✶ ✶ ✶ ✶
They sat at a clearly empty picnic table and Francine gave a quick wave to Charlie, who was gnawing on a freeze pop as he bounded happily around the edge of the party in a fierce game of flashlight Tag. At least one of them was making good on the pledge to not have their night ruined.
“So bad news first,” Bruno said. “There were no pancakes on the grill. Talk about poor barbeque etiquette.”
“I’ll get over it,” Francine said.
Bruno stopped chewing his bite of potato salad. “Oh, hey. I hope I didn’t interrupt anything with that lady back there. Laura Jean said you’d thank me. You did look kinda miserable.”
“It’s fine,” Francine said. “Thanks for the food.”
“Hey, what’re friends for?” Bruno said, cheerily going back to his potato salad.
He’d changed his outfit, but succeeded only in shifting the flavor of bad. The short-sleeved dress shirt, white with burgundy stripes; the tie, a map of Bermuda. An attempt had been made to formalize the unruly hair, now combed into an italicized version of itself that somehow looked even messier than before.
They think I’m a writer.
The thing about being married to a liar was that it made you really hate lies: little-white, bold-faced, and every kind in between.
“You’re a teacher,” she said, suddenly.
Bruno’s posture tightened. “Why do you say that?”
“The faded line on your corduroys, right where the chalk ledge is on a blackboard. You read and take notes like a teacher, And your ties…I’m not trying to be mean, but only a teacher has this many ugly ties.”
“The kids give ’em to me as a joke.”
“So you’re not a writer.”
A better liar would’ve been able to pivot between the two professions, but Bruno just stammered. “I…I don’t—”
“‘They think I’m a writer,’” Francine recited bitterly. “Like we’re all so stupid for taking your word.”
He frowned. “That was you outside my house last night.”
Francine realized she probably shouldn’t have been so specific in her accusation. “No.”
“I don’t believe this.”
“Bruno, it wasn’t me.”
He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have come tonight. I can’t…get involved with people like this while I’m here.”
“What?”
“Francine, I think we should be the kind of neighbors who just wave from now on.”
“But you’re the one—”
“Hi, you two!” Laura Jean trotted excitedly over and sat next to Bruno with a plate of barbeque. An amply-sized man who had been working the grill all night sat down next to Francine with his own piled-high plate.
“Mark Cunningham. Delighted to meet you, Francine,” he boomed.
Francine pulled her glare away from Bruno, who had gone back to quietly eating his potato salad. She shook Mark’s huge hand and made the effort to be present, reasoning she could always stew about Bruno later. “Nice to meet you, Mark.”
Aside from a fluffy red beard, Mark’s hair was aggressively unremarkable, suggesting generic brand shampoo, no conditioner, and no product. He wore an apron that showed a pig happily eating a pork chop, probably purchased from the same store that sold Ellie’s sun-wearing-sunglasses thermometer.
“My wife’s been talking about you for two days straight,” he said. “So I insisted we join you to see what all the fuss was about.”
Laura Jean blushed. “Oh stop, I mentioned her once or twice.”
“Agree to disagree,” he teased. “Michael, good to see you again. Really doing a number on that potato salad. You an Irish boy like me?”
Bruno gave Francine a quick, worried glance, but copped to the new tone of conversation. “I don’t think so, but the milkman had red hair, so who knows?”
Mark chuckled. “I like that! I’ve got mick jokes for days.”
“Mark Cunningham, don’t you start telling jokes.” Laura Jean playfully pointed a plastic knife at him, which he parried with his own.
The two of them had an effortless back and forth that wasn’t just keeping up appearances. They truly enjoyed each other. Laura Jean had made the right choice.
Francine, on the other hand, had picked Ben. Now she’d blown it again by considering Bruno. It was all so obvious now: the dishonest way he chatted with the Cunninghams, the clearly deceptive smile, the…fraudulent way he…drank his punch.
Maybe she was being the slightest bit overreactive.
