I stood in my kitchen in my scrubs, with my badge still clipped to my pocket, and looked at my son, and wanted to tell him so badly that it felt like a physical pressure in my chest, like the weight of a hand on a sternum. I wanted to tell him: I know why. I know exactly why. I watched her do it. I have it on a memory card in a sealed bag in a locked evidence room at the county sheriff's office, her face, her gloves, her voice.
But Detective Okonjo had said not your son, and Ruthanne had said it too, separately, and more bluntly: "He's fifteen and he's angry and he goes to school with that woman's grandson. If he knows, it shows on his face, or he tells Kofi, or he says something in a hallway. I'm not saying he would. I'm saying I don't take chances with things that can't be undone."
So I sat down across from him.
"Izzy," I said. "I need to tell you something, and it's going to sound like I'm not telling you something. Because I'm not."
He looked at me warily.
"I found something. Ruthanne and I. Something important, about what happened to your backpack. I can't tell you what it is yet. A detective has asked me not to, and Ruthanne agrees, and I agree, because if I tell you now it could ruin it. I'm going to tell you everything. Soon. I promise. But I need you to trust me without knowing. For a few more days."
He was quiet for a long time.
"Like you should've trusted me," he said finally. "Without knowing."
It wasn't cruel. He said it like a man noting the weather.
"Yes," I said. "Exactly like that. I'm asking you to do the thing I didn't do."
He put the evidence page face down on the table. He picked up the cereal box and looked into it as if something important might be at the bottom.
"Okay," he said. "But it better be good."