River Road by Carol Goodman Page A

said she was upset when she came out of the kitchen. She thought I had told her about the tenure decision.”
    â€œDid you?”
    â€œNo!” I cried, offended. “That would have been unprofessional.”
    The corner of Sergeant McAffrey’s mouth twitched, amused, I imagined, that I would be offended at the suggestion I’d complained to a student about not getting tenure when I stood accused of killing that same student. “So she must have been upset about something Professor Ballantine said to her. Was that usual? Had you ever seen them arguing before?”
    â€œLeia could be impassioned about her beliefs,” I began. “Ross was just saying, before the ambulance came for Hannah, that Leia could be impulsive.” I didn’t add that he’d suggested that was why she might have run in front of my car. I was afraid Sergeant McAffrey would guess what Ross had said but he seemed preoccupied. He left the room for another ten minutes and then came to the door and waved for me to follow him out to the parking lot. I was surprised when he opened the passenger door of the police SUV for me.
    â€œI guess you don’t consider me a dangerous criminal anymore,” I said, climbing into the SUV and looking with interest at the police radio.
    â€œYou can ride in the back if that makes you more comfortable,” he replied coldly.
    I shook my head, cowed by his tone, and remained silent for the rest of the drive. He turned the heater up and it felt good. I closed my eyesand must have drifted off for a few minutes—not surprising after all I’d been through—because when the car jolted me awake we were on an unfamiliar road passing a dilapidated old farmhouse. Was this a shortcut I didn’t know? But then we turned in to a trailer park. I shook my head to clear the fog that seemed to have settled into my brain. Where was he taking me and why? I peered out the window for a clue.
    Happy Acres Park read the sign in the SUV’s headlights, but the park didn’t look like a very happy place. The trailers huddled together like sheep trying to keep warm in the snow, their sidings dingy and dented, windows patched with cardboard and duct tape, screen doors torn and hanging crookedly on their frames. A few of the trailers were neater, their front paths shoveled, Christmas lights outlining their plain rectangular shapes, wreaths hanging on the doors, but some looked as if the residents hadn’t bothered even to shovel out from the snow. The one we pulled up to on the edge of the park sat crookedly on cracked cinder blocks; the snow drifted over the stoop was pocked by uneven footprints that led to a covered carport. McAffrey got out, leaving the engine and the headlights on. I sat for a moment, unsure what to do. I looked out the back window and saw a crooked blind move in the window of a neighboring trailer.
    I looked back at McAffrey. He was standing under the carport awning staring at the car parked there, hands on hips. Light from the trailer’s windows fell on his face, carving shadows under his eyes and in grooves along the sides of his mouth. He looked tired and sad.
    I got out of the SUV and waded across the snow to the carport. McAffrey’s head nearly touched the top of the plastic awning, which was so heavy with snow it looked like it might collapse any minute. I stepped cautiously beside him and looked at the car. It was a compact sedan painted a dark color that was indiscernible in the dark. The front bumper was dented and listed to the right. That was because its flat tires had sunk unevenly into the asphalt. I looked closer and saw that there were deep ruts under the wheels. The chassis of the car wasnearly flush with the ground. When I took another step something rustled in the car and a dark shape scurried out of the undercarriage into the dead weeds growing up out of the wheelbases. The car was home to mice and rot. It looked like a skeleton of an