Audrey looked away and the tears ran to her jaw and from there fell to her collarbone. She wiped her face with the palm of her good hand and turned back to Moran. He wasn’t finished with his questions, and she waited for the next one. He’d removed his jacket—they both had—and when he stepped up to the side of the bed she saw the sheen of sweat on his forehead.
“I was hoping you could tell me more about those two boys, Audrey. From the gas station.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Did you get a good look at them?”
“It was dark back there, and they were both wearing caps with, you know, bills, so their faces were dark.”
“Were they black?”
“Their faces?”
“Were they African American.”
“No, they were white boys. They smelled like car engines and beer. And cigarettes.”
“How old were they?”
“I don’t know. Twentysomething.”
“Names?”
Audrey shook her head. Then, as she remembered it, she said, “Bud.”
“Bud?”
“The one Caroline sprayed, the one on the ground—the other one called him Bud.”
“As in the name Bud?” said Moran. “Or ‘bud’ as in ‘buddy’?”
She thought about that. “I thought it was his name. But now I’m not sure.”
Moran flipped open his notebook and wrote it down. The notebook was small and black and just like the one her father had used. “And the other boy?”
“I never heard his name.”
“Did you get their license plate?”
“No, sir.”
“Did you see what they were driving?”
“No, sir.”
“You didn’t see them follow you?”
“No, sir.”
“Did you see who came up behind you at the top of the bank—who gave your car a bump?”
“It wasn’t my car.”
“Caroline’s car then. Was it those boys?”
“I couldn’t see who was driving. The headlights were in our eyes.”
Moran nodded. “You said, earlier, that Caroline pepper-sprayed those boys pretty good. They must’ve been mad as heck.”
“So was Caroline.”
“Do you think they were in any shape to drive?”
“I don’t know, Sheriff. We didn’t stick around to find out.”
Moran looked at her father, as if out of some old habit, but quickly turned back to her. “Did you see the vehicle that came up behind you, what kind of vehicle it was?”
“The lights were real high, and I thought maybe it was some kind of truck.” Then she remembered something she’d forgotten, something she’d seen as Caroline’s car spun around and around on the ice.
“It was a truck, Sheriff. I saw it from the river, when we were spinning around, before the ice broke. It was just sitting up there. And the next time I looked up, when I was lying on the ice, it was gone.”
“Did you see what kind of truck it was?”
“What kind of truck?”
“Yes.”
“Like a Chevy or a Ford or whatever?”
“Yes.”
“I have no idea. Plus I was, like, spinning around on a frozen river.”
“Could you see the color?”
“No, sir.”
“Was it new-looking or old?”
“I don’t know. It was just a truck, Sheriff.”
“Audrey,” said her father gently. “The sheriff is only trying to help us here.”
“I know he is. What did I say?”
Moran stood looking at her.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“I’m sorry to badger you, Audrey. I know you must be upset about the accident. And about your friend. But I have to tell those folks down in Georgia what happened up here. I have to tell them what happened to their daughter. That truck that bumped you, that sent you and Caroline down the bank—do you have any reason to think it was intentional? That whoever was driving it meant to do you harm?”
“No, sir. Only he didn’t do anything to help us either, did he. Or she.”
She drank more water. Moran waiting, watching her. Her arm under the cast was throbbing like a heart.
“I just have to ask you one more question and then I’ll get out of your hair,” he said, and she nodded. “If you saw those boys again, either one, together or separate, do you think you’d recognize them?”
She thought about that. She tried to piece them together from her memory but it was like trying to climb onto the broken ice, and all she found of the two boys were hands and shadows and caps and clouds of breath that stank of beer. She found the feel of his hand over her mouth and the oily smell of the hand and she found the muscles of his leg as he wedged it between hers.
But then she saw the scene from another vantage too: she saw the boy pressing her against the wall with his hand over her mouth and she saw his leg forced between hers and she saw him holding her by her right wrist and she saw the scratches that ran under his eye from ear to nose, weirdly small lines like a bar of sheet music and the dark little drops of blood that were the notes. And she saw the second boy’s face clearly when he turned, the look in his eyes as he tried to understand what she was pointing at him, and she saw the first boy’s face again as he raised his arms to block the burst of pepper spray. She saw all this as clearly as anything she’d seen with her own eyes and she knew she was seeing the scene through her friend’s eyes, through Caroline’s eyes, and she knew how crazy that was and yet she knew it was true just the same and she knew she could never say it out loud to Moran, or even to her father. Not because they could never use it against the boys—they couldn’t—and not because they would never believe it—they wouldn’t—but because to say it out loud would be to lose it, the realness of it, forever.
“I think I’d know them, Sheriff,” she said. “I’m pretty sure I would.”
Moran nodded. “That’s good, Audrey. That’s real good. You rest now and take care of that arm, you hear?” He seemed about to pat her on the knee but thought better of it. Turned instead to her father and said, “Care for one last smoke, Tom?” and her father looked at her and she said without saying it, Go, and he gave her hand a squeeze and both men collected their jackets from the chair and left her alone in the room with her crazy thoughts and the beating of her arm under the cast.
When he returned some minutes later her father smelled of smoke and the outdoors, but an outdoors that was much later in the day and colder, although when she thought about it she did not think a person could know the time and temperature of the day by its smells on a man’s clothes, and the moment she thought that, the smells lost their meaning and her certainty was gone.
He stood at her bedside but seemed far away. His eyes a faint blue down in their shadows.
“What did he want to talk to you about?” she said.
“I think he just wanted to let me know he had it under control. So I could rest easy, and stay with you.”
“So you wouldn’t get any ideas about going down there yourself and getting all sheriffy.”
He smiled. “Maybe.”
She watched him. “You weren’t very nice to him.”
“I wasn’t?”
She just looked at him, and he shrugged.
“I guess I didn’t care to see him in my daughter’s hospital room.”
“Him—?”
“Any lawman.” He placed a hand on her wrist and she flinched, and he removed his hand again. “I’m sorry—”
“It’s OK. It’s just—your hand is so cold.”
He cupped his hands and blew into them. “I can’t ever seem to get them warm anymore. It’s like they’re dunked in ice water all day long. Although I guess you’d know more about that than I would.” His smile was uncertain and she reached for his hand.