Kindness.
“Ma’am,” the detective said, formal for once, “could I ask you not to comment, please?”
“Yes,” Jennifer said. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Harlan said. “You’re right.” His own face was pale and set, but he was composed. Probably too composed. Annabelle wasn’t the only one who was going to need to fall apart, and Jennifer was glad she’d rented the house. She wished this would be over and they could go there right now, because she had a feeling that the next questions were going to be bad.
She was right.
Harlan asked, “What does Dad say?”
He needed to know. He needed to know now.
It was what Jennifer had said. How cruel was that to Annabelle? To all his sisters? To make them hate their mother and feel guilty for not loving their father more, when, after all, he was the one who’d stayed?
The detective said, “He’s denied having anything to do with it.”
“When the car was buried on his land?” Harlan asked. “When you’d need an earthmover to do that, and he happened to own a farm-equipment business? Who does he expect to believe that?”
The detective said, “Does it surprise you to think he might have been violent?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Harlan still had his arm around Annabelle. She felt cold and shaky, and he wished he could do what Jennifer had done. Tell her to put on something warmer.
Then do it, asshole.
He said, “Bug. Go get changed into something warm. A big shirt, a sweatshirt. Warm socks. And start packing up. As soon as this is done, we’re leaving here.” He told the detective, “I’ll give you the address, and for where my other sisters will be. Any other questions you have, you can ask them there. We aren’t coming back here.”
Had his mom been killed here? In the house? The thought made his blood freeze. The place had felt alien, cold and bleak, after she’d gone. Was that why?
He wanted to get out of here. He wanted to run.
Annabelle asked, “Where are we going?” She didn’t question his right to decide. She needed somebody to decide. Her world was upside down.
No. Her world was gone.
“We’re staying in town for a couple days,” he said. “In case there are more questions. Arrangements to make.”
Mom’s body, he thought. We need to bury it. Again. When will they let us do that?
He had to breathe for a second. You can’t go there yet. Focus. Right now, you need to get Annabelle out of here. This is so bad for her. He said, “Jennifer will help you pack a suitcase. Or better yet, two suitcases. Better yet, pack everything.”
“I only have one suitcase,” she said.
“Then put everything on your bed,” he said. “Use laundry baskets, maybe. Jennifer or I will help you buy more luggage.”
“Of course,” Jennifer said, and stood up. “Come on. I’ll give you a hand.” Which was a relief. One thing he knew for sure that Jennifer knew how to do, besides booking travel, was taking care of a teenage girl.
He waited while the two of them left the room. Waited until he heard a distant door close, then turned to the detective and said, “No. It doesn’t surprise me that he could be violent. He was a big believer in physical discipline, and he wasn’t real controlled about it, though I never saw him hurt Mom.”
“When you say ‘physical discipline,’” Johnson said, “what do you mean?”
“I mean he’d grab his belt. Not on my sisters so much. He used his hand on them, mostly. That was bad enough. He saved the belt for me. You know how they say not to punish out of anger? Well, yeah. He never read that book.”
“But not your mother.”
Harlan breathed. In. Out. “He wouldn’t have done it once I was old enough to do something about it, at least not when I was home, but he had a hell of a temper. Not so bad when we were younger. It got worse over time. And he’s an alcoholic. You may not know that. Didn’t start out so bad, but it got worse. Not in public. Never in public. But by the time I left home, he was drinking every night, and he sometimes drank a lot. Now, it’s bad. There’ll be a garbage can in the kitchen filled with crushed beer cans right now.” He wanted to ask how it had happened, but he suspected Johnson wouldn’t tell him until he was done with his questions.
Did he want to know, or not?
He wanted to know. He had to.
“I heard him shout at her, though,” he went on. “On nights when he’d get through a six-pack and start on the next one. When he wasn’t selling enough, or whatever it was. It’d be just comments, other nights. Sarcastic. Afterwards, he’d cry. Sit in a kitchen chair with his head in his hands, sobbing. I know because I heard it, and a couple times, I saw it. Him crying, telling her he was sorry. So sorry. And her with her hand on his head, telling him it would be all right.”
He needed a few breaths after that, but then he forced himself on. “When the shouting was bad, though, she’d go outside, and he’d follow her. She didn’t want us to hear. When I got older, I tried going out there myself, telling him not to yell at her. She’d tell me to go back inside, tell me she was all right.”
This cold. It was coming from the inside. It was in his bones. In his marrow. The thought of his mother sitting, year after year, in the car she’d always kept so clean, because she was proud of it, because she’d bought it with the money she’d earned herself. He imagined the giant scoops of dirt raining down on the hood, smothering the car.
Smothering her.
He asked, “Was she dead before he buried her? Tell me. I need to know.” And tried to breathe.
Please. Please don’t let her have died like that. Please don’t make us have to imagine that.
The detective said, “Yes.” And he had to drop his head and take a minute.
When he raised his head again, he said, “OK. What else do you need to know? I’ll help every way that I can.”
“Who told you she’d left?” Johnson said.
“My older sister. Vanessa. She called me at school and said that Mom hadn’t come home on Friday night after work. That her car was gone, too. That Dad had found a bunch of her clothes missing, and her suitcase. She said that they were going to call the police, but then Dad looked in her closet, and figured out that she’d …” He swallowed. “Left.”
It hadn’t been true. None of it had been true.
“When was that? What day of the week?”
He didn’t have to close his eyes to answer that. “Saturday.”
Close to noon, but he’d still been asleep. In a girl’s bedroom, in some sorority. He couldn’t remember her name. Mandy? Candy? She’d been blonde, because he remembered how she’d looked sitting up, startled by the phone, her hair falling around her face. He remembered the feel of her naked hip next to his, the warmth of it, and the betrayed look in her blue eyes when he’d told her, “I have to go.” Then the scramble to find his clothes. He’d never found his briefs at all, had just pulled his jeans on and left.
He’d known she’d thought it was another girl calling. He hadn’t been able to help that. He’d had to get home.