What did she even know for sure, anyway? Her “evidence” was based on the half-context of a phone call overheard by a seven-year-old who probably shouldn’t have been outside in the first place.
“Let’s color you in a little, Michael.” Mark disappeared a bite of chicken the size of Laura Jean’s whole portion. “How many trips around the sun?”
“Thirty-five.”
“Francine’s thirty-five too!” Laura Jean announced, perhaps having noticed the lack of sparks between her favorite new couple. She tapped Francine’s foot under the table.
“What kind of writing do you do, Bruno?” Francine asked.
Bruno faltered, possibly trying to think of a good lie, possibly trying to swallow his latest bite of potato salad.
“You’re a writer, right? That’s what you told us,” Francine pressed.
“Yeah. I write…history books.”
“What are the titles of some of your books, Michael?” Mark asked, oblivious to the little drama unfolding before him. “I’d love to expand my library beyond Clancy comma Tom.”
“Well, uh…I should’ve said I’m a writer of the non-published variety,” Bruno managed. “Maybe someday.”
“Maybe the story you’re writing here in Hawthorn Woods,” Francine suggested. “What’s it about?”
She’d keep pushing him until he said something that didn’t check out, and then everyone would see him for the fraud he was.
“Civil War,” Bruno said, after a short pause.
Liar.
“I love Civil War stuff!” Mark said. “Which part are you covering?”
“Just some of the battles.”
“Oh c’mon, don’t make me beg for details,” Mark chided, and Francine could have hugged him.
“Battles in Virginia, mostly.”
“Which one?” Francine pounced, as Bruno continued to spool out more and more rope. Bad liars always hung themselves when their stories got too big.
“Shiloh.”
“Shiloh’s in Tennessee, isn’t it?” Mark asked.
Busted.
“Right.” Bruno said. “Mixed my states up.”
“Ah, I do it all the time.”
And Mark just went back to eating his chicken like nothing was wrong. Laura Jean hadn’t noticed anything, either. Bruno was going to get away with it. Just like Ben had.
Francine abruptly got up from the picnic table, spilling her plate of food.
She mumbled something like “Excuse me” and walked shakily toward the house, bumping into Magdalena Durham by accident. She felt stares from the rest of the partygoers glued to her back as she passed into the Cunninghams’ kitchen and pushed through Lori Asperski and her Hens, who were of course fascinated by the red-faced, wild-eyed woman from San Francisco. But Francine didn’t care. She just had to get away. Deeper into the house, up the carpeted stairs, down the hallway, through the master bedroom, into the sanctuary of a bathroom where she flung the door shut, crumpled onto the edge of the bathtub, and stopped trying not to cry.
Chapter 11
The sight of blood does not frighten me or make me sick.
[ ] TRUE [ x ] FALSE
A soft knock rapped on the door. “Francine? Are you all right? I’m comin’ in.”
Laura Jean slipped inside and joined Francine on the edge of the coral pink bathtub.
“I am a royal butthead. Inviting him without asking you, pushing you guys together like a pair of stuffed animals. I’m sor
ry.”
Francine sniffed. “Everyone down there must think I’m nuts.”
“Nobody thinks that.”
Francine gave her a doubtful look.
“Okay, Lori and her brood might cluck about it for a while. We’ll blame your spirited departure on my Down South Punch. I always make it too damn strong.” Laura Jean spun off some toilet paper and handed it to Francine to blow her nose. “What happened?”
Part of Francine just wanted to be alone, to squeeze her glowing coal of grief, letting it burn her and no one else. But some of Roland Gerber’s words came to her mind. Something about expelling the tortures of an unsettled mind.
“Ben’s getting married next month,” she said. “I ran into a friend of his at the grocery store last week and he mentioned it, thinking I knew. I pretended I did. Once the guy walked away, I just left all my stuff in the cart and went home. Then I freaked out for a few days and jumped on a plane to come here.” She let out a deep sigh. “Ben moved on a long time ago, but our marriage is still all I can think about, even after everything that happened. And tonight I thought…” She stopped and shook her head. “It’s stupid.”
