Chapter 22 Thiago
Chapter twenty-two
Thiago
“Mr. Reyes?”
I looked up.
A detective stood in the doorway with a folder tucked under one arm. Dominic was sitting beside the window, his jacket folded neatly over the back of the visitor’s chair. Luca sat near the bed, one hand resting lightly on the mattress beside my arm.
“Henri Devereaux has asked to speak with Mr. St. Clair,” the detective said.
He said it evenly, without drama.
I glanced toward Dominic. He had already turned from the window.
“Is that permitted?” he asked.
“They will supervise the conversation,” the detective said. “Recorded. Limited time.”
Dominic nodded. He looked at me.
“I want someone in that room,” he said, “who came to this without twenty years of accumulated history.”
The detective glanced briefly between us. Dominic continued, calm and precise, “Someone who can see clearly what it is, and not get bogged down in symbols.”
He meant me. My left arm was immobilized against my chest in a rigid brace that ran from shoulder to wrist. The doctors had explained twice that morning that I was not supposed to be moving around yet. My shoulder felt like someone had driven a spike through the joint.
I shifted slightly in the bed. “I can sit,” I said.
Luca looked at the brace. Then he looked at me. “You can sit,” he agreed.
The detective cleared his throat. “If you’re coming, we should go soon.”
Dominic nodded. “Thank you.”
The detective stepped back into the corridor. “You’re not supposed to leave the bed,” Luca reminded me.
“That’s a recommendation,” I said.
“It’s an instruction from the surgeon.”
“I’ll sit.”
Luca studied me for a moment. Then he crossed the room and reached for the folded wheelchair that had been parked beside the wall since the previous evening.
Dominic watched the exchange without comment. The chair opened with a quiet metallic click.
“Let’s try not to tear anything important,” Luca said.
I swung my legs carefully over the side of the bed. The motion sent a bright spike of pain through my shoulder that took a moment to settle into something manageable.
“Slow,” Luca said.
“I can’t move fast like this.”
“Careful, too.”
Dominic stepped closer as I shifted my weight into the chair. “Tell me if you need to stop.”
“I will.”
That was the entire conversation. He did not ask whether I should do this. Neither did Luca.
The corridor outside the room was bright and busy, a hospital at midday. Nurses moved from room to room, carrying clipboards. A man in blue scrubs pushed a cart loaded with folded linens past the elevator.
Luca turned the chair with practiced ease and started down the hall. Dominic walked beside us. No one spoke for a while.
The brace held my arm in a fixed position that pulled uncomfortably across my shoulder and chest. The pain medication dulled the edges, but it didn’t erase them.
A nurse glanced at the chair as we passed. “Mr. Reyes,” she said, recognizing the name on the chart clipped to the back.
“I’ll be back,” I told her.
She looked at the brace and opened her mouth to say something. Dominic stared her down. “We have a clearance,” he said calmly.
The nurse hesitated for a fraction of a second, then nodded and stepped aside.
The elevator doors opened with a quiet chime. Luca backed the chair inside, and Dominic followed. The three of us gathered in the small metal box while the elevator began its descent.
“You’re going to enjoy explaining this to the doctor later,” Luca said.
“I doubt he will ask for details.”
“I appreciate your optimism.”
Dominic watched the numbers above the door change. “You don’t have to do this,” he said without looking at me.
“I know, but you asked.”
Outside the main entrance, the late-August heat pressed hard against the building. The pavement shimmered slightly in the distance where the street met the sunlight.
A police vehicle waited at the curb. Instead of a cruiser, they’d brought an unmarked SUV. The detective from upstairs stood beside it, speaking with another officer. He opened the rear door when he saw us approaching.
Luca helped steady the chair while I shifted into the seat. The motion pulled at the brace again. I rolled my head back and let the pain pass without reacting.
Dominic slid into the seat beside me. Luca took the front passenger seat.
The car pulled away from the curb and joined the slow mid-morning traffic moving along the avenue. Dominic rested one hand lightly on the seat in front of him.
“Do you expect him to talk?” Luca asked from the front.
“Yes,” Dominic said.
“Why?”
Dominic considered the question for a moment. “Because the story he told himself has changed.”
“That’s a strong assumption.”
“It’s an informed one.”
Luca glanced back briefly.
“You’re not worried about manipulation?”
