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The door opens and in walks…Reagan. Her face is made up and she appears to have dressed for the occasion. A baby bump presses against her shirt. I barely showed at four months, much less during my first trimester.
I glance behind her. No parent or attorney follows.
The detective motions to the open chair next to Jacob. Her fingers drum her huddled arms.
Detective Little reviews her name and a couple other basic questions. Ben pipes up. “Excuse me, but I have to ask.” He turns to Reagan. “Are your parents aware you’re here?”
“No.” Her chin lifts. “I turned eighteen on Saturday.”
Ben’s mouth descends. “Still, Ms. Boswell—”
“I appreciate you trying to help, sir, but I don’t have any problem being here today. I have nothing to hide.”
There’s a coldness in my son’s girlfriend I’ve not seen before, but there’s also a vague quiver in her lower lip.
The detective leads off. “Now that that’s out of the way, Ms. Boswell, can you tell me what happened on the afternoon of August the twenty-seventh?”
“Um, sure. It was a Saturday. The weekend before school started. Jacob and I were hanging out at my house. I was hungry and said I wanted to go get something to eat. So we left, and then we got pulled over.”
“Where exactly were you headed?”
She lifts one shoulder. “We hadn’t made up our minds yet.”
Detective Little taps his chin. “Hmm. Jacob, I’ve looked through your initial interview, and I see where you originally mentioned that the two of you were on your way to a particular hamburger stand. A food truck north of town?”
Jacob’s gaze flits to Reagan. “Um, I can’t remember. It was no big deal.”
“You can’t remember—or it was no big deal? Which is it?”
Jacob shrugs limply.
“Okay. So, it was on this drive to nowhere in particular that you can’t remember that Officer Blum pulled you over for rolling a stop sign. Is that correct?”
Both nod.
The detective makes a show of looking at the papers he brought with him. “According to this here, Officer Blum reported smelling the odor of marijuana and requested permission to search the vehicle. Is that also correct?” More nods. “And you granted it?”
“Yes.”
“And why did the vehicle smell of marijuana? You two been smoking together?”
“No!”
“No!” Reagan echoes. “Neither one of us does that. My brother borrowed Jacob’s car earlier that day, and he smokes all the time.”
Back to stroking his chin, Detective Little says, “Interesting—and we’ll get back to that, but for now, I have to ask. Knowing you had a large quantity of an illegal substance—not marijuana—and an illegal weapon under the front seat, you gave our officer permission to search your car. Why is that, Carpenter?”
I study my son. Yes, why? I’m his mother, doggonit, and I can see him trying to come up with a reasonable-sounding lie. In the end, he shrugs.
“Seems an odd thing to do, doesn’t it?”
Another shrug. “I figured he’d search it anyway.”
“Okay, if you say so—but most folks put up at least some resistance.” The detective turns. “Ms. Boswell. You had no knowledge that lover boy here was transporting illegal substances? Isn’t that what you told me earlier?”
Her cheek twitches. “That’s right.”
“And you were as surprised as the officer when he discovered the contraband?”
