“Let’s see.” I pause to be certain my story is straight. “I last saw him the Thursday—or was it Friday?—before he died.”

“Mm-hm.” Walsh checks his monitor once again. “You got a traffic citation last weekend.”

“That’s right,” I say. “Speeding. I was speeding.”

“Anyone in the car with you that day?”

“Yes.” I swallow, or try to, anyway—try willing my pharynx to squeeze—but my throat feels paralyzed, or weaponized, as though my own body is choking me into silence.

Walsh is still staring at his monitor, one finger over his mouse, and he looks at me and asks, “Who?”

I smile. At least my facial muscles work. I clear my throat to be sure my vocal cords do, too, and when a sound happens, I say the first thing that comes to mind: “My son, Jonah.”

Walsh looks at his monitor again and begins to type, hitting far more keys than necessary to spell my son’s name. He asks, “Where were you going?”

“We were coming from my office,” I say, and knowing better than to volunteer details, I still add, “He needed to use the printer.”

Walsh leans back and gives me his full attention. “You don’t have a printer at home?”

“We do. Sure. But he needed to print a large document. Book-length. Something to help him cram for an exam. He’s in summer school. The inkjet at the office is better for that sort of thing. We didn’t have much ink at home.” Shutting up is harder than it should be.

Walsh asks, “Why didn’t he drive himself?”

“Hm?”

“Does your son have a car?”

“Oh. Yes, he does.”

“So why did you drive him?”

“To let him in and make sure the system was online.”

“Was anyone else there?”

“No. Just us. The office is always empty on the weekends.” As soon as I say it, I hear in my head the demonic grind of that goddamn Keurig, and Simone saying, Nice to meet you, to Nick.

“Well, that about does it,” Walsh says. He flips his notebook over, obscuring his notes, and stands to see me out. At the door, he shakes my hand. “Thanks for coming down.”

“Of course. Anything I can do.”

His grip is too tight when he says, “One more thing,” and he’s still squeezing my hand when he asks, “How’d the exam go?”

“Hm?”

“How did he fare in his exam?”

What else is there to do but play dumb? “Exam?” Play dumb. Play dumb until the end.

“The big exam. Didn’t you say your son was cramming for one? The document?”

“Oh, right.” A smile slips through my cracks, and because I can, this time I tell the truth. “You know something? I have no idea.”

•  •  •