“Really? I would sneak out?”

“The alarms were for your protection. If you tried to leave, she had a bracelet that would notify her. If Sandra went out, she would take you with her, or she would call somebody to come over. By then she was taking time off work to look after you. You didn’t like how it made you feel.”

“I would have felt babied,” Jerry says.

“The problem is you used to sneak out the window. Alarms were going to be put on those too after Sandra found out, but then . . . well, they were scheduled to go in the same day she died. The problem now, Jerry, is that it shows a pattern of escape. The police are going to think that you killed this woman, then killed Sandra because she figured it out.”

“I . . . I couldn’t have done it. Any of it.”

“The police don’t know exactly what happened. They didn’t even find the gun. You were tested for gunshot residue and none was found, but you showered several times over the days between her death and you calling the police.”

“How long?”

“Four days,” he says. “Because your office was soundproofed, nobody heard the gunshot. The other forensics were hazy. If there was blood splatter on your shirt, it was hidden by the fact you sat in your wife’s blood for considerable stretches of time, holding her. When you did call the police, you confessed. We don’t know why you shot Sandra, Jerry, we just know that you did.”

Jerry wonders how many times over the last year this news has been broken to him, then he thinks of Eva telling him that Sandra left and was filing for divorce, not wanting to tell him the truth, wanting to spare him unnecessary pain. It hits him then as to why his daughter calls him Jerry, and not Dad. Not because he messed up the wedding, but because he killed her mother. He imagines sitting on the floor of his office, a smoking gun in one hand, holding his dead wife in the other. He imagines it the same way he’s imagined dozens of other deaths over the years, deaths that have made it between the make-believe pages of his books. What he wouldn’t give to have Sandra’s death be make-believe.

“Why can’t I remember killing her?”

“The doctors believe you’ve repressed the memory because it’s too traumatic for you. Bits of your life are going to come and go, but they believe it’s unlikely that will be one of them. Your doctor thinks you just may never remember it. I’m sorry, Jerry, I really am, and I don’t want this to sound awful, but we really need to focus on why we’re here. Tell me what you told the police.”

Jerry buries his face in his arms as he thinks about Sandra, and if it’s true, if he did hurt her, then what does anything else matter? He should pick up the lawyer’s pen and, if the door is unlocked, run among the desks threatening to stab somebody until they put him down and end this nightmare.

“Jerry, come on, we need to work on this, okay? I’m sorry about Sandra, but now we need to concentrate on you. You need to work with me if we’re to get you out of here.”

“I don’t care if I get out,” Jerry says, talking into the table.

“Well you should, because if you didn’t kill this girl, and the police believe you did, then the real killer is going to get away with it. Is that what you want?”

Jerry looks back up at him. He hadn’t thought of that. The smell of vomit seems to be getting stronger. He shifts in his seat for a better angle, trying to block the smell somehow.

“Wait here a minute,” Tim says, and he steps out of the room. He’s back thirty seconds later with a janitor. The janitor brings in a mop and bucket and takes care of the mess, and a minute later Jerry is alone again with his lawyer and the room smells a little better. “Tell me everything,” Tim says.

“Okay, okay. Let me think,” Jerry says, and he takes a few deep breaths and he tries to push thoughts of Sandra aside and focus on today. He sniffs and wipes his eyes then runs through everything. He doesn’t think anything in his story changes, but how can he possibly know? He’s the man who can’t even trust himself. He starts talking. Tim takes notes along the way.

When Jerry’s done, Tim says, “I spoke to Nurse Hamilton before I came in. She says it’s common for you to get confused between reality and fiction. She says there are days where you think things in your books are real and you’ve done them. She says you sometimes confess to killing your neighbor when you were at university. She says you were so adamant about it that they looked through old news reports and they spoke to Eva about it, but it just didn’t happen.”

“I remember her,” Jerry says. “Suzan.”

“She doesn’t exist, Jerry.”

“I know. I mean I remember her in the books.”

“And Belinda Murray? Do you remember her too?”

Jerry takes another look at Belinda Murray, but no matter how hard he tries, he can’t picture her in any context other than this photograph. She seems far less real than Suzan. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Do the police have any evidence I hurt her?” he asks. “Any DNA?”

Tim shakes his head. “Doubtful. They already have your prints and DNA after Sandra’s death. If there’d been a match in the system it would have come up eleven months ago. Could be your confession is the only lead they’ve had, that they weren’t able to get anything from the scene.”

Jerry thinks about that. He remembers Mayor asking him in the car if he thought he could outsmart the police, whether crime writers thought they could get away with murder. Is that the theory here? “I didn’t do it. That’s why they’re not finding any evidence of me at the scene.”

“Was there a history back then of you doing other things you don’t remember?”

“You mean other than killing Sandra?”

“There was a report last year of your neighbor having an obscenity spray-painted across the front of her house. Do you remember that?”

“What neighbor?”

“Mrs. Smith.”

Jerry shakes his head. He can remember the neighbor, but not what Tim is talking about. “I remember somebody pulled her flowers out.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” Tim says, “but she believes you were the one who spray-painted her house.”

“Then she was wrong.”

“There’s another report from four days later. Mrs. Smith’s car was set on fire. You don’t remember that?”

He thinks back, but there’s nothing there—no neighbor, no car, no fire. “No.”

Tim taps the pen against the table. “Okay, here’s the way I see it. Do you watch the news?”

“Sometimes.”

“And read the newspapers?”

“Sometimes.”

“Good. We’re going to get the detectives back in here now and we’re going to tell them what we think is going on.”

“Which is?”

“Which is not only do you confuse your books with the real world, but also news reports too. You have an overactive imagination. You can’t switch it off. We’re going to tell the police you have confused the news story with your own reality the same way you confuse your fiction with your reality. We’re not going to answer any questions because you have no memory of the event and can’t help with any answers, and any questions they ask at this point may only end up having you confess to a reality that never happened. We get through this, then we can get you out of here and back home.”

“Back home or back to the nursing home?”

“To the nursing home.”

He taps the photograph. “I didn’t hurt her.”

Tim puts his pen and his pad back into his briefcase. “Wait here for me, Jerry, I’m going to go and talk to the detectives alone. I’ll be back shortly.”

“They were going to bring me a gin and tonic,” Jerry says.

“What?”

“The detective asked if I wanted a drink. He said he’d get me one right away.”

“Okay, Jerry. Wait here and let me see what I can do,” he says, and then he slips out the door and once again Jerry is left waiting in the interrogation room, thirsty and all alone.