I didn’t know whether he was fishing for an apology from me for telling about Aveinieu in the first place…but I didn’t think he was. It wasn’t about that.
Aidan reached over to his bedstand to get his headphones. “Look, I just want to zone out for a while. The police are coming in an hour. I’m just going to lie down until then.”
He moved to put his headphones on.
“Just one thing,” I said, stopping him.
“What?”
“Remind me what maddoxes are again?”
“They’re like…bears and oxen. Why? Do you think you saw one?”
That last question was like having the old Aidan back. So maybe that’s why I didn’t follow up with the natural question: Why did you say maddoxes were something different last night?
Instead, I made him think I was satisfied with his answer, and asked, “Do you want me to turn off the lights?”
“Nah,” he said. “This is fine.”
He left me then, as surely as if he’d walked out of the room. I was alone with my homework until Mom came up to tell us the detectives had arrived.
28
We weren’t in the kitchen this time; we were in the den. Officer Ross wasn’t there with Officer Pinkus; there was another officer, who introduced himself as Sergeant Jones. Mom and Dad seemed to know him already, but I hadn’t seen him in the house during Aidan’s disappearance. And obviously Aidan hadn’t seen him, since he’d been…away.
“First off,” Officer Pinkus said, “we want to apologize to you, Aidan, and to your whole family for the leak that came from our department. The person who told your story has been reprimanded—and I want to assure you that it was not someone who is working on your case anymore.”
“We can accept your apology,” Mom said, “as long as you can tell us how we get this back in its box. I cannot tell you how many calls I’ve gotten today. Wendy McGillis, in particular, has called me on my cell phone, at my office, and here at the house, asking for ‘official comment.’ That scares me. And the posts on the local message boards scare me even more.”
“What posts in particular?” Office Pinkus asked.
“Please tell me you read the message boards,” Mom answered. “If you want to know anything about this town, you go to the mommy message boards. And, frankly, they’ve turned against Aidan. They are angry that they were so inconvenienced when they had to search for his body last week. Back then, a whole week ago, they offered prayers and help. Now they only seem to have criticism and snark to offer.”
Sergeant Jones scribbled something down on his pad. “We’ll definitely check that out,” he said.
“That’s not enough,” Mom insisted. “Not nearly enough. I want you to tell me how you’re going to ensure my son’s safety and prevent him from becoming the object of scorn and ridicule because one of your officers couldn’t keep his mouth shut.”
I couldn’t believe Mom was talking to the police in the same voice she used to send me and Aidan to our room for misbehaving.
Officer Pinkus looked like she understood why she was in trouble, and accepted the punishment. “Look,” she said, “there’s no question mistakes were made. And I know you talked to Julia about how to deal with Ms. McGillis and any other members of the press. We didn’t stop looking out for your family after Aidan returned. We are still looking out for you, and will help in any way we can. I suggest we discuss this more after Sergeant Jones and I ask Aidan our questions. As everyone in this room knows, this was meant to be a follow-up visit from last Thursday. I know a lot has happened since then, but we still have questions about Aidan’s whereabouts last week. Aidan, do you mind if we ask you a few more questions?”
It wasn’t like Aidan could say no, he’d rather not answer anything else about his disappearance ever again.
“Sure,” he told the police.
“Okay,” said Officer Pinkus, checking her notes. “Now that you’ve had more time to think about what happened, and hopefully you don’t feel as on the spot as you might have on Thursday…is there anything you told us that you’d like to change? Or anything you’d like to add?”
Aidan had to have known the police would ask him this, but still he acted like he needed some time to think. Finally, he looked at Officer Pinkus and asked, “Do you want me to lie to you?”
“Aidan!” Mom said. But Officer Pinkus didn’t seem to mind the question.
“Why are you asking me that?” she asked back.
“Because,” Aidan said, “I’ve been lying to people all day. I told them that I was completely out of it when I talked to you on Thursday, and that I didn’t know what I was saying. I told them my story was all made up, like I was really drunk on exhaustion and talking like a drunk person. I told them it was make-believe because there was no way to make them believe it. So if you want me to tell you the same things, I will. I’ll tell you exactly what I said to them. But I also want you to know that I’ll be lying to you. Because everything I said to you on Thursday was the actual truth.”
When Aidan was done, I didn’t watch him or the police officers. I watched our parents. Mom looked like she wanted to pull down the ceiling and scream. Dad looked like he wanted to fold himself into the couch and cry.
As for me—I was just trying to understand why Aidan hadn’t decided to lie to them too.
Officer Pinkus didn’t write anything down in her pad. She didn’t break her eye contact with Aidan.
“I appreciate you sticking to the actual truth,” she said. There was no judgment in her voice, no doubt. “That is, at the end of the day, the only thing I can ask of you is to give me the truth as you see it.”
Sergeant Jones, I noticed, stayed silent.
“I have to tell you, Aidan,” Officer Pinkus continued gently, “I spent the whole weekend checking our databases for something similar, some other mention of Aveinieu or another world described in the same way. It appears your case is unique. That isn’t to say that it’s wrong—it’s only to say that it’s singular.”
“Probably because everyone else who’s gone there has stayed,” Aidan offered.
Officer Pinkus nodded. “That is absolutely a valid explanation. Which leads to my next question: Can you remember the names of the other people from our world who were there? Names and any details—the towns they came from, the dates they left. If you give me their names, I can put them into our database and see if they match any open missing persons cases.”