Chapter Nineteen Nate
Chapter Nineteen
Nate
The drive to the police station feels like a slow ride to hell.
All the comments on social media have pushed me over the edge, into a dark pit of terror. I shouldn’t have stayed up so late scrolling. Every comment was like a knife blade against my throat. I felt sick reading it, but I couldn’t stop. I kept scrolling and scrolling . . .
Now I’m convinced that the entire world has turned against me. My wife is in a coma, and there’s no one to blame but me.
It’s always the husband.
He’s one of those heartless celebrity chefs. Too ambitious, probably a sociopath.
My cousin knows one of the servers at his restaurant. Apparently, they’ve been struggling financially so he was probably after the insurance money.
I start to have heart palpitations. How would one of my servers know about our money troubles? Nobody ever went without a paycheck.
In the back seat of the officers’ car, I’m sweating profusely.
I wipe the pads of my fingers across my forehead and try to breathe calmly.
The last thing I need is for them to look over their shoulders and see me in a panic.
I need to be cool. I did nothing wrong. I love my wife.
I’d never do such a thing. I’m a good person.
My family means more to me than my restaurant.
I’d give it up in a heartbeat to have Sienna wake up and be okay.
I repeat those words over and over in my head, because that’s what they’re going to ask when we get to the station. And this is what they’ll need to hear from me.
We pull into the parking lot, and LaPierre makes small talk about the weather and how the storm blew the shingles off the station roof.
“If they don’t replace that roof soon, we’ll need buckets next time it rains.”
“It was a bad storm,” I reply, like an idiot, because I’m flustered.
Inspector Lawson leads the way up the steps and says nothing. He looks cranky, and I wonder if this is the start of a good-cop-bad-cop interview. I’m not stupid. I come from a long line of legal professionals, and I attended law school myself, however briefly.
LaPierre holds the door open, and I’m escorted to an interrogation room with double-sided mirrors and a table with two chairs on opposite sides. I stop just inside the doorway.
“Do I need a lawyer for this?”
“That’s totally up to you,” LaPierre replies in a friendly manner, “if you think you need one.”
He’s challenging me. He wants to see if I’m worried about what might come out when I start talking about the tragedy on the rocks.
“We just want to hear what happened from you,” LaPierre adds, “because most of those internet trolls weren’t there.
They’re just speculating, and to them, this might as well be another true crime Netflix show.
” He gestures for me to take a seat at the table.
“I want you to know that we recognize that, and we’re here to help you. ”
That’s bull crap, and he knows that I know it. Nevertheless, I remain calm and cool on the outside while my mind screams in terror.
“I appreciate that.” I take a seat.
LaPierre points at a camera in the corner of the room and lets me know that this discussion is being recorded.
He then asks me what happened at Peggy’s Cove.
I tell him everything, from the moment Sienna and I left the house to when we argued on the rocks and a wave came out of nowhere and swept Sienna into the ocean.
“That must’ve been frightening.”
“It was,” I reply. “I didn’t know what to do. Have you ever been to Peggy’s Cove? Have you seen the power of those waves when they hit the rocks?”
“I have,” LaPierre replies. “There’s no way I would jump in to rescue anyone. We’d both end up dead.”
I stare at him for a few seconds. Grateful. Frozen. “Thanks for saying that. I know, rationally . . . that it wasn’t possible to rescue her, but I still feel guilty about it. For not saving her.”
He nods and writes something in his notebook. My sense of relief evaporates.
“What did you do after you saw her fall into the water?”
“She didn’t fall,” I correct him. “A wave knocked her off her feet.”
I clear my throat as I recount every horrendous second—my frantic searching of the waves, how I ran for help. The young couple I encountered, and the guy performing chest compressions, the other pinching her nose and blowing in her mouth. The ambulance finally arriving.
I wipe sweat from my brow while LaPierre writes certain things down.
After all that, I’m in a fragile state. He gives me a moment to recover. We sit in silence for what feels like an eternity. I can’t be sure how long because I’m shredded.
“Let’s move on,” he says. “There’s been talk about your restaurant having financial troubles. Is this true?”
I’m hit with a sudden wave of nausea. Serious queasiness. I glance around for a trash can in case I need to throw up.
“Are you okay?” LaPierre asks.
“Yes.” I swallow hard to keep the bile from coming up. “I just hate people knowing about that.”
“Really? It’s worse than people thinking you tried to murder your wife?”
It’s a gut punch but also a fair question that fills me with self-loathing. “I’m not feeling so well. I haven’t eaten since seven a.m.,” I explain.
“Want a cookie or something? We have food in the lunchroom.”
I consider it, but the thought of chewing and swallowing makes my insides curdle. “I’ll just stick with water.”
LaPierre looks down at his notes. “Let’s continue. I want to get through this so you can get back to your family.” He flips a page. “So . . . you didn’t answer the question about your restaurant. Have you had money troubles? And was your wife aware?”
