At three, a state police investigator arrived carrying no folder.
He introduced himself as Daniel Reed, asked whether I wanted the door open or closed, and waited while Amelia told him she needed to understand what kind of interview he was proposing.
“Possible interference with a jury,” he said. “At present. I'm not here to take a substitute statement about the murder.”
“And my client's earlier dealings with your witness?”
“I'm not offering anybody immunity in a conference room.”
“Good. Then we're starting with a fact we agree on.”
He looked at me. “I work out of the public corruption unit. The court asked for an investigation outside the trial team. You don't have to tell me what another juror thinks of the evidence. I want the contact.”
I gave him Owen's words again. By then I could say them without hearing the room around them.
“Was the word told?” Reed asked. “Not thought?”
“Told.”
“Difficult?”
“Yes.”
“Did he say why you would be difficult?”
“No.”
He wrote on a small white pad. His pen had the name of a plumbing company on it. There was something reassuring about a policeman who used a stolen promotional pen. I did not let it reassure me very much.
“You work as an interpreter.”
“Freelance.”
“Any work for the city?”
“Not since a housing hearing two years ago.”
“For the Arrival House organization?”
“No.”
That was Soto's organization. Its name appeared on the lunch boxes given to families at the station. The boxes had a yellow house on them, with the door left open.
“Do you know anybody who works there?”
“I know Mr. Soto under another name. That's what I reported.”
“Apart from him.”
I said no.
He asked about the walk from the courthouse each day, the places we ate, the people who had spoken to us outside. I told him about a woman asking whether I knew when the trial would finish. A man who held the courthouse door. The cashier who said she hoped we would make the right decision.
“I didn't answer them about the case.”
“You don't need to defend every ordinary conversation,” he said. “But I need to know if one stops looking ordinary later.”
His phone vibrated. He looked at it, excused himself and went into the corridor.
Amelia leaned back.
“He didn't ask about the boat.”
“He will.”
“Yes.”
I took the sandwich out of its wrapping. The bread stuck to the paper. I ate half because I had not eaten since seven, and then the other half because not eating could become another thing I did instead of answering.
Reed returned with a laptop.
“The court has requested an independent review of the recording. Not by you. We are obtaining the admitted version and the underlying file.”
“You should preserve the English transcript too,” I said.
He nodded. “Already requested.”
“All its versions.”
“Why?”
“If the first translation also says he was told afterward, we have one kind of problem. If it originally says he saw the cloth before they arrived, somebody changed more than a date.”
He wrote that down. I wished it had not pleased me to see him write it.
There was a difference between having something useful to say and being useful enough to be forgiven.
At four thirty the court officer brought my phone. It had six notifications from Nico and one from the company that scheduled my interpreting work.
The company wanted me to cover a morning hearing in Larch County. A woman with a landlord dispute. Two hours, possibly four. The kind of job that made the month's bills manageable.
I told them I could not confirm yet.
Nico's messages went from a photograph of a bicycle wheel to a question mark to three question marks.
I called him with Amelia beside me.
“Are you done?” he asked.
“Not exactly.”
“Did they let him off?”
“There isn't a verdict.”
“Everyone's saying a juror's gone weird.”
“Who is everyone?”
“The internet, Mom. The traditional source.”
“Don't post anything about me.”
He was quiet.
“Why would I post anything about you?”
“Because I'm not on the jury anymore.”
I heard a bell at his end, the shop door opening. A man asked about brake pads. Nico said, “One second,” in the bright voice he used for customers.
Then, lower: “What happened?”
I looked at Amelia. She did not give me permission or take it away.
“I recognized someone,” I said. “Somebody from before we came here.”
“From the boat?”
I had told him about the boat when he was nine. The safe version, suitable for a child doing a school project about journeys.
“Yes.”
“Which somebody?”
“The man who arranged it.”
“He's in the trial?”
“He's a witness.”
“And you didn't know?”
“Not until today.”
The brake-pad customer spoke again. Nico moved away; the bell became a small, tinny sound.
“You're scaring me.”
“I'm sorry.”
“That's not an answer.”
It was an answer I had taught him to distrust when other people used it.
“I'm with a lawyer,” I said. “I'm safe in the courthouse. I need to tell you something properly, in person, when I can.”
“Tonight?”
“I hope so.”
“Say if you don't know.”
“I don't know.”
He took a breath.
“Okay. That's better. It isn't good. It's better.”
After we hung up, Amelia asked who had keys to my apartment.
“Me. Nico. The building manager.”
“Anybody else know where the copy is?”
“No.”
“I want you to leave it where it is until we arrange to collect and preserve it. Nobody cleans anything up tonight. No emails deleted. No helpful notes added to old papers.”
“I understand.”
She looked at me until I looked back.
“Including notes you think will make them clearer.”
I said I understood again.
At five thirteen, Ward and Keene walked past the glass together. Neither was talking.
Five minutes later Reed asked if I had clearly heard Soto say “before.”
“I told you what I heard.”
“I'm not asking you to become more certain.”
He sat down.
“The independent interpreter hears it too.”
For a moment I wanted to be happy.
Then I remembered what the sentence was about.