“Oh, stop.”
“Fourth. Fifth. Sixth. Eighth. Tuesday the ninth you were there for twenty-two minutes. I have the timestamps.”
Her eyes moved sideways in the way eyes move when someone is recalibrating.
“June eleventh—”
“Stop,” she said. Not aggressively. Something quieter.
I stopped.
“On the ninth,” I said, “Ben told me his teacher had asked why his name kept appearing on the late register. He asked me if he was going to get in trouble.”
Denise said nothing.
“And you told me I’d survive.”
The officer was very carefully not making eye contact with anyone.
Denise’s jaw worked briefly. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“You shouldn’t have parked there.”
“I needed somewhere to put the car in the mornings.” Her voice had shifted register, slightly. The performance had gone out of it. “My husband leaves early and maneuvering around his car is difficult.”
Ezoic
I looked past her at her driveway.
