To imagine a life in prison for a crime I didn’t commit . . .

I’m ready to tell Bowman the truth about the book. Everything hinges on that. If I simply admit I didn’t write it, then they lose their main reason to suspect me of Sophia’s murder. I’d lose just about everything else, but I’d have my freedom. And I’ve already lost everything once before. It can’t be any worse.

Nothing ever could be.

But Preston told me to keep my mouth shut until the lawyer arrived. He emphasized that. Keep your mouth shut. Don’t even ask to use the bathroom.