A public defender came by at some point and informed Diane her best bet was to cop a plea, cooperate with investigators and inform on any other metanormals she was aware of.
Diane asked the lawyer when she was going to be able to see her son again.
The lawyer didn't know when. Or if.
Diane spent the following just-shy-of-a-day crying, and did a real poor job of trying to kill herself by swallowing a spoon that came with her next meal. The spoon got removed.
Diane got removed to a hospital ward, strapped down and put on meds.
Her mind floated. Vegas. I do. Happiest day of her life. C-sections hurt like hell. Do it again. She'd do it all again. Even the spoon down the throat.
Raddatz and panama and Soledad came by at some point and informed Diane they were from DMI and they had questions for her. They had questions and she, for her sake, better hope they liked her answers.
And in the private visitation room in the county jail Diane said to the three cops:
"I think we were… it must have been about two years we were dating. Even though that was back in the Age of Heroes I think he, I think Anson was scared. I think he thought I wouldn't.
In the room were a table and four chairs. Raddatz and Diane were the only ones who sat.
Diane looked too empty of strength to do anything but sit. Raddatz had been through enough interrogations to know they could go for hours. Might as well take a load off early.
Soledad was on her feet. Sitting made her feel relaxed. She'd gotten hip even in the most innocuous of situations- especially in the situations that seemed to hold the least amount of peril-being chill could get you killed.
Panama was on his feet because it allowed him to slink around the room, edge the perp up by his ever-shifting presence. Tough-Guy Cop one-oh-one. And pointless. Diane, looking like she'd been poured into her chair, had all the edges worn from her. To Soledad, Panama going to one wall of the room then crossing to lean on another came off like a monkey making its way around a cage.
Diane, finishing her thought: "It was so silly the way I found out. Saturday on an afternoon. He was making lunch, cutting meat. The knife slipped, ran across his fingers. I gave out this yelp, but when I went to Anson… the blade of the knife was bent. Not a scratch on his hand. I remember holding his hand. I remember, no matter what I had seen, his flesh felt normal to me. I knew regardless what he was, to me he was, all he was, was just a man. Just a man I loved."
From his spot behind Diane, Panama: "I think you misunderstood the question. We didn't ask about your love life. We asked if you knew what happened to your husband."
"He's dead." She was fiat with that. Beyond acceptance. It didn't matter. Nothing did. The fact that her husband wasn't around to share her life made life not matter.
Without him, without their son, she didn't have a life. They were all, in a way, dead together.
To herself Diane wondered if she could get another spoon. Diane wondered if she could get another spoon or a sharpened comb or maybe she should just take her bedding and… then they really could be dead together.
But that, that was the thing. They weren't really dead together. Their son was alive. Somewhere. He was being processed by some municipal agency. He was at some location being given all the perfunctory love and attention a minor could get from a civil servant who was just trying to rack enough hours to make retirement worthwhile.
Diane was going to leave him to that? She was going to leave their son to the city? The moralists and the demagogues could label her an unfit parent. They could assail her for breaking the law. The law. Yeah, she broke it. She broke it in favor of a promise made before God. But only a truly unfit parent would abandon their child to a system that did not recognize love. That legislated, that institutionalized bigotry. A system that gave birth to, and moved to the sway of, the euphemized organisms of hatred. The White Citizens Council. The Moral Majority. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Focus on the Family.
So in the room, sitting in the chair, wearing her county lockup jumper of bright, bright orange, Diane gave herself strength with a thought, with a mission: Keep it together. For our son, keep it together. And get him back.
"Do you have any idea how?" Raddatz asked.
"What?" Diane had lost track of the questioning.
Raddatz reminded himself the flightiness of interviewees is the reason he'd taken a seat. This shit could go on for hours. "How your husband died; do you know how?"
"You told me. The police did. The other ones. They told me he was dead, and that's all. How would I know anything more?"
"You're good at keeping secrets." Panama, from a corner of the room different than the one he'd most recently occupied. "You kept it secret your husband was a freak."
A scoffing sound from Diane. A pitying sound.
"Kept that a secret, maybe you're keeping other secrets."
"Why did you file a missing person report." Soledad. "You knew if he was found, your husband could be exposed. You could be."
"I was worried about him."
Panama: "Guy's bulletproof, and you're worried about him?"
Soledad, to Panama as he wandered: "Only four corners in the room. How about you pick one?"
The look from Raddatz to Soledad: Be cool. Panama kept on. "Something must've given you concern."
Diane asked: "You're not married, are you?" Soledad laughed.
"He's, he was my husband. I don't need any other reason to be concerned about him."
"You'd have reason to be concerned if he was involved in-"
"Where is our son?" "Don't worry abou-"
Raddatz cut off Panama with: "Your son is in protective custody."
"Being taken from his mother, he's protected how?"
"You go for a ride in the car, you don't put your kid in a child seat"-Panama kept up a stroll as he talked, did the walking just to be contrary to Soledad-"you get pulled over, the state can take your kid 'cause you kind of suck as a parent."
"I am not a bad-"
"You leave a kid around a freak-"
"Stop calling him a-"
"You leave a kid around a goddamn freak, what do you-" Diane was crying.
Soledad's cane was covered with blood, as was one wall of the room. Panama's head was literally split open. Really, really, it was more cracked open, or crushed but In a way that left a separation in his skull. Soledad was ready to run a marathon. Compete an entire triathlon. She had that much energy. That much power. Killing
Panama had been that invigorating. As much violence as she had delivered in a limited lifetime, this violence was positively delicious. In her head it was.
In the room where she and Raddatz were, where Diane was crying and Panama was leaning against yet another wall, all the more violence Soledad would allow herself was to say:
"She's a mother. Leave her alone."
"I don't care if she's-"
The sound of her flesh twisting up around the cane in her grip, her own blood ripping through her veins. Soledad was going hypersensitive again. Death was coming.
"Take a walk." Raddatz giving orders to Panama.
Even from Raddatz, Panama didn't take orders well. "What do I need to-"
"Chuck, go get some air."
The sound of Diane sobbing.
Panama stood around. His way of showing he didn't let himself get pushed around. The more he stood, the more ball-less he looked.
That became obvious to him. Eventually. The flat of his hand slapped the room's steel door. A CO opened it. Panama went his way muttering slurs.
Diane cried on.
Soledad had said, talking about-defending- Diane: She's a mother. The emotional connection to a mother, as Soledad was in the process of maybe/maybe not losing hers, is where the compassion for, the defense of Diane came from, Soledad told herself. The woman had knowingly maintained a long-term relationship with a freak. Put how many lives at risk just to satisfy her own base emotions? There wasn't any other compassion to be had for her. How could anybody ever love a…