“Okay.” That was valid. “I just wanted to make sure that was clear.”
He dropped his hand. “Why are you certain that Randall fits your profile? Have you been researching him? Because you were the one who told me—”
“I haven’t done any research on Randall,” I snapped. The timer shrieked, and I silenced it, then worked my hands into two thick Garfield oven mitts. “But I know the basics of his arrest. You’ve got a victim’s testimony and evidence.”
“You’re referring to the box of souvenirs.” He rubbed along the side of his jaw, scraping his fingers through the short hair, and I cataloged the movement in case it was a tell.
“Yes. You’re stuck on the innocence of a man who had pieces of the victims in his home and Scott Harden pegging him by name.” I pulled off the oven mitts. “You’re wasting money in hiring me. It doesn’t matter what psychological theories I give on the stand. They’re going to convict him.” Because he’s guilty.
As my first logic and reasoning professor liked to say, if something smelled like shit and tasted like shit, you didn’t have to see it come out of a horse’s butt. I had raised my hand and asked him how we would accurately recognize what shit was supposed to taste like.
Looking at this logically, Randall was guilty. So, why was Robert defending him? To get close to the man who killed his son? To punish him in some other way?
He picked up a hand towel and slowly wiped off his hands. “I can’t tell if you’re intentionally frustrating me or just being obtuse.”
“What?” I sputtered.
He looked at me in silence, like he was waiting for something, like I had hidden a puzzle piece behind my back, and this time, the eye contact didn’t cause my knees to quiver or my heart to race. This time, I felt guilty—and maybe that’s why his win record was so impressive. The sheer force of guilt admission via glare.
The timer went off again, this time for the rice, and I jabbed at the touch screen and pulled the pot off the burner. When I turned back to Robert, his expression had darkened into distrust. I had failed a test.
But what test?
We ate in stony silence, our plastic silverware scraping quietly against the paper plates, and I was reminded why I was single. Men were idiots. Frustrating, unreadable idiots. To think that I was worried about seduction.
He broke the silence as he was sopping up the final bite of beef sauce with his bread. “This is delicious.” He took a sip of wine, which I had opened when it became obvious that neither of us was going to make conversation. “Where’d you learn to cook? Your mom?”
I folded my napkin longways in my lap and chuckled at the sexist assumption. “No, neither of my parents knew how to cook.” Every meal, regardless of the day, date, holiday, or occasion, was spent the same way—staring at a crisp menu as the waiter hovered, pen raised in expectation.
“Private chef or TV dinners?” he asked with a cautious smile.
I made a face. “When I was young, we just ate out.” Back then, the restaurants were always trademarked by white tablecloths and snooty staff. I cleared my throat. “As I grew older and money grew tighter, the restaurant meals were soon out of our budget.” The bone-in filets and wine flights were slowly replaced with grilled chicken breasts and salads, the downward spiral coming to a dramatic low point when my father announced that we were going to have to start eating at home.
It didn’t go over well and was almost immediately followed up by another announcement: my father was going to have to get a job.
My mother had flung herself onto the couch, Scarlett O’Hara–style, and started to sob. After all, she had married a phone-booth king, one with 172 booths in two airports, fourteen bus stations, five malls, and countless gas stations, each earning almost fifty dollars per week. She wasn’t prepared for her new reality, one with mounting credit card debt and 172 booths that didn’t cover their own real estate rent.
Cell phones were the death of our livelihood and, eventually, their marriage.
Our transition to at-home meals was painful. Mom seemed to be punishing him with every meal. Everything was too bland, too spicy, too raw, or burned. I couldn’t tell if it was intentional or she was just that horrifically bad of a cook. After a few weeks, I took over the kitchen and learned as I went. To my surprise and the enormous gratitude of my father, I was a natural and was soon fixing us stuffed peppers with melted cheese, seafood fettuccine, and his personal favorite, fried pork chops.
“Thank goodness I enjoyed it. It was the one positive to come from what eventually led to Mom’s alcoholism and Dad’s emotional withdrawal.” I took my own large sip of wine.
Robert, who had remained quiet during the story, rose and reached for my empty plate. “I wasn’t close with my parents, either.” He moved through the arched doorway into the kitchen and spooned a second helping onto his plate. “But I had two brothers, so I had someone else to bond with.”
“I had an older brother, but he’s seven years older than me, so I was a bit of an only child when things got really bad.” I picked a piece of bread out of the basket and tore it in half. “Being the only child left at home taught me to be more independent. To emotionally take care of myself. It was good for my character.” I glanced at him. “It was probably good for Gabe’s.”
He groaned. “No counseling, please. Gabe is the last thing I want to talk about.”
Grieving parents often spoke constantly about their children, or not at all. It seemed that Robert was the latter. Still, a resistance to conversation wasn’t an indicator that the subject should be avoided. Quite the opposite.
“You know, all the BH victims were sibling-free.”
That caught his attention. “You’re right.” He looked at me, surprised. “Why is that?”
“It could be convenience,” I remarked. “It’s easier to take a teenager who travels back and forth to school alone, for instance.”
He was silent for a moment. “My wife”—he cleared his throat—“wanted another child. I didn’t. Gabe . . .” He sighed. “Gabe was a handful. He’d have temper tantrums over anything. It started when he was two, and I didn’t have the patience for it, much less a second baby. He got better as he got older. Maybe if Natasha had brought it up again, when he was six or seven, I might have said yes, but—” He broke off. “She didn’t. And then it was too late.”
I tucked my foot under my thigh. “Gabe was ten when she died?”
“Yes.”
“Did he push you away or cling closer to you?”
He sectioned off a piece of meat with the edge of his fork. “Both. Each day was different. Initially there was more pushing, then more clinging. I took a year off work, and that was the most he’d ever seen of me. We grew a lot closer during that year.” He smoothed down the back of his hair. “Now I wish I’d never gone back to work.”
I pulled my wineglass closer to me. “There are very few parents who could have taken a year off to spend time with him, or who would have. Focus on the positives of that. And as far as taking off another six years to spend with him . . .” I shook my head. “You both needed a return to normalcy. If I had been your doctor, I would have strongly recommended a return to work, for both of your sakes.”