Death of an American Beauty by Mariah Fredericks

Author:Mariah Fredericks
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

* * *

At the precinct, my uncle was questioned for some time. Then I was allowed to see him. A tired officer held the door open to the room where he was being held. As he did, I realized my first memory of this country was a policeman’s face.

Who is this? Do you know this man?

I could remember it clearly, even though I was only three. I was shown an envelope, the one that was pinned to my dress. A man wearing a blue coat pointed to writing in the corner. It was the swooping curly letters I did not yet know how to read. But the question felt important.

He said it again. “Who is this?”

I shook my head, my way of saying I couldn’t read the words. Another man in a blue coat said, “Come on, Charlie, she can’t read that.”

The first man looked at the envelope. “The Reverend Tewin Prescott. Who is that, sweetheart?”

I knew my name was Prescott. Hope must have shown in my face, because the man asked, “A relative? Your father maybe?”

I shook my head immediately; my father was gone, but I had the strong feeling that if I gave some other man that title, his place would be taken and he would not be able to come back. Names seemed to matter, though, so I said, “I’m Jane.”

“Jane Prescott.” I nodded, and the policeman looked to his partner. “So, he’s family. Have you met this man, Jane? Do you know him?”

Now as I sit opposite my uncle, I remember that night. The questions.

Who is this man? Do I know him?

I said, “Tell me that Berthe will say you were at the refuge all evening. That after you spoke with Carrie, you went back inside and you stayed there.”

“I cannot tell you that.”

“Then you must tell the police where you went.”

“I disagree.”

I realized I was headed into an argument over the nature of coercion. So I switched to “If you do not tell the police where you were, and have someone else who can say that your account is true, it will be dangerous.”

“And how will it be … dangerous?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean.”

A raised eyebrow told me I was close to the line of propriety. “I am not pretending. I am asking for your definition of the term.”

“It will be dangerous,” I said through gritted teeth, “because if you cannot prove you were not in the alley where poor Sadie was killed or that you were at the refuge when Carrie Biel was killed, people will think it possible that you killed them.”

“That is an absurd thing to think,” he said.

“Of course it is. But people think absurd things all the time. People think electricity is Satan’s fire.”

“And do you need me to point out that we cannot be ruled by absurdities?”

“It is not being ruled to give an account of your whereabouts.”

“It is if I do not wish to do so.”

“And the consequences of refusing? Can you put those off so easily, too?”

I waited, giving him a chance to think of the refuge without him.

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