“Why were they there?” Chapel demanded.
I relayed everything the detectives had told me, without embellishment.
“Do you know where your father is?”
“No idea.”
“And you haven’t been to your brother’s condo?”
“Not since I found his body,” I said. “Can I ask you, that bit about a warrant? Are they liable to come back with one?”
“Not unless they’ve got some damn compelling evidence and the D.A. is willing to charge you. It’s the same situation as before. And with the pictures in the media, and so soon after your brother’s murder? Unless the D.A. knows you did something wrong, unless he can prove it, he’d look like a complete asshole. If what you’re telling me is right, they don’t even have a crime.”
“They said there was blood.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. Suppose your father went on a bender, cut his wrists, and then thought better of it? Maybe he’s in a bed at Legacy Emanuel or Providence as a John Doe. Until they know what’s happened to him, they’ve got nothing. And if they think there’s a murder, they need a body, or a head, or some heart or brain matter. Otherwise, they’ve got nothing.”
“So I don’t have to worry about them?”
“Not unless there’s something you haven’t told me,” Chapel said.
I was finding it easier and easier to lie without pause. “No, nothing. They just made me nervous, that’s all.”
“They’re detectives, they do it on purpose. Call me if they come back.”
I told him I would, hung up, and headed for my appointment with Cuddle Group Daycare.
CHAPTER 30
It was Sheila Larkin’s business, and she ran it out of her home eight blocks south of the Reed campus. I drove past the grounds and its falling leaves, onto the slender streets with the slightly upscale housing dedicated to the campus faculty. Pumpkins perched on porches and walks, waiting to be lit up as soon as night fell, and a couple of the homes had more prominent Halloween decorations, paper skeletons hanging from awnings. One home had an elm in its front yard with half of a broomstick jutting from its trunk on the one side, a witch splayed against the tree on the other, as if she’d crashed her flight.
The decorations at Cuddle Group Daycare were bright and nothing as sinister, construction-paper pumpkins of orange and black smiling brightly from where they’d been taped to the windows. There were eleven kids under care, and three other providers aside from Sheila, all of them women her age or younger. The kids ranged from a towheaded toddler who careened around the playroom, head-butting all of the adults in their legs, to a four- month-old little girl, who sobbed hysterically in one woman’s lap.
Sheila Larkin looked nothing like I remembered, and when she answered the door, I didn’t recognize her at all. She seemed to have stopped growing upward shortly after I’d come out from beneath her parents’ roof, then made up for the lack of progress by expanding horizontally, instead. Her hair was long and worn in a ponytail, and it made her seem shorter and fatter.
She smiled at me, though, and offered me her hand, and I followed her into the din of children. We negotiated the playroom, stepping over toys and tots. The other women were all careful to not look at me, or at least, to not look at me when they thought I could see them doing it, and I wondered what Sheila had told them. There were small gates up in every doorway, and Sheila had to open and close three of them before we were done. The kitchen was clean, but cluttered, and smelled of last night’s fried chicken and baby poop. Sheila offered me a seat at the table and a glass of something to drink, and I took the seat and passed on the glass, and after some more mild fussing about, she joined me.
“I was surprised to hear from you,” Sheila said. “I didn’t think you’d even remember us.”
“I wish I could say I’m surprised that you remembered me,” I said. “But I think I made a lasting impression.”
Sheila smiled, and seemed to relax a little. “You know, it was Donny who told us first, that you were a big rock star, now. We were all so impressed, I had to call Daddy and tell him, and he sounded so happy that you had grown up well. He said that all those prayers we were making for you, some of them must have gotten through.”
“I guess some of them did.”
Her face fell. “I’m so sorry about your brother. I barely remembered him, but then I saw it on the news last week, and all I could think was that it didn’t seem fair at all. And they say your daddy did it?”
“He’s a suspect,” I said. “But they don’t know who did it.”
Sheila adjusted herself in her seat. “I don’t expect this is why you called, though, is it? To talk about that?”
“No. I’m actually wondering if you can tell me about your family. After Mikel’s funeral, I started thinking about all the people who had taken us into their homes, and about how . . . how rotten I was, at least. And I wanted to say I was sorry. I was hoping to start with you, sort of work my way through the tree, so to speak.”
“I’m not sure that’s necessary. You had been through some awful things, we all understood.” Sheila looked embarrassingly touched, for a moment.
“It doesn’t really excuse the behavior.”
“Well, if it matters, I forgave you long ago. I know my parents did, too.”
“How about your brothers?”
Sheila grinned. “Oh, you don’t have to worry about them.”
“No? They’re well?”
She laughed. “They’re crazy, that’s what they are! Moved up to Alaska about two years ago, the lot of them. Donny’s teaching Eskimo boys and girls out in the bush, I think that’s the word for it, and William, Ben, and Bobby, they’re entrepreneurs. They’ve got a couple planes, they all learned how to fly, you see, and they sell tours.”
Scratch the Larkin boys, I thought, and she saw disappointment on my face and misread it as something else.
“Oh, I know,” Sheila said. “I think it’s crazy, too, but they love it. Only problem they’re having, according to what Mom says, is that they can’t find any women. Not enough single girls in Alaska, I guess.”
I made a sympathetic noise, and asked her a few more questions, mostly to round out the conversation. She told me that she’d been married for six years, now, and that she had three kids of her own, only one of them part of the quorum in the next room. Her husband was an investor-broker for Prudential here in town, and they were very happy. Before she’d had her first child, she didn’t know what it was she wanted to do with her life. But when the first baby was born, she had discovered that she had a knack for child care, and she’d gone to school to get certified, and opened the business on her own. She said the work fulfilled her.
“That must be what making music is like for you,” Sheila said.
I started feeling the foreboding as soon as I was back behind the wheel of the Jeep. The Larkins had been a long shot in the sea of long shots, and if I’d been honest with myself, I wouldn’t have gone with them first.
The Quicks should have been number one.
My dashboard clock said it was coming up on noon, and it adjusted my priorities.
I had to get over to Graham’s before he left town, to pick up the cash.
The guard in the lobby was the same one from the day before, and he grinned at me when I came in, saying, “Hey there, Miss Bracca.”
“Hi,” I said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name yesterday.”
He looked almost embarrassed. “Oh, yeah. I’m Lee.”
“Nice to meet you, Lee. I’m Mim.” I shook his hand.
