Scorpion Shards

“What are you doing?” asked Deanna.

“Getting to know the neighborhood,” he answered. “Looking for a place to eat.”

Deanna didn’t like the sound of that. “Promise me you won’t do anything bad here.”

Dillon turned to her blinking, as if he didn’t know what she meant. “I promise that I won’t do anything that isn’t absolutely necessary,” he said.

A young boy breezed past them on his bike, stopping at the second house on the right. A small license plate on the back of the bike said “Joey.” Dillon slipped his hand from Deanna’s waist, and he approached the boy, with Deanna following in his wake.

The boy hopped off his bike and strolled toward his front door.

“Hey, Joey,” shouted Dillon. “Your brother around?”

Joey turned to look at Dillon, studied him for a mo­ment, then said, “Naah, Jason’s still at practice. He’ll be home soon, though. . . . You friends of his?”

“Yeah,” said Dillon. “I was on the team with him last year.”

The boy looked at Dillon doubtfully.

“Jason tells me you’re almost as fast as him now,” said Dillon. “Hell, you even walk like him!”

Joey beamed at that, but tried to hide it. Any hesitation the boy had was now gone. “You can wait inside if you like.”

Deanna turned to Dillon as they neared the porch. “How’d you know he had a brother?” she whispered.

“It was obvious,” Dillon whispered back. “He walks like he’s copying someone, but not someone who’s grown up. . . . He wears hand-me-downs, even though he can afford those brand-new running shoes . . . he rode up to the house like he was competing in a race . . . it’s all part of a pattern that says he’s some jock’s kid brother.”

Deanna stared at Dillon in amazement, and he just smiled. “C’mon,” he said, almost blushing behind his boyish freckles. “You know me pretty well—this stuff shouldn’t impress you anymore.”

Joey led them into the house. Dillon noted how the boy used keys instead of knocking, how he glanced up the stairs, and how quietly he closed the front door. Dillon took a sniff of the air, and said “How’s your grandfather doing?”

Joey shrugged. “Okay, I guess. Better, now that he’s back from the hospital.”

Dillon turned to Deanna and winked. Deanna just shook her head. What a show-off!

“Jason’ll be back soon, you can wait for him here.” Joey left them alone in the kitchen and went back out to fiddle with the chain on his bike. Once Joey was gone, Dillon got down to work. He began to search through drawers and cabinets—he didn’t take anything, he just let his eyes pore over everything he saw, observing . . . cataloguing . . . filing the information away.

Deanna had seen him do this the day before, at the farmhouse they had stopped at. Dillon had secretly rifled through the drawers, closets—even under sofa cushions.

Deanna had asked what he was searching for. “Clues,” he had told her.

Now his hands were moving quickly through the kitchen, his mind working with such force that Deanna could swear that she could feel it pulsating like a high- tension wire. He was fascinating to watch.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” said Deanna. “I want to know what you know—I want to see what you see.”

“Okay,” said Dillon. “Five people live here. Parents, two sons, and a grandfather. Mother smokes, father quit. Kids do okay in school.” He pointed to a picture on the refrigerator. “This is the older brother and his girlfriend, right? But something’s not right there—look at his smile; he’s not smiling for the picture —he’s smiling at the person taking the picture.”

“So who took the picture?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” said Dillon. “The angle, the back­ground, the way the girl’s gloating to have snagged the track star? Her sister took the picture, and good ol’ Jason would rather be dating her!”

Deanna just shook her head, marveling.

“Let’s check out the parents,” said Dillon. He glanced around, until setting his sights on a high knickknack shelf. Then he pulled down a small bronze Statue of Liberty pencil sharpener and held it out for Deanna to examine.

“The parents honeymooned in New York—but look—there’s no dust on it, even though there’s dust on the rest of the shelf. . . that means someone’s taken Miss Liberty down recently, and has been thinking about it. Smells like dishwashing soap. The mother took it down— either she’s nostalgic, or she’s worried about the marriage for some reason. Let’s see what the doorknobs have to say.”

“Doorknobs?”

Dillon opened the back door and touched the outside and inside doorknobs, then smelled his hands.

“Men’s cologne going out, women’s perfume coming in—not his wife’s, because I can smell that everywhere else. The husband is seeing another woman. Good chance his wife knows, and divorce is in the air. Will they break up? Let’s find out!”

Dillon opened the refrigerator; “He keeps his beer on the same shelf as the milk and the soda—not in the door all by itself.” Dillon opened the hallway closet. “Every­thing in this house is neatly arranged—these people love order and tranquility, right down to giving their sons sound-alike names. But Dad’s coats are mixed in with Mom’s, instead of on their own side: their order is tightly intertwined.” Dillon turned and glanced at the back door again. “And his dirty work boots—he said. “They’re in­side the house, on a mat; he’s considerate enough not to leave them on the wood floor, and she’s accepting enough not to make him put them outside.”

“So?”

“So if we leave this little family-stew to cook, I can tell that dear old Dad gives up the other woman, and the marriage is saved. Ninety-six percent probability.”

“You’re incredible!” said Deanna. “Sherlock Holmes couldn’t be that exact!”

Dillon shrugged. “It’s like looking at a work of art,” ex­plained Dillon. “It’s just a bunch of paint, but when you look at it you see the Mona Lisa, right? Well, when I look at all of these things, I see a picture, too. I see who these people were, who they are, and who they’re probably going to be.”

“What do you see when you look at me?” asked Deanna.

Dillon didn’t even try—he just shook his head. “You’re like me,” he said. “Too complex to figure out.”

She smiled at him, and he took her hand. “C’mon,” he said, “I know all I need to know about this family . . . let’s move on.”

As they left, Deanna noticed the way he rolled his neck, and the way sweat was beginning to bead on his forehead.

“The wrecking-hunger . . . it’s back again isn’t it?”

“I try not to think about it,” he said, and tugged on her arm a little more urgently. “C’mon.”

Out back, they saw a man in the next yard patching up a hole in a boat.

“Hi! We’re Joey and Jason’s cousins,” said Dillon to the man.

“Josh and Jennifer,” added Deanna with a smirk.

The neighbor nodded a quiet hello. Dillon noticed the circles beneath his eyes, and the ghost of a missing wed­ding ring on his tan left hand. Dillon listened to the way in which a dog inside the house yowled.

“Sorry to hear about your wife,” said Dillon. . . .

***

On they went, weaving in and out of homes and yards, pretending to be people they weren’t—and no one doubted them because Dillon was so very good at the game. He knew the exact things to say that would make people open up their homes, and their hearts, telling him things they would never usually tell a stranger. It was as if they were hypnotized and didn’t know it.

All the while Dillon’s sweats had gotten worse, his breath had gotten shorter, and his face was becoming flushed.

In the last home, a woman had offered them iced tea and looked at Dillon with worry in her eyes.

“You sure you don’t want me to call a doctor?” she asked, but Dillon shook his head and stumbled out into the street.

“He’ll be okay,” said Deanna, covering. “Asthma—his medicine’s back in our cousin’s house.” Deanna left the