Chương 5
At 7:18, Emily called from the bedroom.
“Dad?”
He reached the doorway before she finished saying the word.
She was awake, looking at the wall.
“Can we get Cal?”
“Yes.”
“Today?”
“Yes.”
“You said yes too fast.”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“What if they don’t let us?”
“Then I’ll figure something else out.”
She rolled onto her side. “That’s not a plan.”
He recognized his own voice in her sentence.
“No,” he said. “It’s not.”
The first detective called at 9:40.
Her name was Simone Park. She asked Haron to return to the station without Emily so he could provide background information. He explained that he could not leave Emily alone. Park suggested Dana might remain with her during the interview.
Emily refused.
“I don’t want another person asking questions,” she said.
“They wouldn’t ask questions.”
“They always ask questions.”
Haron told Park he would speak by phone.
“That limits what we can cover,” she said.
“Then cover less.”
“Mr. Haron, I’m trying to build a complete record.”
“So am I.”
The hostility in his voice arrived before he could stop it.
Park stayed silent long enough for him to hear how he sounded.
He rubbed his forehead. “Sorry.”
“I understand you’ve had a long night.”
“That’s not a reason.”
“No,” Park said. “But it is a fact.”
They arranged for her to come to the apartment with Dana.
Before they arrived, Haron made scrambled eggs. Emily ate one bite and moved the rest around with a fork. He opened a cabinet three times looking for hot sauce before remembering he had left it at a job site.
“Why do you keep doing that?” she asked.
“Doing what?”
“Opening the same door.”
“I think the hot sauce might come home.”
She stared at him.
“It has a difficult childhood,” he added.
“Dad.”
“Sorry.”
She looked down at the eggs. “Richard says jokes are what people do when they don’t want to answer.”
Haron closed the cabinet.
“What did you ask him?”
Her fork stopped moving.
He immediately regretted the question.
“You don’t have to answer.”
“You just asked.”
“I know.”
“You always do that. You ask, then say I don’t have to answer, but it’s still there.”
He sat across from her.
“What should I do instead?”
Emily shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“That makes two of us.”
For a while they listened to dryers turning across the street. A delivery truck blocked the alley and reversed with a repetitive beep. Someone upstairs from the laundromat dragged furniture across a floor.
Emily pushed the plate away.
“The scissors were on the counter,” she said.
Haron did not move.
“I picked them up because he had my phone. He thought I was going to stab him, but I wasn’t. I wanted him to put the phone down.”
“All right.”
“He told the police I came at him.”
“All right.”
“You keep saying that.”
“I’m trying not to ask.”
She looked at him then, and her eyes filled without spilling.
“I hit his mouth when he grabbed me.”
“With your hand?”
“With my head.”
Haron’s stomach tightened.
“He had my arms,” she said. “I couldn’t use my hands.”
The detective arrived before he found a response that would not become another weight for her to carry.
Park was shorter than Torres and dressed in plain clothes. She wore black slacks, a gray sweater, and a badge clipped at her waist. Dana came behind her carrying a paper bag from a bakery.
“I brought muffins,” Dana said.
“Why?” Emily asked.
“Because I passed a bakery.”
This answer appeared to satisfy her more than kindness would have.
Park spoke with Haron at the kitchen table while Dana and Emily sat in the bedroom doorway, close enough that Emily could see him but far enough that the adults could lower their voices.
Park asked about the custody arrangement, the divorce, Richard’s relationship with Emily, and any earlier disclosures. Haron gave careful answers at first.
Then she asked whether he had previously accused Richard of mistreating Emily.
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
“I don’t know. Two formal complaints. Maybe three.”
“Were any substantiated?”
“No.”
“What were the allegations?”
“He shoved her into a door.”
“When?”
“Two years ago.”
“Did Emily say that?”
“She said he moved her out of the way and she hit the door.”
“Those are different descriptions.”
“She minimized it.”
Park wrote something.
Haron felt the old heat rise.
“There,” he said. “That.”
Park looked up. “What?”
“You already decided I exaggerated.”
“I wrote down what you told me.”
“You changed your face.”
“My face is not part of the report.”
“It’s part of the room.”
From the bedroom doorway, Emily said, “Dad.”
One word.
Haron leaned back.
Park capped her pen. “Mr. Haron, opposing counsel will ask these questions less gently if this becomes a custody matter or criminal case. Richard’s attorney may argue that you have spent years interpreting ordinary conflict as abuse because you resent him and want primary custody.”
“I do resent him.”
“Then we should not pretend otherwise.”
Haron looked at Emily.
She was pulling the paper wrapper from a blueberry muffin in one continuous strip.
“What do you need from me?” he asked.
“The truth, including the parts that make you look imperfect.”
“You’ll get plenty.”
Park’s expression softened by a degree. “That is usually more useful than innocence.”
The recording began at 2:34 a.m.
Emily had started it from beneath a blanket after hearing Richard enter her room. Her phone had a cracked corner and an older operating system. The screen recording showed mostly darkness, but the microphone captured voices clearly enough for investigators to separate them.
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Park did not play the audio in the apartment. She summarized only what Haron needed to know.
Richard accused Emily of lying to Leah about money missing from a kitchen drawer. Emily denied taking it. Richard told her to unlock her phone. She refused. He said children who wanted privacy should pay rent. A struggle followed. Emily shouted for her mother.
