Free Unrevealed by Laurel Dewey

Winston?”
    His eyes skirted again to the two-way mirror. “Is this the typical sort of questioning that is done when one is confessing to murder?”
    â€œI don’t know if there’s any ‘typical’ questioning. This isn’t like, what’s that British cop show on PBS? Prime Suspect ? It’s not like that. So, where were you born, Winston?”
    â€œCheltenham.”
    â€œProsperous area. Not far from Oxford.”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œThat’s convenient. A short hop to the ol’ alma mater. You grew up with some means?”
    He looked me straight in the eye for the first time. “Yes. I did.”
    â€œWhich helped you open Abbey’s Road Pub.”
    â€œVery much so.” He looked down at the table, a wave of sadness washing over him as a memory appeared to crop up unexpectedly.
    â€œAre you okay?”
    He swallowed hard and let out a hard breath. “Yes. I’m fine. Just quite tired.”
    â€œYeah, fatigue tends to do strange things to a person. Defenses are lowered. You’re not as sharp as you should be.” Winston looked at me warily. “For example, you should have an upper-crust British accent. And yet, you don’t. That’s the thing about the Brits. They still have levels of status that structure their existence. And each level of status has a
unique enunciation.” I tapped my ear. “But you gotta have the ear for it.” I leaned back in the chair. “My sergeant — Sergeant Weyler — he only watches PBS. I think he figured I needed some class in my life, so he taped a bunch of episodes of shows he liked. Prime Suspect was one. But the series that struck me the most was a classic called Upstairs/Downstairs. I’m sure you know it. It’s the upper class who live upstairs versus the working class who live downstairs. Upstairs/ Downstairs . Clever, eh?” I could see Winston squirming. “I watched a bunch of episodes and it was pretty damn good. And I started to get tuned into what a working-class accent sounded like versus that upper-crust intonation the wealthy class adopt. There’s quite a difference. And the two of those accents never meet. You either speak the working-class or the tight-ass wealthy dialect. And if your status changes from poverty to wealth, your accent does not. Look at John Lennon. He grew up in a rough working-class area, and after he acquired all the money and fame, he never adopted an upper-crust pronunciation. The opposite is also true.” I leaned forward. “You don’t grow up with means, as you told me you did, and sound like you’re from Liverpool. Your generation doesn’t slum like that.”
    Winston cleared his throat and sat up straighter. “Spend as much time in America as I have and your accent gets lazier. Ask any transplanted Brit. People even say I sound American at times.”
    â€œDo they? Is that when you get tired at the end of a long day? Or talk in your sleep?” I leaned forward. “Or become emotional? Is that when your American accent creeps through?”
    His chin began to tremble. I caught his eyes checking out one of the cameras in the corner of the room.

    â€œWhen you were informed of your wife’s death,” I continued, “I heard you say, ‘ She’s my world .’ And you said it with an American accent. It was one of the realer moments of your life because your defenses were down. That’s when the truth creeps out of a person. Shock takes over and you step outside yourself. But that wasn’t the first time shock overwhelmed you, was it?”
    Winston gripped the side of the metal table with his large hand. “Please…can we not do this?”
    I opened the manila folder and brought out the three items I’d borrowed from the small brown box I found on Winston’s closet shelf. I laid the first one on the table as his eyes grew larger. “Recognize that?