Chapter 10 — WHAT JOSIE TOLD NADINE

Nadine Okoro came on a Tuesday morning with a laptop bag and no jacket.

She had a way of standing in a room and letting it be quiet that I have only seen in nurses and detectives.

She looked at where Theo slept.

She opened the refrigerator, which they do, and counted, which they also do.

She asked me who else had keys.

She asked me if I had a plan for what happens if I get called out on a job at two in the morning, and I told her I had already changed to inside-sales dispatch for ninety days, and she wrote that down, and I could tell it counted for more than anything else I said that day.

Then she asked to talk to Josie alone.

I had been dreading it for eleven days.

Alma had told me the rules. Do not prepare her. Do not tell her what to say. Do not tell her what not to say. If you coach a seven-year-old, an investigator will know inside of ninety seconds and it will follow you through every proceeding you ever have.

So I told Josie the truth, which was: a lady is coming to ask you about the night I came home, and you should tell her whatever you remember, and if you don't remember something you say I don't remember, and there is no answer that gets you in trouble.

They were in the living room for fifty minutes.

I sat in the kitchen with the monitor off and did not listen.

When Nadine came out she asked if she could sit down, which I did not think was a good sign, and then she sat and said, "She's a very clear kid."

"She is."

"I want to tell you three things she said, because you're going to hear them eventually in a report and it's better if you hear them from a person."

"Okay."

She opened her notebook.

"I asked her how often she watches the baby. She said 'most days.'"

I did not say anything.

"I asked her what most days meant. She said, 'After school until Mom gets home, and sometimes after.'"

"Since when?"

"She said since the summer." Nadine turned a page. "Second thing. I asked her if she ever told anybody her back hurt. She said she told her mother twice."

"What did her mother say?"

"According to Josie: 'she said I was being dramatic.'"

I put my hands flat on the island.

"The third thing is the one I actually came in here to tell you." Nadine looked up. "I asked her, at the end, if there was anything she wanted to say that I hadn't asked about. That's a standard closing question, most kids say no."

"What did she say?"

"She said, 'Is the man going to take Theo?'"

The refrigerator ran.

"I asked her which man. She said the tall one who comes over. I asked her why she thought he would take Theo. And she said—" Nadine read it off the page exactly, which I have always been grateful for "—'because he says Theo is his.'"

I do not remember standing up.

I remember Nadine saying my name twice and me being at the sink with the water running and no reason for the water to be running.

"When," I said. "When did she hear that."

"She doesn't have a date. She says it was warm out and she was on the stairs."

"Was he talking to Corinne?"

"She says he was talking to her grandmother."

I turned around.

"To Judith."

"That's what she says. She could be wrong. She's seven. She might have heard part of a sentence and filled in the rest, that happens constantly and I'd be lying if I said it didn't." Nadine closed the notebook. "But I've been doing this for fourteen years, Mr. Whitaker, and I want to give you a piece of advice that is not in my official capacity."

"Please."

"Get the test."

"There's no reason to think—"

"There's a seven-year-old on my notepad saying a man told her grandmother that the baby is his." Nadine stood up and put her bag on her shoulder. "Get the test. Not because of him. Because in about four months you are going to be sitting in a room where somebody says it out loud for the first time, and you want to already know."

She got to the door.

"One more thing. Off the record."

"Yeah."

"You've got everything documented. Video, timestamps, bank records, the deed." She looked at me carefully. "I've had maybe four cases in fourteen years where the parent came in this organized. Every one of them was somebody like you — somebody whose job is systems."

"Is that bad?"

"It's not bad. It wins hearings." She opened the door. "It's just that the thing that's coming for you isn't a system. Don't be surprised when your organizing doesn't work on it."