Chapter 67: Theo
Marisol had gone at 5:30. There was nobody in that office but me.
He is six foot five. I am five foot six and I had to move my head, not my eyes.
Two hundred and fifty pounds at least, maybe more. A grey work jacket with a produce company's name on the chest and a name tape that said T. OKORO.
Steel-toe boots. Wet at the toes.
He stood in the doorway with the door open behind him and the closer trying to pull it shut against his back.
He said, “Cass Mercer.”
Not a question. He was checking a fact.
I said, “Yes.”
He came in and let the door go and it took its four seconds.
He walked to the counter. Six steps.
He was holding the six envelopes in his left hand with a rubber band around them, and his right thumb was working at the rubber band, pushing it, letting it go, pushing it.
He was shaking. Not his voice. His hands, and one shoulder.
I have seen a lot of men be angry in small rooms. That is not what this was.
He put the envelopes down on the counter.
He did not throw them. He brought his hand down flat and fast and the rubber band came off and they went across the laminate and three of them slid off the far edge and onto the floor by my feet.
I did not pick them up. Not while he was standing there.
He said, “I'm not here for you.”
I said, “All right.”
He said, “I got your letter on Tuesday. I read it in the parking lot at work and then I sat in my car for forty minutes.”
He said, “Six years. You had six years.”
I said, “Yes.”
He said, “Don't ever write to me again.”
I said, “I won't.”
That was not what he wanted. He wanted an argument and I did not have one.
He put both hands on the counter and leaned on it and the counter is bolted down but it moved.
He said, “Say it.”
I said, “Say what.”
He said, “Say what you did. Out loud. To me. Not on a piece of paper.”
And here is the place where I could have made everything easier for both of us, and I did not, and I have never once regretted it.
I said, “I signed a confession to a fatal crash. I went to prison for six years. I have paid restitution every month since I got out.”
He said, “That's not what I asked.”
I said, “I know.”
He said, “Say you killed my mother.”
I said, “I'm not going to say that.”
He stood up off the counter.
I said, “I will not lie to you. You have had enough of that from people in offices.”
He was very quiet for about three seconds and I want to be honest that I did not know what was going to happen in those three seconds.
Then he said, “You're going to stand there and tell me you didn't do it.”
I said, “No. I'm not going to tell you anything about me at all.”
I said, “I told you in the letter there was one thing in the file. That's what I have. Do you want it or not.”
He said, “Say it, then.”
So I said it, standing up, without any paper in my hand, because I have known it by heart since the fourteenth of March.
I said, “Your mother was not alone.”
Nothing moved in his face.
I said, “There's a woman named Sylvia Reyes. She was sixty-two. She lives at Twelve Ardmore Terrace, about four hundred yards from where it happened.”
I said, “She heard it from her front room. She came out in a bathrobe and boots.”
I said, “She got there before any police or ambulance. She stayed with your mother on the shoulder of that road and she held her hand and she talked to her. It's nine minutes in the log. Nine minutes.”
I said, “It's page two hundred and seven of my case file. Second supplemental narrative, Exhibit ten, taken by a Trooper Ruiz at forty-two minutes past midnight.”
He did not move for a long time.
Then he said, “They told us she was alone.”
I said, “I know. They told me that too.”
He said, “Who's they.”
I said, “I don't know yet.”
He looked at the floor, where three of his own envelopes were lying by my shoe.
Then he turned around and walked out and the door took its four seconds behind him.
He did not say he would come back. He did not say anything about coming back.
But he left all six letters in my office.
A man who keeps a ledger does not walk off and leave the ledger.