“Can’t I go home?” I asked.
“You’re an accessory, Ms. Taylor. We could have you for aiding and abetting.” This was said by the younger agent. He was big and stern, with dark skin, dark eyes, and a dark disposition. His body seemed to take up the whole room and the light from the overhead lamp shined off his shaved head. He was a mountain of a man, his voice, like thunder.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t know.”
“Tell us how it all began, Ms. Taylor.”
Tell them how it all began. Where would I even start? How had I wound up in an interrogation room with a cup of watered down coffee in front of me and two FBI agents asking me how it all began. I was a kid when it all began. I didn’t know what I was doing. We were all just kids. How were we supposed to know what we were getting ourselves into?
“I think it all started before I was ever in the picture,”
“Tell us about it,” said the agent who reminded me of that one cop from Homicide: Life on the Streets. The one that had the bar. “Ms. Taylor, we have nothing but time.”
I sat there in a surly slouch for longer than I should have. I didn’t want to talk to Homicide and Thunder Mountain. I wanted to go home. I wanted to know what happened to Michael. I wondered if I talked whether they would tell me what had happened to him or not.
“Where’s Michael?”
Homicide smiled at me. “All in due time, Ms. Taylor. First, we want to hear your story. We want to know how you and Mr. Spaulding came to be acquainted. It’s not every day that two enterprising teenagers set out to cause an international incident by building a nuclear reactor in their garage.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with that.”
Homicide smiled. “Oh, but you did. Why don’t you cut the charade and just tell us about it. I promise you, it’ll be better for you in the long run if you do.”
I began to wonder what choice I had. These guys were the FBI and they meant business. Anyway, it wasn’t like I hadn’t already eluded them for so long. It was about time that I get caught. The jig ought to finally be up. It was just a shame that I couldn’t have given Michael a chance to get away. I had no problem taking the fall for him.
Thunder Mountain was pacing the corner, when he suddenly burst out with “Are you going to talk or not?”
“Now Martin,” said Homicide, “there’s no need to rush the young lady. Let her take her time. These things need to be organic you know. We can’t pry it out of her. She’s got to want to talk. We can wait. All. Day. Long.”
Martin. I did not expect that to be Thunder Mountain’s name. I wondered what Homicide’s name was. I imagined that I would learn that too before I left that tiny room in the Crescent City Police Department. I began to wonder where the rest of the local cops were. They couldn’t have been happy to have to let the Feds muscle in on their turf. I’m sure that Officer Maycomb and Officer Isley were just chomping at the bit for the opportunity to interrogate little old me, not to mention Chief Duchennes.
Well, joke’s on them. They missed their chance. All those months Michael and I were zipping around town with radioactive materials right under their noses and they were none the wiser. One little traffic stop and it would have all been over. Alas, they were too busy doing whatever small town cops do. Not hassling the likes of hardened uranium thieves, that’s for sure.
So, maybe I did deserve to be there. I was an FBI eluding, uranium stealing, criminal - and for what? I don’t even know. I don’t know who I even am anymore. I used to have things so figured out. Then he had to nearly burn down Mount Royal and come skulking into my life dragging all that fabulous lab equipment behind him and things we just never going to be the same again.
I looked up at Homicide and Thunder Mountain.
“Alright boys, I’ll talk.”
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