Mayor doesn’t answer. Jerry can’t tell if he’s scored a point or if Mayor’s just thinking about his next question. Then it comes. “Let me ask you something else,” Mayor says, and his tone is the same, just casually shooting the breeze. “You ever think that a crime writer could outsmart the police? You ever think to yourself if anybody could kill somebody and get away with it, it would be you?”

He’s been asked that before as well. People always tend to think crime writers could get away with murder. When he doesn’t answer, Mayor carries on.

“A guy like you, I bet you think you could do it, huh? I bet you think you could contaminate a crime scene in a way so nobody would even know you were there.”

Jerry doesn’t say anything.

“Your characters ever cover up crime scenes?” Mayor asks.

“Sometimes.”

“Sometimes,” Mayor says. “So how would you go about it? How would one of your characters go about it?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know. Come on, Grey, you’re the writer here. Would you wipe away the fingerprints?”

“I guess.”

“Of course you would. That’s one-oh-one stuff. What else? You’d use bleach, right? You’d pour bleach all over the body?”

“Something like that.”

“Maybe set fire to the place?”

“Something like that.”

“Hide the body somewhere?”

“Maybe.”

“All the books you’ve written, all the research, all the movies you’ve watched—I bet you have quite a knowledge of police forensics.”

Jerry says nothing.

“So tell me, what would it take?” Mayor asks. “What would it take, do you think, to get away with murder?”

Instead of answering, Jerry stares at the logging truck, willing the logs to fall off the back and . . . and what? He doesn’t know. Something. Not crush their car, but something.

“See, this girl we were asking you about earlier, Belinda Murray,” Mayor says, “her murder is still unsolved. So somebody pretty clever got away with it, don’t you think?”

“Maybe they were just lucky,” Jerry says.

“You ever have characters who commit a crime and then can’t remember doing it?”

“I don’t want to talk anymore,” Jerry tells him. It’s what Nurse Hamilton said to do—say nothing. He’s already said too much as it is.

“Come on, we’re just getting warmed up here.”

“Making barbecue talk,” Jerry says, and he knows he shouldn’t even have said that. But there is something inside him that knows if he can just talk to these people, if he can get them to relate to him and see he’s not a bad person, then all of this can get cleared up. They’ll know he’s not a killer.

“Exactly. Barbecue talk. I like that. You should use that in one of your books,” Mayor says. “Let’s say you’ve got a character who says he can’t remember killing somebody. How does that go?” he asks, and when Jerry doesn’t answer, Mayor answers for him. “They’re usually lying, right?”

“I didn’t kill that girl,” Jerry says.

“But two days ago you said you did.”

“I don’t remember saying that.”

“Let me ask you this,” Mayor says.

“No more questions.”

“Last one,” Mayor says. “If you had killed her, would you know? Would you feel it? I don’t mean remember it, but feel it . . . in your bones somehow?”

Jerry thinks about it, and it doesn’t take long to come up with an answer. “Of course I would. I might not remember it, but I would know it, and that’s how I know I didn’t hurt that woman.”

Mayor twists around a little further. There’s a look on his face, something between a smirk and a smile. “That’s interesting. Really interesting. You want to know why?”

“You said no more questions.”

“But you’re a curious guy, right? All authors must be. So let’s carry on, for the sake of learning. You ever killed anybody, Jerry? I don’t mean in the books, I mean in real life.”

Jerry doesn’t answer.

“I’ll take that as a no, because you’d remember it, right? And if you didn’t remember, you’d feel it in your bones.”

“I don’t want to talk anymore until my lawyer arrives.”

“What about your wife?” Mayor asks.

“I’ll wait until she arrives too,” Jerry says.

Mayor shakes his head. “That’s not what I mean. I mean do you remember killing your wife?”

The question is confusing, and makes Jerry feel like he’s just missed part of the conversation. Did he zone out? Is his memory retreating? Then he gets it. “You’re talking about one of my books.”

“No, Jerry, in real life.”

Jerry shakes his head. “Of course not. How could I? She’s still alive.”

“She’s dead, Jerry,” Mayor says. “You killed her.”

“Don’t say that.”

“You shot her.”

“I said don’t say that.”

“Why not? It’s true.”

“That’s not funny,” Jerry says, and it’s not funny, not funny, not funny, and it’s not true either, not true, and the silt is shifting, it’s shifting, and it can’t be true because he doesn’t even own a gun, and it’s like he’s been saying—he would feel it.

“It was almost a year ago. You murdered your own wife,” Mayor says, that smug look on his face, that all-knowing, I’m smarter than you look that is making Jerry start to shake with anger. If he did own a gun, and if he had it on him, he would shoot Mayor for saying what he’s saying. “You know you did,” Mayor says, carrying on, ignoring his partner who has taken his eyes off the road to frown at him. “After all, you would feel it, right? That’s what you’re saying. That’s what I would call a plot hole, Jerry. You can’t say you didn’t kill Belinda Murray because you’d have felt it if you did, then say you can’t remember shooting your wife when we know for a fact that you did.”

“My wife isn’t dead.”

“Dennis . . .” his partner says.

“What? It’s true,” Mayor says, looking at his partner before focusing his attention back on Jerry. “She’s dead thanks to you, Jerry. That’s why you’re in a nursing home. If it’d been up to me, I’d have put you in jail, but you were deemed non compos mentis.”

“Don’t say that,” he says, and he starts slapping the sides of his face, gently, not enough to hurt, not in the beginning, then just a little harder, and a little harder again. “She’s not dead, she’s not dead,” he says, and he knows that right now he must look like the very mental patient they think he’s been pretending to be, but he doesn’t care.

“I think that’s enough, Mayor,” Chris says.

“Sandra isn’t dead,” Jerry says, still slapping himself.

“You shot her,” Mayor says, speaking louder to be heard over Jerry, and he points his top two fingers at Jerry and cocks his thumb back, turning his hand into a gun. He reaches into the backseat and points it to within an inch of Jerry’s chest. “Bang. Right in the heart.”

“Take that back! You take that back!”

“Bang.”

His name is Jerry Henry Grey Cutter and he is an author and he makes things up and he’s making this up. This isn’t real. These people aren’t real.

“Bang,” Mayor says.

Jerry grabs that finger gun and twists the barrel backwards until both of the fingers snap. Mayor starts to yell, and Jerry lets go and grabs two fistfuls of Mayor’s hair and start pulling.

“Get off me, you crazy prick,” Mayor screams, and buries the fingers of his good hand into Jerry’s forearms, but Jerry keeps a tight hold, all while Chris swerves the car to the side of the road and brings it to a stop.

“My wife isn’t dead,” Jerry says, and the thought of it is overwhelming. “Say she isn’t dead! Say it!”

Chris leans over and tries to get Jerry to let go, then Mayor lashes out with a fist and gets Jerry in the side of the face. The blow pushes him back into his seat, but a handful of Mayor’s hair goes with him.

“You crazy son of a bitch,” Mayor says, and he starts to lean over to get another shot in when his partner pulls him back.

“Don’t,” Chris says.

He doesn’t need to say it again. Mayor stops coming for him, and instead reaches to the fresh bald spot where there are patches of blood too. “You asshole,” he says, then starts cradling his broken fingers.