“So you just go ahead and believe I’m a killer?”
“I don’t! But—”
“That’s insane! They’re asking questions because they don’t have the answers! It’s called an investigation. That’s what they do.”
“I know you had feelings for Lisa. I know she had feelings for you—”
“So you think I had feelings for her, that I was cheating on you with her, but I also murdered her? That doesn’t make any sense!”
“Nothing makes sense! We had such a good thing. We had such a nice family—”
“We still do if you would stop being such a crazy jealous bitch!”
“Stop it!” Wendy shouted, running into the living room. “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop fighting!”
Stunned to silence, both of her parents stared at her.
“You’re never here, Daddy!” she said, then turned to her mother. “And when he’s home all you do is fight! Stop it!”
Her mother put her face in her hands and started to cry. Her father looked from one to the other of them.
“I’m sorry, honey,” he said to Wendy. “But I think it’s better if I just go tonight. Maybe you can talk some sense into your mother.”
Wendy’s mom looked up at him, shocked and angry. She got up from the sofa and walked right up to Wendy’s dad.
“How dare you do that to your daughter,” she said, her voice tight and controlled, the way it got when she was
Her father got a hard, cold expression that scared Wendy deep inside. “It takes two, Sara. Think about that.”
He turned and walked out of the room. A minute later, the front door slammed. And just like that, he was gone.
50
“What the hell is the matter with you?”
Dennis could hear his father’s voice as soon as he snuck in the back door. It was like he had hit the Pause button on his way out. His parents were still having the same conversation they had been having when he had snuck out of the house earlier.
He had somehow managed to slip away from the supper table without attracting his father’s attention, which had been a minor miracle—especially because his stupid sisters weren’t there for a distraction. They had gone to the football game at the high school and then to a sleep-over. Stupid lucky cows. Dennis couldn’t imagine why they had friends and he didn’t. They were so stupid.
Anyway, Dennis had managed to slide out of his chair and out of the room without attracting attention. His father was too busy going on about how he was being betrayed at work, and how Dixon didn’t appreciate him. He seemed to be just talking out loud, like he was trying to figure it all out, and it didn’t really matter if anyone was listening or not. Then every once in a while he would direct something at Dennis’s mother, and she would have to say something to prove that she was paying attention.
Dennis had gotten enough of his father’s attention the night before, getting punished for taking the finger to school. His dad had been furious about that. Dennis had embarrassed him and made him look bad at work.
He had made Dennis take off all his clothes except his underpants and stand in the corner of the dining room while everyone else ate dinner.
“You humiliated me,” his father said. “Now I’m going to humiliate you.”
He had been made to stand there for hours, until he had to go to the bathroom so bad he wet his pants.
After he cleaned up the mess, he had been sent to bed. He had waited until he got checked on, then climbed out his window and down the oak tree that grew beside the house.
He spent hours looking in people’s windows. They never saw him, but he saw them do all kinds of things. It was like having his own television with no channels he wasn’t allowed to watch. Mostly he looked for bedroom windows where he watched girls and ladies take their clothes off. He liked to look at their boobs, all different shapes and sizes.
Sometimes he got to watch people having sex, which he found both gross and weirdly exciting. He mostly liked it because the man got to grab the woman and push her around, and make her do things he wanted, and she couldn’t say no. A lot of the women screamed and stuff while the guy was doing it to them. Dennis liked that part.
It had been weird to watch Miss Navarre and the old detective. Dennis had never really thought about his teacher having breasts or what she would look like with no clothes on. He hardly thought of her as a woman at all. He had never thought of her kissing a man or letting a man do stuff to her. But she sure had. What a whore.
Now Dennis stood in the dark kitchen, watching his parents in the dining room. He couldn’t get to the stairs without going past the dining room and having his father see him. He would have to go back outside and climb the tree to get to his room. But for the moment he stood watching his parents framed by the doorway like they were on a stage or something.
His father was still sitting at the dining room table, still in his uniform, still drinking and talking. His mother still sat in her chair. All the plates and pots and food and stuff were still on the table.
His father had started drinking as soon as he had gotten home from work. That was never a good thing. Then supper had been really bad. Half-frozen meatloaf. His dad had taken one bite of it, got a face, then got up from the table, took the plate with the meatloaf to the back door, and threw it out in the yard.
He worked hard. All he wanted at the end of the day was a decent meal. Was that too much to ask? he demanded of Dennis’s mother. She had been home all day. Was she so lazy she couldn’t bring herself to do the one thing he needed?
“Are you stupid?” he asked now.
Dennis’s mother was crying very quietly. “I’m sorry, Frank. What was I supposed to do?”
“Not talk to them without talking to me first!” he said, his speech barely slurred despite the fact that he had been drinking for hours.
His dad knew how to hold his liquor.
“Now I look like a fool in front of that prick Mendez.”
“I’m sorry, Frank.”
“And Dixon turns on me like a snake! All these years, and he turns on me like a fucking snake!”
“He should have more respect for you.”
“My record is spotless! Spotless! And that’s not going to count for a goddamn thing because I stopped that stupid little whore and gave her a speeding ticket!” he said. He looked stunned, shocked at the idea that something so meaningless could have such an impact on his life.
“I know, Frank. It’s not fair,” his mother murmured.
“Dixon took me off the investigation,” his father said to the whiskey in his glass. “Because of Dennis having that finger. And because I wrote that stupid slut a ticket. She was a whore. Bad things happen to whores.”
He turned and looked at Dennis’s mother. “Isn’t that right, Sharon?”
“Yes, Frank.”
“They have it coming.”
“Yes, Frank, you’re absolutely right.”
“And now you make me look bad. All because you can’t keep your stupid mouth shut.”
“I’m sorry, Frank. I was stupid. I didn’t think.”
“You never think.”
His mother was so stupid. His father was very proud of who he was. He was proud of being chief deputy. People respected him and looked up to him. His mother should have known better than to make him look bad.
His father poured more whiskey into his glass and sipped at it.
