a fraction of what they did to him, and from what people tell me, Freeman Bishop, may he rest in peace, was not particularly tough. If they wanted information from him, I think they probably got it pretty fast. The rest of what they did to him was for kicks.” A pause to let this sink in. The temperature in the room drops several degrees. “Still, the basic fact remains the same: Freeman Bishop, we are pretty sure, was killed because he used drugs and couldn’t pay for them.”
“Pretty sure?” I ask, just for something to say.
The sergeant glares at me. She would rather I shut up, her eyes say, so that she can pretend that I am not in the room. Mariah is the one she trusts. As far as Sergeant B. T. Ames is concerned, I am furniture.
I see my mistake an eyeblink later, but my sister sees it faster. She is already up on her feet, pulling me to mine, thanking the detective for her time, shaking hands as though closing a sale. Sergeant Ames steps around us and opens the door so that the rest of the squad can hear her dismiss us.
“Look, Mr. Garland. Mrs. Denton. I’m really sorry about your father. I am. But I have a murder on my hands and a lot of work to do. So, if you will excuse me, I have to get back to the job.”
We drive together to Shepard Street, where Mariah plans to spend the night; I am flying home on the shuttle a bit later this evening, but will return next week for the funeral of the man who, last week, officiated at the Judge’s. The house is eerily silent after the hubbub of a week ago; it sounds like the house of a dead man. Our footsteps echo like gunfire on the parquet of the front hall. Mariah grimaces, explaining that she sent all the Judge’s Oriental carpet runners out for cleaning right after the funeral. She raises her palm in half-apology, then turns on the CD player, but her kind of music this time, not my father’s: Reasons, the long version, by Earth, Wind and Fire, which remains, in my sister’s casual judgment, the single greatest pop recording ever made. The Judge would have been appalled. I remind myself that this is my sister’s house now, that I am a guest, that she can do what she wants.
After Mariah visits the powder room, we find ourselves once again in the absurdly bright kitchen, sitting together at the table, sipping hot chocolate in companionable silence, almost-but not quite-friends again. I loosen my tie. Mariah kicks off her shoes.
“I wish you wouldn’t stay here alone,” I tell her.
“Why, Tal,” laughs my sister, “I didn’t know you cared.”
Most siblings would identify this at once as the moment to say, You know I love you; but most siblings did not grow up in my family.
“I worry about you, that’s all.”
Mariah tilts her head to one side and wrinkles her nose. “You don’t need to worry, Tal, I’m a big girl. I don’t think anybody is going to break into the house tonight and burn me with cigarettes.” Since that is exactly what I am scared of, I say nothing. “Besides,” she adds, “I won’t be alone.”
“You won’t?” This takes me by surprise.
“No. Szusza is bringing the kids down tomorrow.” I assume this is the name of the latest unpronounceable au pair. “Well, some of the kids, anyway,” she corrects herself, but maybe she has trouble keeping track. I would. “And Sally’s staying with me tonight. So don’t worry.”
“Sally?” I didn’t know my sister and our cousin were so close.
“She’s been great, Tal. Really great. She’s coming by right after work. We’re going to start going through Daddy’s papers.” Mariah looks up at me sharply, as though I have objected to this plan. “Look, Tal, somebody has to do it. We have to know what’s here. For all kinds of reasons. There are a lot of records and things that we might need. On the houses and stuff. And, who knows, maybe… maybe we can find some kind of clue.”
“Clue to what?”
Mariah’s russet gaze goes flinty. “Come on, Tal, you know what I’m talking about. You’re the one who had Jack Ziegler screaming at you in the cemetery last week. He thinks there is something somewhere, some kind of… well, I don’t know what.” She closes her eyes for a moment, then opens them again. “I want to find what he is looking for, and I want to find it before he does.”
I think this over. The arrangements. Well, she could be right. The Judge might have left a piece of paper, a diary, something to help us figure out what has Uncle Jack so worried. And what the fake FBI men evidently wanted. And maybe Sergeant B. T. Ames. The arrangements. Maybe a clue will turn up. I doubt it-but Mariah, ex- journalist, just could be right.
“Well, good luck,” is all I can think of to say.
“Thanks. I have a feeling we’ll find it.” She sips her hot chocolate and makes a face: too cold.
“It could even be fun.”
Mariah shrugs, somehow conveying her determination. “I’m not doing it for fun,” she says to her cocoa, unconsciously rubbing her womb again. I find myself wondering what my wife is doing at this instant.
“Have you heard from Addison since the funeral?” I am making conversation.
“Nope. Not a word.” She chuckles derisively. “Same old Addison.”
“He’s not so bad.”
“Oh, he’s great. Can you believe what he said about Daddy? In the eulogy? That maybe there was some reason to think he did something wrong?”
“That’s not exactly what he said,” murmurs Misha the peacemaker, a role into which I somehow stepped while trying to survive in the turbulent household of my adolescence, and one that I have never managed to relinquish.
“That’s the way I heard it. I bet that’s the way it sounded to most of the folks who were there.”
“Well, maybe he did leave it… a little ambiguous.”
“It was a funeral, Tal.” Her eyes are flat. “You don’t do that at a funeral.”
“Oh, I see your point, kiddo.”
Which is not precisely the same as agreeing with it, a nuance my sister catches at once. “You never want to take sides, do you? You like the view from the fence.”
“Mariah, come on,” I say, stung, but I offer no counterargument, not least because I do not have one.
We let the silence envelop us for a while, escaping into our own minds. I am adding up all the hours of work I have waiting for me back home, secretly furious that I allowed Mariah to spook me into this trip. Everything the detective said made sense; and none of my sister’s theories are remotely plausible. I peek at my watch, hoping Mariah doesn’t see, and lift my mug to my lips, only to put it down fast. My hot chocolate tastes as bad as hers.
“Did you believe her?” Mariah asks, as though in contact with my thoughts. “Sergeant Ames, I mean? About Father Bishop?”
“You mean, do I think she was lying?”
“I mean, do you think she was right? Please don’t play word games with me, Tal, I’m not one of your students.”
I have to answer this carefully; I do not want to make my sister my enemy all over again. “I know what you meant,” I say slowly. “I think, if she isn’t right, then the alternative is that he was tortured because of… because of something to do with the Judge. But that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Why not?” Her question is sharp; again I must pick the right words.
“Well, let’s suppose-let’s suppose that there is some bit of information that the Judge took to his grave with him, information that somebody wanted. I don’t believe this, you understand, it’s just a supposition.”
Mariah gives a small, tight nod. I plunge on.
“Even if it’s true-even if there is some bit of information-well, I doubt that the Judge would have confided anything important in Freeman Bishop. I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead, but, come on.”
“Nobody who knew Daddy would think he would tell Father Bishop anything.”
“Nobody who knew Freeman Bishop would think the Judge would tell him anything.”
My sister rubs her womb again, protecting her baby. “So he wasn’t
… tortured… for information about Daddy, was he?”
“I don’t think so. If I thought anything else, I would grab my family and head for the hills.”
“If your family would go.” Mariah cannot help being mischievous when the subject of Kimmer comes up. I
