Best night we ever had together, until that first nervous night with our new baby, and that was a different sort of thing altogether. Revisiting both of those special nights is what gets me through this awful night in the holding cell. Because thinking about why I have been detained is more than I can bear. Although I have not yet been charged, Deputy Sheriff Terry Crebbin has made it clear that I’m suspected of kidnapping and murder. Which makes no sense at all. Where did they get that idea? Why would anyone think I would steal my own son and then kill the chief of police, who, in addition to being chief, was a good friend? If Crebbin knows, he’s not saying.

“Wait for your lawyer,” he sneers at me, not meeting my eyes. “People like you always have a lawyer.”

The way he inflects “people” makes it mean “bitch.” As far as Crebbin is concerned, I’m guilty. Charges have not yet been formulated by the county prosecutor’s office, so I’m to be held for the legal twenty-four hours.

“At least twenty-four hours,” Crebbin emphasizes. “A whole lot longer than that, if I have anything to say about it.”

“Fine,” I tell him. “I’m not going anywhere. Think what you like of me, Terry, but could you at least contact the FBI and tell them my son has been kidnapped?”

Crebbin stares at me then, as if inspecting the aftermath of a particularly gruesome accident. It’s obvious my very existence offends him. I should be in the freezer, not his boss. “The FBI has been notified. They’re not interested in your case.”

“They told you that?” I say, my voice rising. “You’ve been in contact with the FBI? What did they say, exactly? What do you mean they’re not interested? My son has been taken! He’s been held for ransom! They said they’d let him go but they lied!”

But Crebbin walks away without a backward glance, radiating malice. I’ve been allowed my phone call and used it to speak with Arnie Dexel, the attorney who handles legal and financial affairs for Katherine Bickford Catering. When I attempt to tell Arnie exactly what has occurred, he cuts me off, says he wants me to save the details for the criminal attorney he’s going to contact on my behalf. Terrific lawyer, top of the line. He mentions that attorney’s name but I immediately forget it, which will cause me great concern over the course of the long night in the holding cell. As if forgetting a lawyer’s name means the lawyer will forget about me.

All I have to cling to is Arnie’s promise that the lawyer, who is out of town on another case, will arrive like the cavalry by morning.

“Noon at the latest,” he says.

“Can’t you do something?” I beseech him.

“Sorry, Kate, but I really can’t. This is way out of my field. I’d be derelict in my duty not to find you competent counsel. Just hang in there. Help is on the way.”

Cavalry arrives tomorrow morning, he says. Probably be out before breakfast. In the meantime I must find a way to pass the hours without going completely out of my head. No exaggeration, my sanity feels in jeopardy. Thoughts are screaming through my brain like a runaway train. Nothing in my head makes any sense. The-man-in-the-mask, the-man-in-the-mask, the phrase pounds in my brain, making its own insane rhythm. Laughing at me. Whatever you do, don’t go in the basement. Some line from a cheesy horror flick. Maybe that’s where he got the idea of putting poor Fred Corso’s body in the freezer. Because it had to be the man in the mask, didn’t it? If he didn’t kill the chief himself, he knows who did, and used the body to frame me, and somehow make it look like I kidnapped my own son. But that doesn’t make any sense. Why would killing the chief of police make it likely that I’d invented the man in the mask? Because that’s what Crebbin thinks, isn’t it? That I’m making it up? Or is he holding something back, leverage to make me confess? Man in the mask, Tommy, Sheriff Corso, what’s the connection? There must be a connection. It’s certainly no coincidence that Fred Corso ended up in my freezer with a bullet hole in his forehead.

On and on and on, my thoughts colliding and tearing at each other, until finally I’m able to seize on the precious memories of our cross-country adventure in that great boat of a car, and so pass the night with my sanity more or less intact.

Morning brings breakfast, courtesy of McDonald’s takeout, but no lawyer. And Terry Crebbin has made it clear that the prime suspect—me—has exhausted her right to the telephone.

“One call,” says Deputy Katz, who has brought me breakfast in a white paper bag. She sounds somewhat apologetic, but will not budge. “Sarge says you only get one.”

“Do you have any kids?” I ask her.

She shakes her head. “Wouldn’t make any difference if I did, Mrs. Bickford. Sarge says no, that’s all that matters.”

“I’m not talking about the phone, Rita. Your first name is Rita, correct? I’m talking about my son. He’s been kidnapped. He’s been taken from his home, from everything he knows and loves. He must be scared out of his mind. Terrified. He’s eleven years old, Rita. You’ve got to help me. Call the state police, call the FBI, call anyone who’ll listen. Tell them what happened.”

For the briefest moment I’m convinced I’ve gotten through to pretty Rita, but it turns out to be wishful thinking. She hasn’t really been listening; she’s been studying me and has come to her own conclusion.

“If you think calling me Rita is going to help, you’re wrong,” she says, sounding deeply disappointed in me. “We’re trained to ignore stuff like that. Prisoners trying to get friendly, get you to do them favors. This patrolman in Bridgeport? He loaned his pen to this perp, thought he was harmless, perp says he wants to write a note to his mom? Perp stabs the patrolman with his own pen. In the eye. So you’ll just have to wait, Mrs. Bickford. Lady like you, somebody will show up eventually.”

Lady like me. What does that mean? Does this scrawny twenty-year-old really think she knows me? Did they teach her that in the academy? Lovely Rita, meter maid, how dare she? What gives her the right to judge me? Before I can pursue the matter, make her see things my way, she skedaddles, leaving me alone in the holding-cell area.

Famished, I devour the Egg McMuffin, chug down the lukewarm coffee. What does it mean that I haven’t lost my appetite? Ted died, I couldn’t eat for a week. Does that mean that my body senses that Tommy is still alive?

Ridiculous thoughts, impossible hopes. I cling to them until half-past noon, when the cavalry finally arrives.

14 killer mom

My idea of the perfect defense attorney is Gregory Peck in To Kill A Mockingbird. Tall, handsome, confident, wise and deeply convinced of his client’s innocence. Willing to face down a mob with nothing more than a firm jaw and his certainty of what is right. I don’t know what the actor was like in real life, but in that movie he was God with a law degree and a charmingly wrinkled suit.

I’ve got the wrinkled suit representing me, but that’s about all Maria Savalo has in common with Gregory Peck. She needs heels to clear five feet tall, can’t weigh more than a hundred pounds soaking wet. Lovely big dark eyes, but deeply circled—she looks a bit like Holly Hunter deprived of sleep for three days.

“Sorry about this,” she says, indicating the very expensive, very wrinkled Chanel pantsuit. “Slept in it last night and didn’t have time to change. Probably got B.O. and bad breath, too. Waiting on a jury. Very tense. Great outcome, though.”