Dark Tort

hadn’t been able to stay long. Tom also said Dusty’s little brother, three-year-old Colin, had been screaming inconsolably in the background.

I surveyed our offerings: Julian’s steaming, golden-crusted savory pie, Tom’s precisely arranged tomato salad, the breadbasket with its pats of butter, my spicy apple Betty with its crumbly crust. Without realizing it, we’d all created concoctions that demanded the precise cutting of vegetables and fruit, as if organizing food could somehow order experience and make life neat. Like most folks, we believed that performing that small ritual of comfort, bringing nourishing gifts, could make life after a sudden death more bearable.

Which, of course, was doubtful.

I pressed my lips together and led the way as we walked toward the door of the Routts’ small house.

CHAPTER 5

When we arrived, Marla marched up the cement steps and rang the bell. Tom, Julian, and I followed her to the small red-painted landing. When no one came to the door, Marla pressed the buzzer again. Still there was no answer. She turned around and frowned at us, then tried again.

“Go away!” a voice shrieked: Sally Routt. She couldn’t have been more than six feet from what I knew was a thin door. Yet we had heard no movement from within. “I don’t want to talk to you anymore! I haven’t got a lawyer, so you’re just going to have to deal with it.”

Marla raised her hands: Now what? Tom lifted his eyebrows at Julian.

I walked up next to the door. “Sally, it’s us,” I said in a low voice. “Goldy and Tom from across the street. And our friends Marla, from the church, and Julian Teller. We’ve brought some food for you. You can just take it, or you could let us in, if you like.” After a beat I said, “Your father said it was okay for us to come over.”

The stained, hollow door opened a crack. “Your husband, Tom, is a cop,” Sally, still unseen, announced in a high, frightened voice. “I don’t want any more cops in here. Suggesting my baby deserved to die.” She erupted in a sob.

Suggesting what?

“Mrs. Routt, it’s Julian Teller.” Julian nodded confidently at me. “You know we loved Dusty.” He hesitated respectfully. “But if you don’t want us just yet, we can leave our trays here, then come back later for them. Or you could, you know, come over to Goldy’s place—”

The door creaked open and Sally appeared. Short and slender, she was dressed in a graying sweatshirt and faded blue jeans. Her thin, frizzy light brown hair looked like a frayed broom. Her slender face, usually quite pale, was pink from crying. Her eyes were so swollen I didn’t know how she could see out of them.

Without looking at our little party, she said, “I’m never leaving this house again. There’s nothing out there for me.”

With that, she departed, but she swung the door all the way open, which I took as an invitation. She could always tell us to leave, I reasoned, as we pushed our way into the small living room, with its bedspread-covered couch, flimsy coffee table, and mismatched chairs. I’d only been inside the Routts’ place a few times, but it invariably depressed me. The church might have helped build and pay for the house, but they hadn’t provided much in the furniture department.

Sally slumped on the couch and gazed at the floor. Julian placed his tray on the battered coffee table. I followed suit.

“Kitchen must be back here somewhere,” Tom muttered. He swung past us around a short corner. There was a clattering of wood hitting counter—presumably Tom’s suddenly putting the tray down—and then a guttural sobbing emanated from the same direction. But I knew this voice, too: it was John Routt.

Tom’s comforting voice interspersed the deep groans and sobs. I felt confident Tom could handle Mr. Routt; it just would take a while. Meanwhile, Sally began to rock back and forth and wail. Before I could turn my attention to her, though, someone started banging on the front door. Sally rolled sideways on the couch and buried her face in a folded, incongruously cheery red-and-white-patterned quilt, no doubt brought by the deputies. After rubbing her cheeks and eyes with the quilt, she stopped crying momentarily. The pounding on the front door started up again, more loudly and insistently than before.

“I can’t…take any more,” Sally whispered to me. As she lay on the couch, her puffy eyes sought out mine. “Get rid of whoever that is, would you please, Goldy?”

I nodded. Marla and Julian, eager to be helpful, had been building blocks with Colin on the far side of the room. But the knocking had scared him, and he began to cry. He toddled over to his mother’s side and threw himself on top of her legs. Sally reached out a limp arm and patted Colin’s head.

What were neighbors supposed to do to be helpful in times like this? Just work on getting your friends through the next hour, an inner voice said. Failing that, attend to the next fifteen minutes.

I shouldn’t have been surprised to see Vic Zaruski at the door. His face, like Sally’s, was blotched, his expression stricken.

“What’s going on?” he asked me. The humidity from the previous night’s fog had made his head of straw- colored curls wild. “Why are you here?”

“Vic, you know we live across the street,” I said gently. Behind me, Colin raised his crying a notch. “Look, it would help if you didn’t bang on the door.”

He looked in over my shoulder. “Where is everybody? Mrs. Routt? Her father? Colin?”

Get rid of them, Sally had said to me. But surely she would want to see her daughter’s ex-boyfriend? Would it help to have him here? I hesitated. Julian appeared from behind me.

“The little guy hasn’t had any breakfast,” he announced. “I checked their refrigerator, and they don’t have any eggs, juice, bread, butter, stuff like that. Mind if I get some goodies from your place? I’m not sure the kid would like that quiche, so I thought I’d make him French toast. I’ve got my own keys.”

“Sure,” I said, then turned my attention back to Vic. He had been so kind and helpful to me after I’d found Dusty. Still, I was uncertain about how to proceed. What if Sally, in the way of mothers of teenage daughters from the beginning of time, had not actually liked her daughter’s boyfriend?

Stepping agilely around Vic, Julian trotted down the stairs. “Oh yeah, Goldy,” he tossed over his shoulder. “You’d better check on Sally, see what she wants to do about…visitors.”

“Stay here,” I ordered Vic. I walked quickly back to Sally, who still lay on the couch, with a steadily weeping Colin leaning against her knees. “Vic’s here,” I said softly. “Do you want to see him, or should I tell him to come back later?”

Sally closed her eyes and shook her head. “He’s a nice boy, but I’m not ready to see him.”

Great. I leaned in to Colin. “Will you come into my arms, Colin?” I crooned. Colin shook his head steadfastly and gripped his mother’s legs.

“Seems to me,” Marla called from the opposite side of the room, “that Colin’s auntie Marla has some chocolate candy deep in her purse!” She picked up her voluminous Louis Vuitton bag and began to rummage through it. Then she stopped and stared into it. “I know that candy bar is in here somewhere. If only I had Colin to help me look for it!”

Colin, suddenly alert, but still wary from not quite comprehending the source of the chaos around him, nevertheless unclasped his mother’s legs. He ran toward Marla as fast as his short legs would take him. So much for a nutritious breakfast.

I turned and wiggled through the barely open front door, which I shut behind me. “Vic, look, you were so great and helpful last night. Could you come back later? They’re all a mess in there —”

“I’m a mess.” His voice was fierce. He turned away, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and stared at his white Sebring convertible, its top still down in defiance of the gathering clouds and the cooling days. “I just…I can’t…” He twisted his head and lifted his pointed chin. “So do the cops have any idea who did this?”

I exhaled. “I don’t know, Vic. They just left here a short while ago. I had to go down to the department to answer their questions, just as you did. Did you see Dusty last night?”

He sank down on the red concrete landing and put his head in his hands. “No, no. I…hadn’t seen her for a couple of weeks.” He paused. Then his words came out in a sudden rush. “We were supposed to have lunch