glances up, hearing footsteps on the stairs. “I’ll deal with Alex.”
“All right,” Dani says. She drops onto the couch, sitting à la Mrs. Alex with one foot beneath her. She had not predicted this calm reaction. She wonders if Mrs. Alex is about to go into adult mode, surrogate-mother mode, and offer a reasonable talk and some advice. Or will she—oh no, not again—ask her to stay on?
Maybe, for the third time, offer more money?
Mrs. Alex shoos Alex back up the stairs, and Dani hears them talking in the hall. Mrs. Alex says, “Do you need to pee?” and Alex says, “I don’t know,” and Mrs. Alex says, “Let’s go together.” The bathroom door closes.
Ten minutes later, the doorbell rings. Mrs. Alex doesn’t come down. Dani goes to the foot of the stairs.
T H E B A B Y S I T T E R M U R D E R S
“Do you want me to get it?” she calls up.
“If you don’t mind,” Mrs. Alex shouts from the bathroom.
Dani opens the door. Two policemen stand outside.
“Is Mrs. Draper present?” one asks.
“She’s upstairs,” Dani says. “She should be down in a minute.”
“We’d like to speak with her. Is Alex here also?”
“He’s up with his mom. Can I tell her who’s . . . ?”
The police show their badges. “I’m Sergeant Mason of the Hawthorne Police,” the older one says, “and this is Officer Pinto.
What’s your name, miss?”
“Dani Solomon.”
“Would you come outside with me, Dani, so I can talk to you?”
“Sure.” So this is how it plays out, she thinks as she realizes what’s happening. In the arrest scenario she’d imagined so many times, Mrs. Alex and the police didn’t act so normal, so calm and quiet, where she had pictured screaming, blood, and sirens.
“I’ll check on them upstairs,” Officer Pinto says, going to the second floor where Alex’s cartoons still play.
Dani steps outside onto the mat where she used to hesitate before ringing the bell.
“How old are you, Dani?” Sergeant Mason asks. He’s tall and stocky with a gray goatee. His cruiser is parked in the Alexes’
driveway.
“I’m seventeen.”
“Do you know why we’re here?”
“Because Mrs. Draper called you?”
So Dani is being arrested now. She doesn’t have to panic 89
JANET RUTH YOUNG
or even worry. She doesn’t think of Mrs. Alex’s phone call as a betrayal. The relief of having told Mrs. Alex overwhelms everything that’s happening now or could happen in the future. Cause and effect, as she learned in school. Everything that occurs in the world is due to cause and effect.
Mason hands her a small yellow card, and he recites what the card says. “You have the right to remain silent. If you give up the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you desire an attorney and cannot afford one, an attorney will be obtained for you before police questioning.”
“You can question me if you want to,” Dani says.
“Do you know why Mrs. Draper may have called 911?”
“I told her I had thoughts about hurting Alex.”
“That’s her little boy?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a little unsettling, don’t you think?”
“I know. I agree with you.”
“You had thoughts about harming Alex?”
“Exactly.” Dani stands up straight. She answers in a calm, even voice. She has always liked police officers, and she feels that they and she are on the same team. She wants them to know that she has no desire to obstruct the law.
“In what specific way would you harm Alex?” Sergeant Mason continues.
“Specifically, I would get one of the big knives from the kitchen and stab him while he was sleeping.” Dani hopes that 90
T H E B A B Y S I T T E R M U R D E R S
didn’t sound sarcastic. Having never been interrogated before, she wants to answer the questions as completely as she can.
“That’s unsettling,” Sergeant Mason says again, reaching for his notebook.
“I don’t really want to, though,” Dani says quickly. “I’m actually glad Mrs. Draper called you, because I had been trying and trying to get out of babysitting, but I couldn’t get her to take my calls.”
“You don’t want to hurt Alex? Then why did you tell Mrs.
Draper that?”
“Because I kept thinking about it, and I figured she should know, just so Alex would be safe.”
“Tell me exactly what happened when you threatened Alex.
What did you say or do to him?”
“I never threatened Alex.”
“Did you tell him you wanted to harm him?”
“No. Oh God,