Josie suppressed a groan. Turner’s interview strategy was to be as blunt and crass as possible. She’d lost count of how many witnesses he’d riled up. If they hadn’t walked into the room feeling homicidal, ten minutes with him would change that. His first impression of Charles Barnes had clearly made him even punchier than usual.
Charles sighed and rubbed at his chin. In this well-lit room, with all his rage quieted, Josie saw that his eyes were glassy and red-rimmed, just as Taulara from the glamping office had said. “No. That’s not why we got married. Yeah, the pregnancy wasn’t planned. Maxine thought it was way too early, but she was going to have it anyway so I said we should get married.”
“Did you want to get married?” asked Josie.
“Well, yeah, that was the whole idea. I didn’t see the point in waiting once she got pregnant.”
Turner said, “Did Maxine want to get married?”
Charles scoffed. “We got married, didn’t we?”
Alarm bells rang in Josie’s head. Had Maxine wanted the marriage, or had she felt pressured into it? Reproductive coercion was another form of intimate partner abuse. It came in many forms, but in this case, Josie wondered if Charles had sabotaged Maxine’s birth control so she would get pregnant and then he could coerce her into marriage. Not all intimate partner abuse was overtly violent.
“That doesn’t answer my question,” said Turner.
Charles waved a hand in the air. “If she didn’t want to marry me, she wouldn’t have gone through with it, now would she?”
Unless she’d felt immense pressure or Charles had made life as a single mother sound unachievable. Maxine had been ten years younger than him, only twenty years old when Haven was born. “Where did you two meet?” asked Josie.
“Doctor’s office,” he said. “She was a secretary, and I was a patient. I asked her out a dozen times before she agreed to go out with me.”
Turner said, “A dozen times. How long a time period are we talking?”
Charles looked suspicious of the question but answered anyway. “I don’t know. A year?”
A sour feeling settled in Josie’s stomach. He’d pursued a young woman barely of age for a year until she agreed to date him. Two months later, she was pregnant.
“Listen,” Charles said. “I had good insurance and enough income that she could quit when the baby came, at least for the first year or so. It was the best thing for her.”
“And for your baby?” Turner said pointedly.
“Yeah, of course. I wanted everything to be perfect for when Haven was born.”
There was no smile, no sparkle in his eyes like most parents when they recounted the arrival of their children. Charles looked haggard and exhausted.
“It’s something else, isn’t it?” Turner said. “First time you hold your kid.”
The ghost of a smile lifted the corners of Charles’s mouth. “Yeah, pretty wild.”
“How long have you and Maxine been separated?” asked Josie.
“About three, four months.”
“The day that Haven called the police while witnessing the argument between you and Maxine, was that the first time things got heated?” Josie asked.
“By heated, you mean yelling at one another?” Charles asked.
According to the reports Josie had read, there had also been broken dishes in the kitchen and Haven had heard a loud thud, followed by her mother calling out as though she was in pain, but there wasn’t a chance in hell that Charles Barnes was going to admit to more than yelling.
Unless maybe Turner goaded him into it. “Sure,” he said. “Yelling, screaming, throwing shit, pulling hair, pushing your wife, knocking her to the ground.”
Charles narrowed his eyes. “We got loud, okay? Maxine dropped a couple of dishes before I even came into the kitchen.She was feeling dizzy. Not sleeping. She’d been a klutz for a few weeks before that but to answer your question, yes, we argued sometimes, just like any other couple. Yes, we raised our voices every now and then. What married couple doesn’t?”
“How often?” Turner pressed.
“Why does this matter?”
“We’re asking the questions here,” Turner replied. “How often did you argue? Once a year? Once a month? More frequently?”
