Detective Ponder: Which hand?

Pollitt: My right.

Detective Ponder: Show me the fist you made.

(Pauses)

Pollitt: I’m not sure I can remember. It happened so quickly. I’ve tried to shut it out.

Detective Ponder: Try. Was it a closed fist? Was it like a karate chop with the side of your hand? Was it stiff-fingered?

Pollitt: Closed fist, I think.

Detective Ponder: You used your fist. Not a weapon. Not a blunt instrument.

(Pauses)

Pollitt: I didn’t have a weapon. It was my fist.

Detective Ponder: You wear a college class ring on your right hand.

Pollitt: Yes. I went to Rice.

Detective Ponder: Your Rice ring’s extremely distinctive, isn’t it? That square shape of the crest. The chevron. There’s no stone. You’d expect it to leave a particular kind of mark with a punch of that force.

Pollitt: Yes. Well. I don’t think I had it on though when I went to the park.

Detective Ponder: You don’t remember.

(Pauses)

Pollitt: I’m sure I didn’t. I didn’t wear my wedding ring around Danielle. So I would have taken off both rings.

Detective Ponder: I mean, maybe that was what cracked her windpipe. And not a blunt instrument.

Pollitt: I don’t know.

Detective Ponder: So you argued, you killed her, you came home—is that where we are at?

Pollitt: Yes. Are you going to arrest me now?

Detective Ponder: Yes. I am placing you under arrest for the murder of Danielle Roberts.

44

Iris and Grant

Iris calls the attendance office and pulls both kids out of school for the day; Julia drives her brother home.

She meets them out in the driveway, hurries them into the house.

“What’s happening?” Julia asks, breathless.

Iris explains to them that their father is being questioned because of the phone that was found in their trash and the phone found near Danielle’s body.

They take the news in quiet shock. Grant looks scared, and Julia looks as though something is caught inside her chest. Her palm is pressed over her heart.

“Grant,” she says quietly. “I need to talk to Mom alone. Please.”

“Why? If this is about Dad, it affects me.” He’s in tears.

“Please, Grant, please.”

He storms outside, to the backyard.

Iris wants to tell him to go upstairs so she can talk to him about the thousand dollars in cash in his drawer, but she keeps her focus on Julia.