Chapter 20: The Drum

The interview room at the Kingston station had a metal table, two chairs and a camera in the corner.

My father had refused a lawyer at the door.

The detective sat across from him with a folder and a paper cup of coffee that he did not drink.

I took the third chair, the one nobody had asked for, and sat beside my father.

"Mr. Basile," the detective said. "You understand you can leave."

"I understand."

"You understand you came in on your own."

"Yes."

"Then I will say it plainly. I have the marshal's report and the lawyer's signature. I have a statement from the woman who lived through it."

"I do not have you."

My father folded his hands on the table.

"You do not have a drum," the detective said. "You have a building that burned eight years ago, and no one to show a jury."

"I know where it is."

The detective went very still.

"Say that again."

"I know where the drum is," my father said. "I know because I told them to take it out of the ruin before the fire marshal came."

"Where?"

"The lake behind my brother's boathouse, in Saugerties. They sank it eleven feet down, with the bricks from the oven."

The detective wrote it on the folder without looking away from him.

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