"You're sure you're comfortable with this?" Ty asked, pulling a dictaphone and a legal pad from a bag on the floor by his side.
Nat gave a shrug and tried to smile. "Confessing to murder? Why would that be uncomfortable?"
"Not murder," he said, putting a hand up to forestall any misapprehensions that might be forming on her end. Nat couldn't decide if it was patronizing or sweet. "Let's be very clear on this- it's not murder if you didn't mean to. You didn't plan it. You couldn't stop it. It wasn't murder."
Sweet, she decided. At least, kind of sweet.
"So what is it, then?" she asked, swirling a straw through her drink. "If it wasn't murder?"
"Strictly speaking, we're going for accidental death," he said. He paused, frowning.
Nat frowned back. "What?"
"We," Ty said, shaking his head with a chuckle. "I've never colluded with a suspect to build their defense before."
Nat grinned at him, took the maraschino cherry from her glass, and bit it in half. "So I'm busting your cherry?"
He rolled his eyes. "Ha ha."
She smiled. "I couldn't help it- the pun was there, the cherry was there, what was I supposed to do? I didn't plan it, I couldn't stop it."
Ty laughed. "So accidental visual pun."
He looked away from her to jot some notes in his pad. Nat shuffled her feet under the table. "So what's going to happen, when you get the confession in?"
"Well, you'll be arrested," he began.
Nat blinked. "Wait, really?"
"Yeah," Ty said, giving her a rueful look. "Sorry. Standard procedure. It's just a formality."
"Oh." Nat fidgeted some more. "So will I go to jail?"
"For, like a half hour," he said. "Then we'll meet with the D.A. They'll review your statement, and Cal's medical opinion, plus some character references from your teachers in college and your priest back home--"
"Father Peralta?" Nat stared. "You talked to Father Peralta?"
"Is that a problem?" Ty asked, raising an eyebrow.
"No," she said. "I mean, not exactly."
"His letter was very nice," he said. "All about your great childhood and indispensable service to your community."
Nat laughed. "That's insane."
"Why?" Ty frowned. "You put frogs in the rectory or something?"
She laughed again. "Do I seem like the type to put frogs in the rectory?"
"Accidentally, with no malice aforethought," he said, grinning at her.
Nat tossed a wadded up napkin at him. "You're not cute."
"I'm a dad in his forties," Ty said. "I'm not supposed to be cute."
"Then why are you trying to be cute?" she asked, leaning towards him on her elbows.
"I didn't plan it, I couldn't stop it," he said, smiling at her. "It just happened."
She rolled her eyes. Then she paused and bit her lip.
Ty frowned at her. "What's the matter?"
Nat looked back down into her drink, stirring it some more with the straw. "Do you think we're being a little too casual about half a dozen dead people?"
"Maybe," Ty said. He looked rueful again. "I work homicide. For me, it's just kind of an unfortunate side effect of the job."
She nodded. "What about me, though? What's my excuse? I mean, I killed them- whether it was really murder or not, they're dead because of me."
"No, they're not," Ty said. His intensity startled her.
"You're a good person, Renata," he said. "You didn't kill them because you thought it'd be fun. You didn't even know half the time that they'd die."
"They're dead because your parents made shitty decisions," he said. "Okay?"
Nat stared some more into her drink. "It'd be nice to think that."
"So think it," Ty said. "I can't vouch for anyone else, but I won't think less of you."
"Okay," she said. She took a breath. "So what happens after that? The whole judicial review thing?"
"The D.A will decide whether or not to charge you," he said. "There's a chance she will, I'm not going to lie."
"Charge me with what," Nat asked, "if it's not murder?"
"Criminal negligence, usually," Ty said. "That's the precedent for arguing repeat infection with illness."
"They're very hard cases to win," he said. "Most D.As don't want to take a case that could potentially screw their numbers so bad. If she charges you, she'll want to plead you down to something like malicious mischief."
Nat made a face. "Like graffiti?"
"Yeah, like graffiti," he said. "But it's a community service charge. You can deal with it."
"Yeah, I guess." She raked her fingernails back through her hair. "Can't believe it's possible to kill someone and only get community service."
Ty let out a low, humorless chuckle. "God bless America."
"Heh. Right." Nat raked her nails through her hair again. "So that's it?"
"Once we go through your story," he said. "You ready to tell me what happened?"
"As I'll ever be," she said.
