them from inside.
“What’s his name?” And, as if Phil had somehow missed it, Cortez
repeated the question.
Phil couldn’t help it. He laughed. Not
because there was anything even remotely funny about the situation
but because it was so incredibly absurd no other reaction seemed
appropriate. But then the mirth abated, replaced by frustration and
anger. He got right up in Cortez’s face. The big man didn’t
flinch.
“ I don’t fucking know the kid’s name. Why
can’t you people get that through your heads? How would I know it? Until today I’d
never seen him before in my life . I told you both that and yet here he is
and here we are with everyone treating me like I’m lying. This is
absolutely insane.”
“ Calm down.”
“ No. You know what? I won’t calm down. Would
you calm down if some batshit crazy person tried to kill you right
before she killed herself but before all that… before she did that, she stashed her
fucking child in
your house? And then, when you tell the cops what happened, they
decide not to believe you even though you’re telling them the
truth. Tell me, please, I’m dying to know: just how fucking calm
would you be in
that situation?”
Still Cortez looked the picture of
steely calm. He took a moment to wipe some of Phil’s spittle from
his face and then folded his arms, his eyes like two pieces of
flint.
“ You need to listen very
carefully to me.”
“ Do I?”
“ Don’t be a smartass, and
don’t talk. Despite what you think, we’re trying to help you
here.”
“ And how’s that exactly?
Because it sure doesn’t feel like it.”
“ I said don’t
talk.”
“ Would you listen if I
did?”
A curious thing happened then. Cortez
took a deep breath and when he released it, some of the latent
hostility in him seemed to depart with it.
“ I’m a family man too,
Pendleton. Been married three times and have four kids. The two
kids from the first marriage hate the two from the second and
vice-versa like it’s some kind of competition. The eldest just
turned seventeen and thinks I’m the biggest asshole on the planet.
She hangs around with this emo kid who fancies himself a poet or
some shit. The alimony is sucking me dry, and my first ex-wife
should be classified as a stalker.”
“ Is there some reason you’re
telling me this?”
“ I’m telling you this
because I’m on my third marriage, easily the sanest and most normal
of the three and still, still there are days when I wake up and think about
walking out the door and just keep walking until I run out of road.
I love my wife and my kids, but sometimes I regret ever having
them, which is an awful thing to admit to another
person.”
“ So why admit it at
all?”
“ So you get that what you’re
going through is perfectly normal. Maybe not reasonable and
definitely not healthy, but normal all the same.”
“ And what is it you think
I’m going through?”
“ In a word:
denial.”
Phil clenched his fists.
“Denial of what? ”
Cortez attempted to put a hand on
Phil’s shoulder. He shrugged it off, the motion sending lances of
fiery pain through his chest, and moved a step back.
The detective continued, unfazed.
“Look, I don’t know the full extent of what you’re going through
here, or what might have happened to you in the accident, but when
all is said and done, it’s not about you, it’s about protecting a
child.”
Phil scoffed. “You can start
protecting him by getting him back where he belongs.”
“ See, that’s just it. We
checked and according to the records, this is where he belongs.”
“ Then your records are
mistaken. I don’t have any children.” A thought occurred to him
through the panic. “So, wait: if you already know all there is to
know about the child, why did you ask me his name?”
Cortez shrugged. “Marsh’s idea. She
thought if we caught you off-guard maybe you’d answer before you
caught yourself. We know the kid’s name.”
Phil swallowed. “Well