“I’ve already done that, Sheriff.”
“Yes, I know you’ve been through it with my men, and I know how difficult this is, but it would be very helpful if you could tell me again.”
So I did.
I replayed it all like a horror movie that you can’t stop watching. How the two-lane road vanished, swallowed up by inky black water overflowing the banks of the river. How we plunged into the mud-thick current, which wriggled and surged like a sea creature. How we shimmied on the surface like a dancer struggling to do a pirouette, and then the front end lurched downward, and sludgy water filled the car.
“That’s a terrible thing,” Sheriff Sinclair said when I was finished. Her eyes never left me the entire time I was talking. Somehow I had the idea that I was strapped to a polygraph in her mind, with probes tracking my heartbeat with every breath I took. She reminded me of my mother, who’d also been a cop and who’d been able to tell when I was lying as a child just by looking at my face.
“Do you know how fast you were going when you went into the water?” the sheriff continued.
Dylan, slow down.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Do you know how fast you were going when you went into the water?”
Dylan, please. Slow down.
“No, I don’t know. Too fast, obviously. I didn’t see the flood in time to stop.”
“The car sank immediately?”
“Yes.”
“And you were both trapped?”
“Yes.”
“How is it that you managed to get out of the car but your wife didn’t?”
I twitched. In my head, the car jerked through a somersault under the water. Our bubble of air spilled away. The window near me broke into pieces, and something shot through the space like a javelin.
“A tree trunk came through the car,” I explained. “I was able to pull myself out. I was trying to get Karly out, too, but the car shifted and ripped her away from me.”
“Did you dive back down to find her?”
“Of course I did.”
“At what point did you give up?”
“I didn’t give up, Sheriff,” I snapped back at her. “I lost consciousness. At some point, the current must have thrown me clear. When I came to, I was on the riverbank, and the police were there.”
“I see.” The sheriff pushed some of the papers in the folder with her fingers. Her tone stayed neutral, but I heard an accusation in her voice. “I have a few other questions, Mr. Moran. Had you been drinking before the accident?”
“No.”
“Nothing at all? No liquor, no drugs?”
“Your deputies tested me. The test was negative.”
“Yes, I know. Although to be clear, it took them some time to get the test done, so the results aren’t necessarily reliable. I ran your name through the system. It’s routine in cases like this. You’ve had a history of problems with alcohol, haven’t you? I’m seeing two DUIs in your record.”
“Those were years ago. Yes, sometimes I drink too much, but I wasn’t drinking tonight.”
“Okay.”
Sheriff Sinclair twisted a pencil around in her fingers. Her eyes were still focused on me, as if she were taking the measure of this man in front of her. I’ve always felt that women make rapid judgments about the men they meet, for better or for worse. They decide if they’re solid or not solid in a matter of seconds.
“You have a temper, don’t you, Mr. Moran?”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m seeing arrests for assault in your past, along with the drunk driving. Bar fights, that kind of thing. Your record suggests that you can be a violent man.”
“I’ve made mistakes a few times when I was drunk,” I acknowledged. “I deeply regret the things I did.”
“Ever hit your wife?”
“No. I have never laid a finger on Karly or any other woman. Ever.”
“What about verbal abuse? Threats?”
“Absolutely not.”
“How were things between the two of you?”
Dylan, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I made a stupid mistake. Can you ever forgive me?
“What?” I asked.
“How was your marriage?”
“Our marriage was fine,” I lied. Which was a foolish thing to do. People knew what had happened. Karly had told her mother about it. I’d told one of my coworkers. And yet I couldn’t say out loud to this police officer that my wife had cheated on me.
“Your wife came from money, didn’t she? She’s a Chance, as in Chance Properties?”
“Chance Properties is her mother’s real estate agency, yes. Karly worked for her mother. I’m not sure what that has to do with anything, Sheriff.”
“I just want to understand what happened. You were driving too fast. Some might say recklessly. You have a history of alcohol abuse and violent behavior.”
My face reddened. I could feel the heat of the flush. “What the hell are you saying? Are you implying that I drove my car into the river deliberately and then left my wife there to die?”
“I’m not implying anything.”
“Well, you seem to think I’m the kind of man who would do that.”
“I have no idea what kind of man you are, Mr. Moran. I’m not saying you were to blame for the accident. It’s simply my job to get the facts.”
I leaned across the table. The blanket slipped down my bare shoulders and I shrugged it back. My voice rose, but with the static of a radio station that’s going out of range. “You want the facts? The fact is, my wife is dead. I loved her. I did everything I could to save her, and I failed. If life handed out second chances, I’d be back in the water right now trying to get to her. Is that clear enough for you, Sheriff?”
Her face softened just a little. “It is. I’m sorry, Mr. Moran.”
“I’d really like to be alone,” I said. “This is all too much. I don’t even know where I am.”
“Yes, of course.”
Sheriff Sinclair closed the folder in front of her. She rolled the pencil back and forth on the table, then slid it inside a pocket. She stood up and went to the door, but as she opened it, she turned around and studied me again.
I knew what was coming.
“One more question, Mr. Moran. According to my deputies, you were mostly incoherent when they found you.”
“Is that a surprise?”
“No. Of course not. But they said you kept talking about seeing a man on the bank of the river near the scene of the accident. You kept asking why he didn’t help you. Why he didn’t try to rescue your wife.”
My throat went dry. This was the part no one would understand.
“I don’t remember saying that,” I replied.
“Did you see someone near the river?” the sheriff asked.
I closed my eyes and inhaled sharply. I felt my lungs screaming for air again, my chest ready to burst as my face breached the surface. I gulped in a breath, and as I prepared to dive back down, I saw him.
A man.
A man stood barely ten feet away on the riverbank at the edge of the rapids. When the lightning flashed, I saw him clearly. There was no mistaking what I saw, and it didn’t matter that what I was seeing was impossible. All I could do was shout to him. Beg. Plead.