“What?”
Francine wiped streams of mascara from her cheeks. “I just got a feeling when I met Bruno. I liked him, and I haven’t let myself feel anything like that for a long time, so I guess it came on strong.” She tossed the mascara-smeared toilet paper into a trash can. “But Ben was a liar, and I guess Bruno is too.”
“What did Bruno lie about?”
“It doesn’t matter. Definitely nothing that should make me this upset. You should be outside with your guests. I’m sorry.”
“Here’s what I think.” Laura Jean sat on the carpeted toilet lid so she was face to face with Francine. “Everybody is so focused on catching that first train. They want to catch it before they’re some arbitrary age, and it has to be shiny and perfect, and they have to ride it forever. But things don’t always work out like that. Sometimes that first train comes back to the station and drops you off, and you have to wait for another one. Jesus, does this train metaphor make me sound old?”
“Keep going,” Francine said, with a slight hiccup.
“Another train will come around, I promise you. And yeah, maybe it’s got a few dings in it and the paint is scratched, and the conductor might wear, excuse me, the ugliest damn ties on the planet. But that’s okay, ’cause life’s more interesting that way.”
“You stayed on the first train.”
“Yes, but it hasn’t always been a smooth track. Mark and I have been through a lot. Like I said, I got pregnant before we were married. And that was down in Mississippi, mind you. Sometimes the tracks—oh, forget this damn train metaphor.” She offered Francine the last of the toilet paper. “What I’m trying to say is, you get to a certain point in life and there are more damaged people than not, and that’s okay. Shiny is boring. I like Bruno, but if he’s not right for you, so what? You’re both leaving soon anyway, like trains passing in the night. Hey! I brought it full circle.”
Francine smiled in spite of herself, then noticed the black splotches of mascara she’d dripped onto Laura Jean’s pristine outfit. “I messed up your dress.”
“Oh, who cares?” Laura Jean swiped a bit of black from Francine’s cheek and dotted it on the opposite side of the dress. “Now it’s a fashion choice.”
“Thank you, Laura Jean.” Francine sighed. “I don’t know how I’m going to tell my mom.”
“About Bruno?”
Francine shook her head. “That she’s been replaced.”
“Oh, stop. You stay up here as long as you need to. We’re winding down outside anyway. If you want to slip out the front door, you go right ahead and do it.” Laura Jean squeezed Francine’s knee, and headed back down to the party.
Francine sat on the edge of the tub a while longer. While she eventually managed to steady her breathing, the flow of tears wouldn’t stop. This seemed to be as good as her emotional state was going to get for the moment, so she walked quickly down to the front door.
The game of flashlight Tag had migrated to the front yard, leaving the heavily chalked driveway crowded with children until an earsplitting whistle sounded from somewhere in the backyard. The kids moaned and groaned at the communal bedtime call, but slowly disbanded.
As she watched Charlie skip happily home, Francine decided to take a quick loop around the block to try and pull herself together.
Turning the corner, she walked parallel to the Cunninghams’ backyard, where punch-happy neighbors thanked Mark and Laura Jean before wandering off in ones and twos. Among the lingering guests, Francine saw Dennis Asperski, looking remorsefully at an empty beer cooler, and Magdalena Durham, chatting with a Carol by the now dormant grill.
Francine almost lamented the lack of horn-locking between her and Magdalena that night. It seemed her lame, knock-off Nancy Drew investigation was fizzling before it had even started. So much for the distraction. No tranquil recovery. No pan-flash romance. No mystery—
She froze.
In the weak light of a lamp post at the bottom of the Durhams’ driveway, a figure rose from where it had been crouching in the street and stared at her.
In the half-second it took Francine to wipe the tears from her eyes, the person backed completely out of the light and was gone.
Francine looked behind her. There were no party guests around. Heartbeat doubling with each step, she moved hesitantly toward the island of light, where a pool of red was slowly expanding on the asphalt.
