Chapter 4 - The Confession in the Interrogation Room
Three days later, the spring sun was shining brightly outside the Bergen County Courthouse, but inside the precinct interrogation room, the air was freezing.
I sat across a scuffed metal table from my son.
Brian looked different in an orange jumpsuit. The sharp, tailored suits he wore as a rising regional manager at an insurance firm were gone. His hair was uncombed, his eyes bloodshot, and his jaw shadowed with a three-day beard.
When the metal door clicked shut behind the guard, Brian looked up at me. There was no remorse in his eyes—only a cold, defensive irritation.
"I suppose you're here to lecture me," Brian muttered, crossing his arms over his chest.
I didn't yell. I didn't slam my fists on the table. I just stared at him—the boy I had raised, coached in Little League, and put through college—realizing I had no idea who the monster sitting across from me actually was.
"You left your daughter dying on a hardwood floor, Brian," I said quietly, my voice barely above a whisper. "You locked your son in a dark closet because he inconvenienced your vacation schedule. Why?"
Brian scoffed, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling. "Oh, stop being so dramatic, Dad. You've always coddled them. Lily was just throwing a tantrum because she didn't want to stay with her aunt. She gets hysterical when she has a cold. We just gave her a little help to sleep through the night so we could get on the road before traffic got heavy."
"And Mason?" I demanded, leaning forward. "What was his excuse? Did he throw a tantrum too?"
"Mason wouldn't stop crying about his missing tablet!" Brian snapped, his voice rising, a flash of genuine anger breaking through his apathetic facade. "We had a schedule to keep! The hotel in Orlando was non-refundable! Do you have any idea how much money that trip cost me? One kid acting up is annoying, but two of them whining in the back seat for twelve hours? I had to do something to keep the peace!"
The sheer, psychotic narcissism of his explanation left me completely speechless.
"You drugged a child," I whispered. "You locked another one in a dark room. You didn't leave them with an aunt. You abandoned them to starve or suffocate while you drove south for a beach vacation."
"We were coming back on Sunday!" Brian yelled, slamming his cuffed hands against the metal table. "We left food in the fridge! We left a note for you! If you had just minded your own business and stayed home instead of breaking into my house like a lunatic, none of this would be a federal case!"
The door flew open behind us.
Officer Miller stepped into the room, his face dark with fury. He reached down, grabbed the back of Brian’s jumpsuit collar, and yanked him up out of his chair.
"Interview's over, Mr. Moretti," Miller snarled, signaling the guard to take him back to holding. "Your arrogance is going to look great on the permanent record when the judge hands down your sentence."
As the guards dragged my son away, kicking and shouting curses over his shoulder, I sat alone in the cold room, feeling an overwhelming wave of exhaustion wash over my bones.
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I had lost my wife Carol years ago. Now, in a very real sense, I had lost my son.
But as I stood up and walked out of the precinct into the crisp afternoon air, I knew I hadn't lost everything.
