Dead Weight (20 page)

After a few minutes we were ushered into the extra motel room, which was a double, and the door was closed behind us. Bess and I crawled on one bed and the twins crawled on another, making room for Graham. Mom and Dad sat at the two chairs by this little table, and Mr Killian sat on a stool by the vanity. No one said anything for a long time, until, my mom, of course, broke the silence.

‘How did y’all know to come here for your uncle?’ she asked.

Neither boy answered, so Graham piped up. ‘He called the house phone while we were upstairs eating. One of them –’ he said, indicating the twins with a nod – ‘answered the phone. I’m not sure what all he said, but the gist was he needed a ride so we came here to get him.’

‘What did he say on the phone?’ Mr Killian asked his boys. When neither answered, he said, ‘Keith, did you talk to him?’

Keith nodded his head. ‘Yeah. We both did.’ He gulped in air and shuttered a little. ‘I told him Grandpa was pissed – oh, shit!’ he said and began to cry. Ken, Jr put his arm around him and took up the tale. ‘And Uncle Mark said something rude about Grandpa. Then said he was sorry he was late, but he couldn’t get a ride to Black Cat Ridge. So we volunteered to come get him. Well, volunteered Graham to come get him.’

‘Do you know what time the phone call was?’ my mom asked.

Then Dad said, ‘Why don’t we let Luna ask the questions?’ and Mom gave him an ‘are you kidding me’ look, and Dad gave her a ‘enough is enough’ look. So maybe they weren’t back together after all. I thought with them coming together in the minivan that maybe . . . So much for wishes.

‘Answer E.J.’s question,’ Mr Killian said, which surprised me. Men usually stick together on these things. My dad shot him a look that shouted,
Betrayer!

Keith shook his head. ‘I have no idea. We hadn’t been upstairs long and we were the first in line for the food, so when did y’all put out the food?’

Ooo, I thought, good detective work. I told you he was the smart one.

‘We didn’t put the food out until you and the family got back, Ken. Do you know what time that was?’

He nodded his head. ‘Yes, I do because I looked at my watch. Wondering how much longer I was going to have to deal with Kerry’s family.’ He sighed. ‘I guess it’ll be a while yet.’ When the boys looked at him aghast, he said, ‘Sorry. It was twelve thirty-five.’

‘It was one-oh-five by my car clock when we headed out,’ Graham said.

‘So the call came in somewhere between twelve thirty-five and one-oh-five. And you found him at what time?’

‘We pulled up here at one twenty-three. I checked the clock because I wanted to see how long it took,’ Graham said.

‘That’s a pretty short window of opportunity,’ Dad said. ‘We need to narrow down the phone call to a time less than the thirty minutes we have now. E.J., how soon after Ken arrived did y’all put out the food?’

‘Actually, I was in the kitchen and saw Ken pull up. So we started a few minutes before they actually got in the door.’

Mr Killian said, ‘I checked my watch while I was still in the car.’

‘OK,’ Dad said, ‘so we’re still at twelve thirty-five. E.J., how long did it take to put out all the food?’

‘We already had some of it out, so maybe another ten minutes to get all the hot stuff out of the oven and onto hot pads and get the cold stuff out of the refrigerator.’

‘OK, we’re down to twenty minutes. Graham, how quickly did you kids grab your plates?’

‘Now, wait,’ Mom said. ‘Y’all weren’t the first in line! There were two moms there with younger kids and we had them fill the kids’ plates before y’all started. That probably took another five minutes, because one of the kids kept trying to grab all the grapes off the fruit plate and the mother kept putting them back, and I’m thinking, well we have to throw those away!’

‘OK, now we’re down to fifteen minutes,’ Dad said.

So I decided to join in. ‘We all piled our plates pretty quick,’ I said, ‘and ran upstairs.’

Graham concurred.

‘And I’d eaten a drumstick and some Jell-O salad and two macaroons when the phone rang,’ Keith said. I’d have to do something about his eating habits. ‘So maybe another five minutes or so?’

‘So we’re thinking the phone call came in five to one, and you found him at one twenty-three,’ Dad said. ‘So that’s a window of twenty-eight minutes. Let’s say thirty. So what does that mean, oh great detective E.J.?’

‘You know,’ Mom said, ‘you’re not as cute as you think you are.’ They exchanged what I would call a less-than-friendly look. And all I could say to that would be a good grief, get over it! Then Mom said, ‘At least we have a timeline for Luna.’

