Chapter 5 - The Confrontation
By Friday afternoon, the interrogation rooms of the Dallas County Sheriff's Department were quiet, save for the hum of the fluorescent lights.
I stood behind the two-way mirror of Interrogation Room B. On the other side of the glass sat my mother, Evelyn Brooks. She was no longer wearing her expensive pearls. She sat in a standard orange jail jumpsuit, her hands cuffed to the metal table, her eyes staring blankly at the concrete wall.
Detective Vance sat opposite her, the leather-bound ledger resting between them.
"We have the forensic reports back on the cellar, Evelyn," Vance said, his voice calm, almost conversational. "The hair samples we recovered from the iron ring match the DNA of Julian Harris. And we found your fingerprints on the inside of the footlocker."
Evelyn didn't look at him. "My husband was a respected man. He saved those children."
"He abducted them, Evelyn," Vance said.
"They were dirty!" she suddenly snapped, her face twisting into the same cruel, ugly expression she had used when she kicked my mother's basket of food across the floor. "They were country trash, public shelter garbage! Marcus gave them structure! He gave them a purpose!"
"And when they died?" Vance asked.
"They were buried with respect," she whispered, her voice returning to a chilling, polite calm. "Beneath the oak. Marcus always said the trees grew stronger when they had something to feed on."
Beside me in the observation room, the door opened.
My sister, Rachel, was led down the hallway by two female deputies. She looked exhausted, her face red from crying, her spirit completely broken after twelve hours of federal questioning. She saw me standing by the glass and stopped, her hands shaking within her cuffs.
"Natalie," she sobbed, leaning her head against the doorframe. "Natalie, I didn't know about the children. I swear to God, I didn't know about the ones in the nineties! I only knew about the cellar! Mom told me Eli had found the key... she said he went inside and saw the chain. She said if he told you, the police would come and take our house away. We just wanted to scare him! We just wanted to make him promise not to tell!"
I looked at my sister—the girl I had shared a bedroom with, the girl I had protected from our father's cold, demanding rages when we were children.
"You broke his wrist, Rachel," I said, my voice entirely flat, devoid of any anger or sisterly warmth. "You left him in a freezing hole because you were afraid of losing a house built on the bones of murdered children."
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"We're family, Natalie!" she cried as the deputies began to pull her toward the processing room. "You can't let them do this to us! We're your family!"
"My family is in the ICU," I said, turning my back on her. "You are just the monsters I grew up with."
