My Sister's Keeper

Chapter 14

14

AT POLICE HEADQUARTERS, they moved the cuffs around to the front and escorted me into a room with four metal chairs, a metal table, and what I was sure was a two-way mirror. Forty-five minutes later Sam Jones joined me tossing a thick manila envelope on the table. He had a strange look on his face as he set up a tape recorder on the table and started it recording. He then sat, identified the two of us for the tape, propped his elbows on the table rubbing his face with both hands.

"I'm going to help you, Richard," he said, his voice calm, quiet. "I'm going to do everything I can for you."

"I appreciate that, Sam. So why am I here?"

He smiled the smile of a man who had the answers to the test before he took it. "I know you did it. Ain't no sense denying it."

"What the hell are you talking about, Sam?"

He rubbed his eyes with his hands. "I'm going to do everything I can for you, Richard. Your sister would never forgive me if I didn't. But you've got to do something for me."

"Sam, if you're trying to get my attention, you've got it. Now tell me what's going on."

"It's over, Richard."

"What's over?"

"Admit it. You made a mistake. You had one too many drinks. Things got out of hand."

"Oh, stop it! I had nothing to do with what happened to Ashleigh. If this is some kind of game you guys play to freak people out when you get them in here, guess what? It's working. You're freaking me out."

"Ain't no game, Richard. Everything you do from here out can work for you or against you."

"I didn't do anything, Sam. Whatever happened in that house happened after I left."

"You did it, Richard."

"I did not!"

"I told you that I'm going to do everything I can for you, but you've got to do something for me."

"What? What do you want, Sam? A confession? You want to go home the hero tonight? Is that it? You want things to be easy? Detective work getting a little too hard for you, Sam?" He dropped his hands and looked at me with tired, red eyes and I saw pity in them. He was looking at me in the same way Mom looked at Winston—like he really cared for me and wished it wasn't true. And that freaked the hell out of me. "My God, Sam. What's happened?"

He sighed. "I know you did it."

"Are we talking about Ashleigh Matthews?"

"I know you did it and you know you did it."

"You know what, Sam? You're so full of shit, it's no wonder you never solved my sister's case."

"Where is it, Richard? What did you do with the body?"

"And to think I thought police work was all about science now days."

"I can't help you if you don't help me."

"And I can't tell you if I don't know, can I?"

"But you do know, don't you?" I didn't answer him. The conversation was going nowhere. "You're not as smart as you thought you were, are you?"

I sighed. "Did you bring me down here to see if you could badger me into a confession or am I under arrest?"

"You know that blood on your shirt cuff?" he said looking me in the eye.

"What about it? I told you how that got there. I showed you the scratches."

"It ain't your blood, Baimbridge. Not all of it."

My brain tried to grasp the meaning of what he'd just said and when it did grasp at least some part of it, there was a momentary shutdown of my entire electrical system followed by a surge that rocked me in my seat.

"What?"

He leaned across the table and lowered his voice almost to a whisper. "Don't do that. Don't act innocent with me. I can see right through it. You know damned well whose blood it is." My mouth went dry as he unfastened the manila envelope and withdrew a form. "You're A-positive, Baimbridge. The blood from Ashleigh's is O-negative. That large spot on the sleeve of your shirt is O-negative. Now you want to tell me what you did with her body?"

"Jesus Christ," I whispered. My voice had lost its strength. "I think I need a lawyer."

He exhaled and wiped his hand across his face. "Yeah, I think you do, too. You got one?"

I sighed. "Joe Forrester."

Sam ended the interview with a few words into the recorder, turned the machine off, pushed himself up, and swaggered out the door. I cloaked my cuffed hands over my face and tried to think. Whatever had happened in that house must have happened with me there. But even drunk, I can't believe I could have slept through something like that.

Jones opened the door and stood there. "Forrester isn't answering. We'll have to stop until he can be here." He stepped to the side and held the door back. "Come on. A Grand Jury hearing is set for tomorrow morning. If they return an indictment, bail will be set at that time."

My chest felt as if a flying brick had struck me dead center. They fingerprinted me, took a mug shot, and let me make a phone call to my secretary Lizzy at her home. I asked her to cancel my appointments for the next day and to see if she could get hold of Joe Forrester. My voice had a strange hollow sound to it.

"Is something wrong, Mr. Baimbridge?"

"Yes, something's very wrong. I've been arrested."

There was an extended pause. "Arrested? For what?"

I bowed my head. "It's a mistake, Lizzy. I want you to keep trying to get Joe if it takes you all night and let him know where I am."

"What am I supposed to tell people if they ask?"

A hot flash rose up my neck. I was sure it was all over town already anyway. "Just tell them it's a mistake." Again silence. "And Lizzy, if you don't hear from me tomorrow, you're going to have to start canceling more appointments."

The things I was saying sounded more like lines from a script than real life. I spoke in a hushed mechanical monotone. If I'd been playing this role on stage, I would've had more emotion. But this was no act.

"I'll take care of it," she said.

"Thanks."

They took me to a holding cell on the third floor. The eyes of the other prisoners watched as they walked me in. Blacks, whites, Latinos, old, and young. They watched with sad, hopeless eyes as they removed the handcuffs and locked me in my own cell.

I thought I knew what it would be like to be in jail. I'd seen it in the movies and on TV a thousand times. But what you don't get on the screen is the smell of it. Urine, alcohol, perspiration, blood, and puke.

And fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of injustice, fear of not being in control.

Footsteps echoed around the chambers and mixed into the reverberations of men shouting and complaining, iron doors slamming, and the jangle of keys.

Sitting on the edge of a steel cot, I hung my head as my mind raced back through Sunday night over and over. So many things didn't make sense; the circuit breaker that was turned off and that photo of her kissing me on the cheek—that couldn't have been an accident. And how the hell did her blood get on my shirt?

The reality of what was happening slowly began to sink in. I'd never felt so embarrassed and helpless in my life. My dad was going to disown me. I expected that, but this was going to break my mother's heart. It might even kill her. And who was going to take care of Martha now?

I collapsed to my knees and wept. The eyes that had watched me so intensely now turned away.