In time Mouse came to think of Fake Mom a little bit like that hawk. Because she started picking on Mouse more and more when her father went to his other office, or when he was talking on the phone behind the closed door. Fake Mom knew that Mouse was like one of those baby birds who couldn’t defend herself in the same way a mom or dad bird could. It wasn’t as if Fake Mom tried to eat Mouse like the hawks tried to eat the baby birds. This was different, more subtle. Bumping Mouse with her elbow when she passed by. Stealing the last of the Salerno Butter Cookies from Mouse’s plate. Saying, at every chance she could, how much she hated mice. How mice are dirty little rodents.

* * *

Mouse and her father spent a lot of time together before Fake Mom arrived. He taught her how to play catch, how to throw a curveball, how to slide into second base with a pop-up slide. They watched old black-and-white movies together. They played games, Monopoly and card games and chess. They even had their very own made-up game that didn’t have a name, just one of those things they came up with on a rainy afternoon. They’d stand in the living room, spin in circles until they were both dizzy. When they stopped, they froze in place, holding whatever silly position they landed in. The first to move was the loser, which was usually Mouse’s father because he moved on purpose so that Mouse could win, same as he did with Monopoly and chess.

Mouse and her father liked to go camping. When the weather was nice they’d load their tent and supplies into the back of her father’s car and drive into the woods. There, Mouse would help her father pitch the tent and gather sticks for a campfire. They’d roast marshmallows over the fire. Mouse liked it best when they were crispy and brown on the outside, but mushy and white inside.

But Fake Mom didn’t like for Mouse and her father to go camping. Because when they did, they were gone all night. Fake Mom didn’t like to be left alone. She wanted Mouse’s father home with her. When she saw Mouse and her father in the garage, gathering up the tent and the sleeping bags, she’d press in close to him in that way that made Mouse uncomfortable. She’d lay her hand on Mouse’s dad’s chest and nuzzle her nose into his neck like she was smelling it. Fake Mom would hug and kiss him, and tell Mouse’s father how lonely she was when he was away, how she got scared at night when she was the only one home.

Mouse’s father would put the tent away, tell Mouse, Another time. But Mouse was a smart girl. She knew that Another time really meant Never.

SADIE

I step into an exam room to find Officer Berg waiting for me.

He isn’t sitting on the exam table when I come in, as other patients would do. Instead, he ambles around the room, tinkering with things. He lifts the lids off the sundry jars, steps on the foot pedal of the stainless-steel garbage.

As I watch, he helps himself to a pair of latex gloves, and I say, “Those aren’t free, you know?”

Officer Berg stuffs the gloves back into the cardboard box, saying, “You caught me,” as he goes on to explain how his grandson likes to make balloons with them.

“You’re not feeling well, Officer?” I ask as I close the door behind myself and reach for his file, only to find the plastic box where we leave them empty. My question is rhetorical, it seems. It comes to me quite quickly then that Officer Berg is feeling fine. That he doesn’t have an appointment, but that he’s here to speak with me.

This isn’t an exam but rather an interrogation.

“I thought we could finish our conversation,” he says. He looks more tired today than he did before, the last time I saw him, when he was already tired. His skin is raw from the winter weather, windblown and red. I think that it’s from all that time spent outdoors, watching the ferry come and go.

There have been more police than usual around the island, detectives from the mainland trying to step on Officer Berg’s toes. I wonder what he thinks of that. The last time there was a murder on the island it was 1985. It was gory and ghastly and still unsolved. Crimes against property are frequent; crimes against persons rare. Officer Berg doesn’t want to end up with another cold case when the investigation is through. He needs to find someone to pin this murder on.

“Which conversation is that?” I ask, as I set myself down on the swivel stool. It’s a decision I regret at once because Officer Berg stands two feet above me now. I’m forced to look up to him like a child.

He says, “The one we began in your car the other day,” and I feel a glimmer of hope for the first time in days because I now have the evidence on my phone to prove I didn’t argue with Morgan Baines the day Mr. Nilsson says I did. I was here at the clinic that day.

I say to Officer Berg, “I told you already, I didn’t know Morgan. We never spoke. Isn’t it possible that Mr. Nilsson is mistaken? He is getting on in years,” I remind him.

“Of course it’s possible, Dr. Foust,” he begins, but I stop him there. I’m not interested in his theories when I have proof.

“You told me that the incident between Morgan and me happened on December first. A Friday,” I say as I retrieve my cell phone from the pocket of my smock. I open the photos app and swipe across each image until I find the one I’m looking for.

“The thing is that on December first,” I say when I find it, “I was here at the clinic, working all day. I couldn’t have been with Morgan because I can’t be in two places at one time, can I?” I ask, my words rightfully smug.

I hand him my phone so he can see for himself what I’m talking about. The photograph of the clinic’s dry-erase calendar where Emma has written my name, scheduling me for a nine-hour shift on Friday, December first.

Officer Berg looks it over. There’s this moment of hesitation before the realization sets in. He gives in. He nods. He drops to the edge of the exam table, eyes locked on the photograph. He rubs at the deep trenches of his forehead, mouth tugging down at the corners into a frown.

I would feel sorry for him, if he wasn’t trying to pin Morgan’s murder on me.