Sarah Koenig

He says he was thinking of Matlock.

He says the detectives stopped questioning him.

They got ready to leave the room again.

Keep in mind, Adnan was 17 years old.

He had an annotated bibliography due in his English class, he said.

Bill Ritz tried to make a non-situation plain to him.

And did you get it?

You didn't think he meant you're never going home.

Often when Adnan tells stories about this time, he zeroes in on some small moment when someone was kind to him.

That's it.

That's the whole story.

But he's mentioned this guy to me multiple times.

Also, the white lady who was driving the cruiser that took him downtown.

She was polite.

There was the sheriff's deputy who looked like Judd Hirsch, who slipped him a candy bar.

The eighth grade teacher whose name he can't remember, who wrote him that nice letter.

I can imagine how you'd seize these kindnesses and that they'd nestle into your brain forever.

Last spring, Dana and I went to Krista's house.

Krista was good friends with Hayen and Nan.

She was Krista Myers back then.