Dominic shook his head. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because he already failed.”
The car stopped at a red light. Across the intersection, a man on a bicycle waited beside a food truck painted bright yellow and green. Someone had written the day’s menu in looping chalk on the side panel.
Dominic continued quietly. “People rarely attempt the same story twice once it has collapsed.”
The light changed, and the SUV moved forward again.
I watched Dominic for a moment. “You’re not angry,” I said.
He turned slightly toward me. “No.”
“Your reason?”
“Anger would require believing he took something from me.”
The police building came into view two blocks later. It was built of concrete and glass, holding an air of quiet authority.
The SUV turned into the parking lot and rolled to a stop beside the entrance. Stepping out first, the detective opened the rear door.
“The interview room is ready,” he said.
Luca helped guide the chair out of the vehicle. The heat wrapped around us again as we traveled the short distance between the curb and the doors.
Inside, the air conditioning hit us like an icy wave. A uniformed officer checked Dominic’s identification and glanced at me with professional curiosity before waving us through.
“Down the hall,” the detective said.
The corridor was quiet. Closed doors on either side. The detective stopped at the last door and turned the handle.
“He’s inside.”
Luca positioned the chair slightly behind Dominic as we entered the room. Henri Fontenot sat at the table with his hands folded in front of him. He looked older. The composure was still there, but it took effort to maintain it.
A camera was mounted high in the corner, and an officer stood quietly against the wall. Dominic took the chair opposite Henri. Luca positioned mine just behind Dominic’s right shoulder.
Henri looked at Dominic. “I wanted the city to know what actually happened,” he said.
The conversation had begun. Henri rested his folded hands on the table and kept his eyes on Dominic.
“I wanted the city to know what actually happened,” he said again. “Not the version that generated memorable photographs or the version memorialized on plaques. The truth of it.”
Dominic said nothing. Henri glanced at the camera in the corner.
“I wanted the program notes to celebrate a different name,” he said.
“I wanted the record to stop behaving as though the music assembled itself because you lifted your hands at the correct moment.” He took a careful breath.
“I wanted you to stand at that podium and know what it had cost someone else.”
Dominic sat with both hands resting lightly on the table. He had not removed his jacket. The line of his shoulders remained straight. He was attentive.
“I know,” he said. Luca shifted in his seat.
Henri did not move.
Dominic continued, “I drafted the acknowledgment three weeks ago.”
Henri’s eyes narrowed.
“It will go into the notes accompanying all records of the performance,” Dominic said. “Your name. Your role. The calls you made. The musicians you gathered.”
The officer leaning against the wall remained expressionless. Luca, beside me, was still.
Henri looked at Dominic for a long time. “I don’t believe you,” he said finally.
Dominic inclined his head once, as though acknowledging the response. “You are free not to,” he said. “The facts remain.”
Henri looked down at Dominic’s hands and then back at his face.
“I should have done it sooner,” Dominic said. “I should have done it twenty years ago, or nineteen, or eighteen. I have no justification for how I failed you.”
That statement landed harder than the acknowledgment.
I saw it in Henri, tightening around the eyes and a subtle flinch. He leaned back in the chair and looked slightly less arranged.
“I spent twenty years watching the city tell itself a simpler story,” he said.
“A story that required a face and found yours convenient. There were committees and retrospectives and journalists who wanted the clip and not the story of the conditions that made the clip possible. There were students quoting what happened that night back to me, assuming no involvement from me.” He exhaled through his nose.
“You became useful to the city in a way I never did.”
“That is true,” Dominic said.
Henri looked at the table between them. The bright white LED lights above us flattened the room and gave no one anywhere to hide.
“I told myself I was acting to correct and refuse a false record as historical fact,” he said.
“Why Bridget?” I asked.
Henri turned his head toward me.
“It was the letter,” he said.
Henri looked back at Dominic.
“I told myself when I shared the truth of her situation, she would understand mine,” he said. “The letter was genuine. The language was yours, and the recommendation was withdrawn. She had a right to know what had been done to her.”
Dominic’s face did not change, but one of his hands closed once and then opened again against the table.
Henri saw it and continued anyway.
“I knew what the truth would do to her. I understood exactly where it would land.” His voice remained maddeningly calm.
Luca lowered his eyes briefly. He had liked Bridget. Six years of working beside her caused him to construct a specific picture.