“Of course she was aware. We had good communication about the business.”
“And how did she feel about it?”
“Not great. She thought I worked too much.”
His eyes lift from his notes. “Was she worried that you might bankrupt the family?”
The question sets me on edge because that’s exactly how Sienna had phrased it. “Yes, she was worried.”
“Did you ever ask her for money?”
My heart races faster. “Yes.”
“But she didn’t want to give you any more money. Correct?”
I feel impaled by his accusing stare, and I wonder where he’s gleaned this information. Not from Facebook. No one knew anything about my private conversations with Sienna, so it must have been Becky. She and Sienna told each other everything.
Now that I think about it, Becky was probably the one who convinced Sienna to talk to a lawyer in the first place. Those two were like peas in a pod after Jacob died. I’ve witnessed it. They have a bond I could never quite compete with.
I wish suddenly that I’d insisted on having a lawyer present for this.
“It sounds like you’ve already done some investigating,” I say.
LaPierre sits back. “Just answer the question.”
I slowly exhale. “She didn’t want to pour any more money into the restaurant.”
“And how did you feel about that?”
My fingers drum against my thigh, quick and restless. “I think this is the moment when I ask to call my lawyer, because it’s starting to sound like I’m being treated as a suspect.”
LaPierre tosses his pen onto the file in front of him. “Fine. Who’s your lawyer? I’ll give him or her a call. In the meantime, I’ll get you some food from Tim Hortons. What would you like?”
I still don’t feel like eating, but I don’t want to pass out. “Coffee and a bagel.”
“What do you take in your coffee?”
“Just black.”
He picks up his pen. “The name of your lawyer?”
God help me. My lawyer is a tax attorney who handles my business and personal real estate issues. He’s not the sort of lawyer I need today. What I need is a courtroom bulldog. My father would be perfect, but there’s no way I’m calling him. So I’ll take the next best thing.
“Arthur Palmer at Palmer and Associates.”
LaPierre’s eyes lift. “I’ve dealt with the Palmers. Are you related?”
“Arthur’s my brother.”
LaPierre’s forehead creases over drawn brows. “That must make Bill Palmer your father.”
“It does.”
LaPierre shakes his head and laughs softly as he writes that down in the file. “Perfect. Just my luck.”
It’s been years since I’ve spoken to my father. The last time we stood face-to-face was at my twenty-fifth birthday party, when I announced I was quitting law school.
My mother has secretly kept in touch. Her visits began when she came to the hospital after Amanda was born, and she started popping by the house regularly from that day forward.
The children came to know and love her, but a few years back, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
Around the same time, Dad filed for divorce, but he came out smelling like roses when he milked the sympathy from his colleagues and set her up in a posh nursing home.
He then sold the house in St. Margaret’s Bay and bought another in the city, overlooking the yacht club on the Northwest Arm.
Within a year, his young and beautiful fiancée moved in.
I’m not sure if he ever visits my mother in the home.
I highly doubt it because he has a low tolerance for anything less than perfection.
Everything around him must serve to impress.
Mom succeeded in that department for many years, until she didn’t.
Then she, like me, was dispensed with, and along came wife number two.
I’m on my feet and pacing when LaPierre walks into the interrogation room with a large Tim Hortons coffee cup and a brown paper bag. “Here you go.” He leaves my lunch on the table. “I’ll be back shortly.”
By this time, I’m famished, so I sit down to eat and try to be grateful for this moment alone, which gives me time to think about Sienna in surgery.
I’ve been praying that she’ll come out of it okay.
I’ve also prayed for Amanda and Connor—that they’ll find the strength they need to get through this ordeal, especially if I get charged with attempted murder.
I wonder if anyone is praying for me today. Probably not. As far as the outside world is concerned, I should rot in jail for the rest of my life, because that’s what killers deserve.
For those who aren’t convinced that I tried to push my wife to her death, I am, at the very least, a failure as a husband, a father, and an entrepreneur.
With that thought, I bite into the toasted bagel and imagine my father following all this on the local news. I wonder how he’s taking it. He’s probably saying “I told you so” to his new wife.
The image of him gloating about being right makes me want to ram my fist into a wall.
But I can’t do that. Not here. There’s a camera recording my every move, and I know how this works. I have to look like an innocent man without any violent tendencies.
The door opens again. I set down my coffee and look up.
It’s Arthur. My brother. The door closes behind him, and we stare at each other.
I can’t speak or move because I’m in such a volatile emotional state.
I’m afraid I’ll fall to pieces and cry like a baby.
Maybe I should. Maybe that would look good on the recording.
I’d be perceived as a man who is distraught after the near death of his wife. Which is what I am. Distraught.
Why can’t I just let it show? Why must I overthink it?
I suppose I know the answer. I don’t want to cry in front of Arthur because he’s too much like Dad.