The door opened and Mrs Luna came in. ‘Mr Killian, I’m going to drive you and your sons back to your house. Mark Metcalf’s parents are at your house, right?’

Mr Killian nodded.

‘I need to inform them.’

‘Luna,’ Mom said, ‘we were able to narrow down the time of the phone call—’

‘You mean Mark Metcalf’s call to the Killian home? It came in at twelve fifty-three,’ she said.

‘Ha!’ Dad said. ‘I was pretty damn close!’

Mom shot him a look, then glared at Mrs Luna, who said, ‘His phone was by the body. We checked his last outgoing call. It’s called police work.’ Turning her back on my mom, she said, ‘Mr Killian, are you ready to go?’

My mom can be a pain in the butt, but she’s
my
pain in the butt. I was a little pissed at both Mrs Luna and my dad. They had no right to treat her like that.

Graham drove Megan and Bess home in his car while I dropped Willis off at the Killians’ house where his car was, picked up Alicia and drove home. I told her of the developments on our way.

‘Oh, how awful!’ she said. ‘How are the twins?’

‘OK, I guess. Pretty shook up.’

‘They seemed to really like their uncle. They went to see him in Belize with their mother a couple of summers ago, they said. Gosh, this right on top of their mom’s death. This is just awful!’

We agreed it was awful and got home to find Graham’s car in the driveway and all three kids in the family room looking glum. Alicia rushed in and hugged both girls.

‘I’m so sorry y’all had to see that!’ she said. ‘How awful!’

‘It was horrible!’ Megan said.

Bess just shook her head. I had to wonder if seeing all that blood brought back any painful memories for her. She’d been so little when I’d pulled her out of the house next door, her little body covered in her mother’s blood and brain matter. We’d talked about what happened, but never about the details, never about the blood and gore.

I went to Bess and put my arm around her shoulder. She leaned her head against me. ‘It’s OK, Mom,’ she said. ‘I’m all right.’

‘Graham, how about you?’ I asked.

‘Really gross,’ he said. ‘And the twins really lost it. But that’s cool, ya know? I mean, if it was my uncle – well, if I had an uncle.’

‘Luna said you handled yourself well,’ I told him.

He shrugged, his blond good looks, so much like his father’s, tended toward fair skin that blushed easily. He did so at the compliment. ‘Well, you know, what else was I supposed to do? Scream like a little girl?’

‘I did not scream!’ Megan said, sitting up straight and almost sending Alicia to the floor.

Graham stared at her. ‘No one said you did, numb nuts! You did good! Getting Keith to sit down and all. So did Bess. It was just a freeking expression, for crying out loud!’

‘Well, OK then,’ Megan said, sitting back on the couch, arms across her chest. ‘But I didn’t scream.’

Which led me to believe that somewhere inside my daughter’s psyche she had definitely screamed, it just hadn’t come out. And I didn’t blame her for that. Dead bodies are a bitch to find, let me tell you!

On Sunday the house phone rang and I went in the kitchen to get it. ‘Hello?’ I said.

‘Hey,’ Willis said.

‘Hey,’ I said back.

‘Would you like to invite me over for dinner?’ he asked.

‘Would you like me to invite you over for dinner?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Would you like to come over for dinner?’

‘Naw, I’m kinda busy—’

‘Willis Pugh!’

He laughed. ‘I’d love to come over for dinner. May I bring an overnight bag?’ he asked.

I thought about it for a moment. Turning away from the kids, I said quietly, ‘Wouldn’t that just confuse the kids?’

‘Yeah, I guess you’re right. Just dinner. Then we’ll see?’ he said.

‘Sounds like a plan,’ I said. We said our goodbyes and I stood in the kitchen wondering what in the hell I could fix for dinner that could possibly entice my husband away from his mother’s wonderful cooking? Other than take-out, of course.

I sent Graham to the store for a take-out roast chicken, a baguette and some dessert, opened a box of scalloped potatoes and a can of green beans – a little butter, lemon juice and garlic and they almost (
almost
) tasted like fresh – and I was almost ready to take Vera on. Of course, having been married to me for twenty-three years, Willis would know that the chicken was store-bought, the potatoes were boxed and the beans canned but, hey, I was making the effort, right?

