was didn’t get to enjoy the fruits of his crime. Without evidence, without witnesses, you couldn’t do that. You’d be left hanging, never knowing who. Or why.
“Anyone from the outside see this happen?”
“I’d have to look at the five to tell you that,” he said, referring to the DD5, the report the detectives had to file after ringing doorbells and taking names, hoping to find a witness in the area of the crime.
I looked at him the way Dashiell looks at me when I’m eating pasta. I swear, that dog prefers spaghetti to steak.
“You wanna know, we got our eye on any suspects yet?”
“Would be helpful.”
I picked up a small pad and a ballpoint pen that had seen better days and wrote a number on it.
“Fax me, okay?”
I handed him the number.
“This is your regular phone number,” he said.
“Well, I don’t get enough faxes to justify the added expense of a dedicated line. Matter of fact, yours stands a good chance of being my first.”
“So when did you catch up with current technology? Fax me!”
“My brother-in-law bought me a fax machine, a laptop, and a printer. Until three weeks ago, the only web sites I was acquainted with were between my dog’s toes. Now, whew, I surf, I defrag, I download. I’m practically a techie.”
“So what was the occasion for all this equipment giving?”
“He thinks I don’t like him anymore.”
Marty nodded. “Is he right?”
“Nah.”
Marty was staring, like I was his crib notes and the test was tomorrow.
“Well, maybe he’s right. I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“He’s a charming man. It’s just that—”
I stopped, wondering why I was making more of this than I should have. Like it was my business in the first place.
“It’s just that?”
“I don’t trust him.”
A banker was missing, it said in the Times, a hundred and sixty-seven thousand missing along with him. Some restaurateur from the Bronx was charged with trying to run over his wife. And yet another mother had killed her children. How did anyone trust anyone?
Marty put out his cigarette. “He cheated on your sister?”
“He did.”
“And does she still like him, Rachel?”
“She does.”
“But you can’t find it in your heart to—”
I flapped my hand at him. “Don’t get me started, okay?”
I headed for the door, my eyes welling up with tears I didn’t want Marty to see.
“Hey. Thanks. I’ll watch for your fax.”
The door closed. I leaned against it, looking up at the fake bomb, someone’s idea of a good thing, thinking about my brother-in-law, wondering, the same as Marty—if Lillian could forgive and forget, why couldn’t I?
CHAPTER 8
How About a Little Trick Today?
Cora was sitting on her bed, her bare feet dangling above the speckled green-and-gold linoleum floor, and for once, Dora wasn’t with her.
“Oh, it’s my little relative,” she said, as soon as she saw me. Then she noticed Dashiell.
“Who woves her mommy?” she asked him. “Lady does.”
I gave Dashiell the hand signal for “find.” Venus had put a dog biscuit in the pockets of those she wanted me to visit, telling them Lady was coming this afternoon, never mind that this time around Lady wouldn’t be a little black bitch with dreadlocks, she’d be a big white pit bull with testicles, anatomically, rather than politically, correct.
You stick to the reality they have to get, Venus had said—meals are eaten in the dining room; you can’t leave the building without an escort; even when you get very angry, you must not hit; that sort of stuff. The rest, poof, you let it go. Because they will anyway.
Dashiell began to nuzzle the pocket with the biscuit. I watched Cora remember the biscuit, the biscuit becoming part of the trail of evidence that would connect her to what she’d been told twenty minutes earlier, help her hold onto the pieces of information she found difficult to grasp. I was interested to see that while she didn’t know one dog from
“Anyone from the outside see this happen?”
“I’d have to look at the five to tell you that,” he said, referring to the DD5, the report the detectives had to file after ringing doorbells and taking names, hoping to find a witness in the area of the crime.
I looked at him the way Dashiell looks at me when I’m eating pasta. I swear, that dog prefers spaghetti to steak.
“You wanna know, we got our eye on any suspects yet?”
“Would be helpful.”
I picked up a small pad and a ballpoint pen that had seen better days and wrote a number on it.
“Fax me, okay?”
I handed him the number.
“This is your regular phone number,” he said.
“Well, I don’t get enough faxes to justify the added expense of a dedicated line. Matter of fact, yours stands a good chance of being my first.”
“So when did you catch up with current technology? Fax me!”
“My brother-in-law bought me a fax machine, a laptop, and a printer. Until three weeks ago, the only web sites I was acquainted with were between my dog’s toes. Now, whew, I surf, I defrag, I download. I’m practically a techie.”
“So what was the occasion for all this equipment giving?”
“He thinks I don’t like him anymore.”
Marty nodded. “Is he right?”
“Nah.”
Marty was staring, like I was his crib notes and the test was tomorrow.
“Well, maybe he’s right. I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“He’s a charming man. It’s just that—”
I stopped, wondering why I was making more of this than I should have. Like it was my business in the first place.
“It’s just that?”
“I don’t trust him.”
A banker was missing, it said in the Times, a hundred and sixty-seven thousand missing along with him. Some restaurateur from the Bronx was charged with trying to run over his wife. And yet another mother had killed her children. How did anyone trust anyone?
Marty put out his cigarette. “He cheated on your sister?”
“He did.”
“And does she still like him, Rachel?”
“She does.”
“But you can’t find it in your heart to—”
I flapped my hand at him. “Don’t get me started, okay?”
I headed for the door, my eyes welling up with tears I didn’t want Marty to see.
“Hey. Thanks. I’ll watch for your fax.”
The door closed. I leaned against it, looking up at the fake bomb, someone’s idea of a good thing, thinking about my brother-in-law, wondering, the same as Marty—if Lillian could forgive and forget, why couldn’t I?
CHAPTER 8
How About a Little Trick Today?
Cora was sitting on her bed, her bare feet dangling above the speckled green-and-gold linoleum floor, and for once, Dora wasn’t with her.
“Oh, it’s my little relative,” she said, as soon as she saw me. Then she noticed Dashiell.
“Who woves her mommy?” she asked him. “Lady does.”
I gave Dashiell the hand signal for “find.” Venus had put a dog biscuit in the pockets of those she wanted me to visit, telling them Lady was coming this afternoon, never mind that this time around Lady wouldn’t be a little black bitch with dreadlocks, she’d be a big white pit bull with testicles, anatomically, rather than politically, correct.
You stick to the reality they have to get, Venus had said—meals are eaten in the dining room; you can’t leave the building without an escort; even when you get very angry, you must not hit; that sort of stuff. The rest, poof, you let it go. Because they will anyway.
Dashiell began to nuzzle the pocket with the biscuit. I watched Cora remember the biscuit, the biscuit becoming part of the trail of evidence that would connect her to what she’d been told twenty minutes earlier, help her hold onto the pieces of information she found difficult to grasp. I was interested to see that while she didn’t know one dog from
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