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“Garrison told me. That’s amazing. And she seemsalright?”
“It looks like she got through whatever happened to her pretty well,” I say. “She’s banged up. Her face is bruised. Her hair’s matted. She has some cuts and gashes. I don’t know the full extent of her injuries obviously. I’ll try to find out more from the doctor, but it seems like she’s going to befine.”
“That’s great to hear. But you might want to put off talking to the doctor,” he tellsme.
I narrow my eyes slightly at him, tilting my head questioningly. “Why? What’s goingon?”
“At the police station, they told me Dean called. He says he needs to talk toyou.”
Mike looks less than pleased to see me when he opens his door an hour later.
“Can I help you?” heasks.
“I certainly hope so,” Isay.
I walk past him into the house and he gives a sarcastic gesture.
“Come onin.”
“Thanks. I don’t think this will take long.” I gesture at Sam. “You remember SheriffJohnson.”
Mike nods at him by way of greeting. His eyes flicker briefly to the handcuffs on Sam’s belt.
“Hello.” He looks back at me. “Are you here to tell me that Lisarecanted?”
“No. Actually, I just spoke to Lisa this morning and she is still insisting that she thinks it was you. But I’m not here to talk about Lisa. I’m here to talk about that note and newspaper clipping in your desk,” Isay.
Mike rolls his eyes. “I told you I don’t know anything aboutthat.”
“You did. I don’t think you were telling the truth. You see, I have been doing my research. I’m really good at that. And even more, I have people around me who are amazing at it. And we found out somethings.”
“Alright. Go ahead. What did you find out?” heasks.
A touch of a smile tweaks my lips. “Before I get into that, there’s a couple things I want to askyou.”
“I thought you asked me everything the otherday.”
“I did. But, again, you weren’t telling me the truth. And I know you weren’t telling me the truth. So, I’m going to see if you’ll tell me now,” I say. “We’ll start with just something really simple. The information about you from the camp says that you are a Cherry Hillnative.”
“That’s really more of a statement,” he says when Ipause.
“We’ll call it an inferred question,” Isay.
“Yes. What’s wrong with that?” he asks. “A lot of the people from the camp are from aroundhere.”
“That’s just the thing. You’re from around herenow. Obviously. This is your house. You’ve lived here for a while, yes? A few years? But the problem is, in order to be a native of someplace, you have to have been born here. Or at very least, have grown up here. And that’s exactly what you told me. That you were born here and went to school here and grew up with a perfectly normal childhood here. Musical parents and siblings. Fishing with your father. The whole thing,” Isay.
“Right.”
“There’s a pretty simple problem with that. There are no birth records for anyone with your name in all of April 1961. I even had someone check March and May just to be sure the record wasn’t misfiled. No one with your name or even a name close to yours was born here during that time,” Isay.
“It was a home birth,” he explains. “So the hospital wouldn’t have arecord.”
“Not quite. I thought of that, but the thing is, there would still be a record. The hospital wouldn’t have a record of your mother giving birth to you there, but there would be a birth certificate. Even after a home birth, the baby has to get a birth certificate. And the vast majority of the time, the baby is still brought to the hospital for a checkup to make sure it’s alright. Neither of those things happened for someone with your name. At all,” I say.
“You couldn’t find my birth certificate,” he says with a shrug. “So, that’s supposed to mean I don’texist?”
“No, it just means that you weren’t born here. And you didn’t move here as a child, either. We looked into all the schools in the area and no one of your name and birthdate was enrolled at any of the schools in this county, or in the surrounding counties during any of the years when you would have been. And that’s kinder through twelve,” I remind him. “Hard to say that you grew up here at all when you never lived here from the ages of five to eighteen, right?”