While Graham was off to the store, the girls wandered off in different directions, leaving me alone in the kitchen. I sat at the kitchen table, thinking about what had transpired that day. The thought that Mark Metcalf’s death had nothing to do with his sister’s death had never entered my head. There was absolutely no way the two weren’t related. But what did Mark have to do with Berta – I mean, Rosalee? Rosalee and Kerry were friends, and Mark was in the pictures of the six kids, so he obviously knew Rosalee. Is that what this was about? I thought. Was someone trying to get rid of people who knew Rosalee back when? If so, why try to kill Berta? I mean Rosalee? What could Mark, who’d been out of the country since high school, according to the twins, know that would put Rosalee or someone else in jeopardy? Whatever it was happened during high school or before, and it had to do with the night Rosalee Bunch’s mother had been killed in the trailer fire, I knew it. I was anxious for tomorrow, when Vera and I were to meet up with the former nurse from Bishop Byne High School, the catholic high school in Codderville.

I suppose I should have been a little anxious about dinner, but I didn’t feel anxious. I felt resigned. I wasn’t going to change and he wasn’t going to change. We either agreed to continue living with that, or not.

TWELVE

L
ast night had turned out OK. It was a little awkward at first, then Graham did something stupid, all attention turned to him, teasing became the name of the game, and we all fell back into our respective roles. A family counselor might have said that was a bad thing, but to me, at that moment, it felt good. Very good.

At nine, while we were all in the family room playing with the Wii, the doorbell rang. I went to answer it and found Berta on our doorstep.

‘Hey!’ I said.

‘E.J., I’m sorry, I had a taxi bring me over here. Things are very tense at Ken’s house, and I’m afraid my presence there may have precipitated that tension.’ Tears sprang to her eyes. ‘They think Ken and I are having an affair! Like I’d do something like that to Kerry!’ She threw herself into my arms and bawled.

I brought her inside, more to close the door and keep the air conditioning in than as an act of kindness. You remember that old song, ‘He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother’? Well, she wasn’t my sister and she was getting mighty heavy.

‘You can stay here tonight,’ I told her, knowing that was what she expected, but unable to think of any alternative.

‘Thank you,’ she said, drying her eyes on a crumpled wad of tissues in her hand.

‘You can have my room and I’ll bunk with the girls,’ I told her.

‘Oh, I don’t want to put you out, E.J. I can sleep on the couch!’

‘It’s no problem,’ I said. Just in case there was even a shred of truth to my musing at the funeral home (the one about Berta/Rosalee being a con woman who killed Kerry – I know, there were so many, who can keep up?), I wanted to be upstairs with my children in case I need to protect them. Although with my kids, they might end up having to protect
me
.

We went into the family room. Willis, who had control of the Wii, turned it off when he saw Berta. ‘Hi,’ he said.

‘Oh, you’re back!’ Berta said with a big smile. ‘I’m so glad.’

There was a stone cold silence. I could see all four kids exchanging glances. Willis looked at me and I shrugged. He said, ‘Not yet. But probably this week.’

The kids fell on the couch and began nudging each other furiously.

‘But it’s getting late,’ Willis said, ‘and I should be getting back. I’m staying at my mother’s house,’ he explained to Berta, ‘and she gets antsy if I come in too late. She likes to have all her locks on just so and she can’t do it if I’m out.’

‘And I’m sure she worries,’ Berta said.

‘Well, it was nice seeing you again,’ Willis said, then, ‘kids, give me hugs.’ They obliged and then I walked him to the front door. We stepped outside, away from prying eyes and ears, and he kissed me. ‘I want to come home. I want to get clear of all that happened. I guess we’ve both – and Alicia – come to terms with the horrible thing I said—’

‘It wasn’t that horrible. I was just being sensitive—’

‘No, it was pretty damn bad. I’ve loved Bess every moment of the past ten years, and maybe before that. She was the adorable daughter of my best friend. My baby girl’s little playmate. How could I not already love her? Taking her in was never really an issue, hon, and I don’t know why I made it one. The only thing we could do, and the only thing we wanted to do was make her part of the family.’ He sighed. ‘But Alicia was different—’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I messed up.’

‘Yeah. And I messed up not telling you that you messed up right off the bat. We should have discussed it at the time. I know I would have said yes, but, sometimes, babe, I need to be part of the decision making around here.’

I nodded my head. ‘I know, I know.’

‘The rest of it,’ he said, waving his arm to encompass the yard, the street, the township, maybe the world, ‘I don’t know. We might need to set some ground rules,’ he said.