"That's not what I asked."
The canopy hummed. Dale said, "You're free to go, Mr. Bellamy."
Marcus considered that. "I was always free to go," he said. "That was the whole time."
He turned to Santos. "My father died on Sunday. There's a viewing at Lindqvist's that closes at eight. I came a long way to get there. I'm going to put gas in this car, because the rental company says to return it full, and then I'm going to go look at my father. Is there anything else either of you needs from me?"
"No, sir," Santos said. She took a card from her breast pocket and wrote the incident number on the back with the pen from her sleeve. "That's me. That's the number for tonight. If you want to make a complaint, call the main line and ask for Professional Standards. Lieutenant Yost."
She felt Dale hear it. She did not look at him.
Marcus read both sides of the card and put it in his shirt pocket. "Thank you, Officer Santos," he said, taking her name off the card, and then he turned his back on both of them—a thing, Santos thought later, that must have cost him something—lifted the pump handle, and began to fill the tank.
*
Leila stopped recording when the man began pumping gas, because it seemed wrong to record a man pumping gas. When he came inside she was behind the counter, because she didn't know where else to be.
He set a large coffee on the counter, black. "Pump four, and this."
She rang it up. Her hands were still shaking and the drawer stuck. "The coffee's—you don't have to—" she began, and stopped, because she had been about to say what her uncle said to the police, and it came out of her mouth wrong.
"I pay for my coffee," he said. Gently.
She gave him his change. Then she said, "I got it. On my phone. From the start, almost. From before he touched you."
He looked at her properly for the first time, and she saw how tired he was behind the clear glasses—tired the way her mother got after a double shift at the hospital laundry.
"What's your name?"
"Leila. Leila Haddad."