Across the pavilion, an evidence technician photographed the torn decorations. Kesha lowered her camera and wiped her face. Mrs. Washington told Robert she wanted to get the children home before another news van appeared. Nobody was celebrating the arrest yet. They were counting their children, checking each other's faces, and trying to understand how an afternoon meant for cake and treasure maps had become a federal crime scene.
When Marcus finally pulled away, he asked a question James would remember long after the case ended. "If you weren't FBI, would she have let us go?"
James looked toward the officer being placed in the vehicle, then back at his son. "I don't know what she would have done," he answered. "But she should have treated us right either way."
Marcus studied him, uncertain whether that was enough. James wished he could give him a simpler answer. Instead he picked a tiny piece of blue icing from the boy's sleeve and promised they would find a way to have a birthday again, on a day when nobody had to be afraid.
They did not return to their house that night. Carter arranged a temporary residence while agents assessed the threats Mitchell had made and the risk posed by other members of the corruption network. James had expected the decision and hated it anyway. Their home held Marcus's school projects on the refrigerator, Maya's garden on the windowsill, and a crooked height chart marked in pencil along the laundry-room door. Leaving those small proofs of ordinary life behind felt like another theft from a day already full of them.
The temporary apartment was comfortable in the impersonal way of places designed for short stays. There were clean towels, unopened cereal boxes, and a television with a remote that seemed to have too many buttons. Nothing smelled like the Thompsons' home. Marcus asked where his stuffed dinosaur was, then cried when James explained they could not go back to retrieve it immediately. Maya sat beside him on the sofa and let him cry without telling him to be strong.
James stood in the kitchen with a cup of coffee he had not tasted. His knees were stiff, his jacket was stained, and he had a headache from repeating the afternoon's sequence in an initial statement. He knew that an investigative record depended on details rather than impressions. He had described when Mitchell arrived, who tipped each table, which officers handled property, the words spoken before the false report, and the moment the lieutenant seized his son. It was the kind of statement he had taken from strangers hundreds of times. Giving it about his own family felt strangely helpless.
Maya came into the kitchen after Marcus finally fell asleep. She stood across from James without touching him. For a while they listened to the refrigerator hum. He wanted to tell her the case was moving, that Mitchell had been arrested, that other operations were underway. She knew those things already. The words she needed were not professional assurances.