Wanting It to Be True

Detective Santos stood in the precinct interview room with a recorder on the table and her notebook half open.

“Chief Ellis,” she said, “you are not running your own search. You are not calling DMV. You are not touching evidence.”

Raymond sat with his hands folded, then slid them apart. “Understood.”

She watched him over the top edge of the pages. “You report what you saw. I ask the questions. That is the boundary.”

“Yes.”

The room smelled like old paper and coffee gone cold. Through the thin wall, a phone rang twice and stopped.

Santos turned a page. “How did your son get the impression this car was being bought for him?”

Raymond did not answer for a second. “He wasn’t my son.”

She let that sit, then asked again. “How.”

Cole sat opposite her with both elbows on his knees. His jacket was stuffed under the chair. His hands stayed buried in his pockets.

“He said Mom had a trust thing,” he said. “Some money from her uncle’s place. He died last winter. She told me it was for graduation. For the car.”

Santos wrote it down. “Did you see any transfer funds?”

“No.”

“Any bank records?”

Cole shook his head once. “I didn’t ask.”

“Why not?”

His jaw worked. “Because I wanted it to be true.”

Santos tipped the recorder closer. “You knew it sounded thin.”

Cole stared at the scuffed floor tile. “Yeah. I knew.”