The blood came from an animal. Lori’s brown goat, its fur unnaturally dark around the neck. Someone had cut its throat.
Francine put a hand over her mouth. But something compelled her to keep walking closer. Her sandals touched the edge of the light. The goat’s strange, hyphenated eye stared blankly up into the night sky. A large triangle had been lightly carved into the fur of the stomach. Small, jagged letters in blood on the asphalt next to the goat read: Get Off Our Block.
Then somebody screamed.
Chapter 12
I believe in law enforcement.
[ ] TRUE [ x ] FALSE
The phone rang early the next morning. Francine blindly slapped the nightstand a few times before finding the handset. “Hello?”
“Ms. Haddix?”
“Yes?”
“This is Deputy Martin at the Hawthorn Woods Police Department. The Chief is conducting interviews about the incident last night. We’d like you to come in at eight o’clock. Does that work for you?”
Pete’s clocks told her that was in twenty minutes.
“Um, yes. I mean, I guess I can make it.”
“Thanks for your cooperation, see you soon.”
The inspiration of a police summons put a spring in Francine’s step. She made Charlie some toaster waffles and brought them down to the family room, where he was watching a prison movie he swore he was allowed to watch.
“I’m going to lock the door when I go. Just stay down here ’till I get back. You know how to use the phone in an emergency, right?”
“Yes,” he said, trying to watch the movie.
She looked for any sign of stress or concern in the boy’s face, but he seemed completely fine, chewing syrupy waffles while the onscreen inmates planned a grand escape.
When Francine had gotten home the night before, Charlie had been understandably curious about all the screaming. She’d told him Brownie had been hurt by accident, like when a raccoon got hit by a car. He had accepted the explanation and gone to sleep, saving Francine from having to explain a horrific act she didn’t yet understand herself.
After double checking the lock on the front door, Francine briskly walked to the huge red barn at the front of the neighborhood that housed the police station and some municipal offices. She entered a door between two white globes stenciled with the word “POLICE,” and waited in the station’s small lobby until a cheery deputy led her back into the bullpen.
They walked
on hard carpet colored with generations of coffee stains, passing dispatcher stations hung with red, white, and blue streamers for the upcoming Fourth of July holiday.
“Are you gonna be here for the parade?” the deputy asked. “It’s a pretty big deal around here.”
“Yep,” Francine responded automatically, trying to keep her wits about her for the meeting. Or would it be an interrogation?
She waved to a familiar Carol, avoided eye contact with one of Lori’s Hens, and soon arrived at a windowed office along the back wall with a door that read: Hollis Durham, Chief. The huge man with impeccably combed hair waved her in.
“Ms. Orthine. Thanks for coming in. Close the door behind you, if you would.”
Thanks to the Chief’s liberal use of pomade, the office smelled strongly of sandalwood, a much-preferred scent to the bullpen’s odor of whatever was microwaved last.
“You can call me Ms. Haddix, or Francine if you want.”
“Okay, Ms. Haddix.” Chief Durham eased his action-figure body back down behind the desk and gestured to a chair in front. “Can I get you a coffee? Can’t say it’s gourmet, but it’ll perk you right up.”
She hadn’t slept much and wondered if it showed. “I’m fine, thanks.”
“You’ve had quite the eventful stay so far,” he said, signing off on some paperwork.
The words sounded slightly accusatory, and Francine picked nervously at her already-chipped nail polish.
“I think it’s safe to say I’m done with parties for a while. I don’t know what comes next in the sequence of cranberry vodka and dead goat, but I definitely don’t want to find out.”
Chief Durham’s chair squeaked in protest as he shifted his substantial bulk, filing away the papers before giving her his full attention. “I should’ve come over to apologize for that first night. My wife’s not really the apologizing type. Northern people just have a more…pragmatic disposition, and Russia’s damn near polar. Maggie really is a kind soul.”
“I don’t know if she thought I was checking you out or something. I wasn’t,” Francine made clear. “I just can’t think of anything I might have done to her otherwise.”
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