Frustration pulled at the corners of his eyes as his gaze went to the sprig of yew poking from my front shirt pocket. As Edden had said, he was still in his pajamas, the flannel pants looking odd with the orange top they’d given him to wear. He sat up to acknowledge me, but my bland expression froze when his nose wrinkled. Saying nothing, I sat, trying not to push the air around. I was definitely going to have to fit a shower in before going out to the park.
“When can I see Jacqueline?” Jack asked, a mix of belligerence and dissatisfaction.
I set the paperwork on the table, his and Jacqueline’s mug shots front and center. “She’s your wife, yes?”
“Yes, she’s my wife,” Jack said angrily, his attention pulling from the photo. “I only slapped her to snap her out of trying to kill me. Why am I the one in jail? What was I supposed to do? Let her stab me?”
His cuffs chained to the table clinked, and I leaned closer to hammer my words home. “Because you were standing over her, Jack, and she was crying on the floor, and cops always side with the scared woman if there’s an angry man in the room with a knife.”
A little bad cop never hurt, and sure enough, Jack’s expression lost its aggression, showing me the fear that it had sprung from. “Just tell me if she’s okay. Please?”
I leaned back in my chair to see the truth amulet in my lap. “She’s shaken up, but okay.”
Exhaling, Jack slumped in relief. The charm on my keychain agreed.
“Is she on any medications? Any recent changes in them?” I asked, fishing.
“No,” he said, quick enough to tell me someone had already asked him. “She has no history of ever doing anything like this before.”
But I had seen guilt, and charm tight in my hand, I leaned forward again. “I’m not the FIB,” I said, and his eyes came to mine. “Talk to me, Jack. What happened?”
He looked at the one-way mirror behind me. “I already told the cops who busted my door. She attacked me,” he said. “I don’t know why,” he added, voice breaking. “She went nuts.”
But the muddy green and red of my charm said there was something else. “I’m all you got, Jack,” I said, and he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “There’s an entire building of cops out there who only see a wife beater.”
“Are you a counselor?” he said, and I let a half smile curve up my lips.
“No. I suck at consoling people. I’m more of a knock-them-down-and-get-to-the-truth kind of person. And I’m listening. Talk to me, Jack. There might be something you forgot that will help me figure out why Jacqueline attacked you.” And then doesn’t remember anything about it.
His gaze went to that sprig of yew in my front shirt pocket again, and then he exhaled, breath shaking. “I woke up early,” he said, tired, as if he’d repeated it too many times. “I had a job across the city, and I wanted to get there before traffic got bad. I hit the alarm, and rolled over to give Jacqueline a kiss to go back to sleep. Her eyes were wide-open. Staring. I said something to her. I don’t know what, and she just started hitting me. Screaming that I didn’t deserve her.”
The amulet in my hand was a nice steady green, unlike Jack, who was getting agitated.
“I got off the bed, and she followed me,” he said, voice becoming higher. “She backed me right up into the bathroom. I’m kind of laughing and telling her to stop because it’s crazy, you know? And she’s yelling at me that I was a jerk and didn’t deserve her, and then she went into the kitchen for a knife, I guess, because when I followed her, she tried to stab me with it. That’s when I hit her.” His jaw clenched, and he hid his hands under the table, cuffs clinking. “I was only trying to get her to stop,” he said, pleading for me to believe him. “She dropped the knife and started crying. That’s when the cops broke my door. Shoved me to the floor. Cuffed me. Dragged me into the street.”
His reddening eyes filled, but he never touched them as he looked down. The amulet in my hand was green, but something felt off. I knew grief, having walked beside it as my steady companion for the first