“Look. Agent. I’m a retired lieutenant colonel. I served this country for twenty-two years. This is a family matter that got out of hand. My daughter’s under a lot of stress. She just got back from a deployment. You know how it is. I think if we all just sit down—”
“Mr. Hollis,” said Harlan. “Yesterday afternoon, did you threaten to interfere with your daughter’s promotion to major if she didn’t sign over this property?”
My father stopped.
“Colonel Tom Brandt called my office this morning,” Harlan went on, very quietly. “He said that at your barbecue yesterday, you told him your daughter had ‘some
financial problems’ and that he should ‘keep an eye on her packet.’ He thought it was strange. He thought it was strange enough to make a call.”
My father’s mouth opened. Nothing came out.
“You have connections, Mr. Hollis,” said Harlan. “That’s true. And it turns out one of them has a conscience.”
They didn’t handcuff my parents in the living room.
I’d wondered if they would. Part of me wanted to see it, I’ll be honest. The part of me that was seven years old with a broken volcano.
But they didn’t. They asked my parents to come down to the station to give statements. My mother cried and said she wanted a lawyer. My father didn’t say anything at all. He walked out of my front door without looking back at me, and got into the back of the patrol car, and stared straight ahead through the window.
At the last second, my mother stopped on the porch.
She turned around. Her face was wet. Her mascara had run.
“How could you do this to your own family?” she said.
I thought about that question.
