would be. Calmer but not exactly relaxed. She was in her jeans and robe now, leaning against the sink, impossible to read.
“So where did you go?”
I said, “One of the guys came at me, and I ran.”
“No, you didn’t, you big fat liar. You stole their truck.” She was incredulous and amused but definitely torqued. She said, “I stood there and watched you, okay? You stole the truck, so again, where did you go?”
“I told you not to look out the window.”
“And I told you not to go outside. The next thing I know you’re stealing a truck!”
“It wasn’t stealing.”
“Are you kidding me? In what world?”
I said, “You’re right. I’m sorry. I just drove.” I looked down, trying to work out how to tell her what had happened. A glint of light on my wrist caught my eye—a crumb of glass riding among the hairs. I picked it out and dropped it into the wastebasket beside the refrigerator. I said, “I didn’t have a plan. When I realized the cops would ask where I was—” I suddenly saw the distinction between the three phrases the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I would tell her the truth, and nothing but the truth, but she wasn’t getting the whole truth. The problem was that I would have to wing it in terms of what I kept from her. I was too disorganized to have a plan, any more than I’d had a plan when I’d taken the truck. It had been a mistake not to brush myself off, shake out my clothes and hair for bits of glass from the windows. But this brings us back to our quandary: If we wait until we’ve thought of everything, we don’t do anything. I would still be standing at the staircase window, now staring at the space where our car had been parked. “Well,” I said, “I drove it into a ditch and hustled back here.”
“You drove it into a ditch.” She made two fists as if holding a steering wheel, then shoved them forward and down. Her words were a statement, but the gesture was a question.
“I know. It was a full-moon thing.”
“It’s not a full moon tonight, Jim.”
“That’s the kind of thing it was. Did you tell the cops?”
“Please. I may have fallen off the turnip truck, but I didn’t land on my head. I told them I was afraid to go to the window, but I heard the truck drive away about the same time I heard the sirens.”
“Did they get the guys—the car thieves?”
“Yes. One cop came back and said they got them right away. He didn’t mention the truck, but I’m sure the thieves will speak up about that. I mean, come on, Jim, you stole their truck with them standing three feet away! And don’t you dare tell me the best defense is a good offense.” She cut herself off. “Incidentally, I like the story about you running away. It explains why you were gone so long. The cops—actually, it’s a Sergeant Rainey who is running the show—he told me to call him as soon as you got back. He wants you to look at some photos, I think. He called them throw-downs. Instead of a lineup.”
“But I didn’t really see anything.”
“Even so, I’m sure he wants to hear from us.”
“Okay, make the call. I’ll stick to the running story for now.”
“Which is good because it’s clear that you have been. Which might have saved your bacon with me.” I acknowledged the serious half of this last remark with a nod.
She pulled a business card from the pocket of her robe and started punching the buttons of our phone. I went to the front door and looked out the window to the street.
She said, “Sergeant Rainey, please.” She waited, then told me they were patching her through. I listened, trying to let things flow. I had to quit trying to control everything and also to quit acting impulsively. I resolved to behave somewhere in the middle. Marla said, “Hi, Sergeant. He’s home—my husband is home… . Oh, I’m sorry, this is Marla Sandusky—you caught the two—yes, the Camry on Juniper… . Sure, I’ll tell him.” She listened for a moment. “He said one of them came after him, and he … That’s right… . Well, he was hiding.” After a longer pause, she said, “No, just the Camry… . I have a bike… . That’s right, or the bus… . Sure, we can do that.”
She hung up and said, “He wants us to go down to the station. A patrol car is coming by.”
“Good, because our car probably won’t start.”
“He knows. The guys trashed the steering thing where the key goes in.”
I rubbed my face, wishing we were done. “I suppose it has to be tonight.”
“He said it’s about the throw-downs, but I think he’s bothered by how long you were gone. If you didn’t take the truck.”
“I was planning to say I was chased.”
“By a fourth guy?”
“A third guy.”
“We have the two they got, the one who drove off in the truck, and now the one who chased you. Even three seems like a stretch.” Then she said, “Wait. If you’re planning to say you didn’t see the guys, how can you say one of them came after you? I mean, if you picture it, how would it work?”
“If I’m hiding, maybe I just think he followed me.” Then I said, “No, because that would still mean I saw him start after me.”
“No, no, that could be good. You’re all nervous about being out there, and you hear the scuff of a shoe, and you skedaddle. They see you go. and the guy in the truck panics and takes off, leaving the other two. So no one really has to chase you.” I warmed to her in a way I never had before; she was taking my side after what I’d done, even after I had lied to her about it. It’s hard to tell how a person will behave until the situation arises.
I said, “But why do the cops want you down there?”
“I wonder too. Maybe he wants to check our stories against each other.”
“That’s what I think.”
She said, “Then we’re agreed that I stayed away from the window?”
I left that one alone.
“Oh, please,” she said. “Do you really want to workshop who committed the bigger crime tonight?”
It was true: She had looked out the upstairs window; I had taken the truck. I still didn’t think of it as stealing, but it was by far the bigger offense.
She frowned and pointed at me. “Hold it. You saw the guys when you went downstairs. I mean, between you and me right now, you saw more than a truck. When you first woke me up, you said you saw two guys.”
“Just shapes, no faces.” When she hesitated, I said, “Really. Just the truck in the street and the shapes of two guys by our car.” The only part of it I didn’t want her to know about was how I had pounded on the truck.
She studied me briefly, then said, “Okay, you lie about taking the truck, and I lie about looking out the window. We won’t recognize anyone in the photos, and that should be it.”
“The timing again?”
She said, “If you got back right after the cops left, that’s half an hour. We can say we went out to check the car, and then we had something to drink before we called in, which should help with the time gap. I mean, he said to call right away, but that doesn’t mean we did.”
It hit me how much clearer her thinking was than mine.
I said, “What about the neighbors?”
“The neighbors?”
“Did they see anything? Did anybody come out?”
“The whole block came out. Stacks was first, of course, that