Chief Durham jolted from the sheets, brushing tinkles of glass from his hair. “Christ, Maggie! What the hell has gotten into you?”
She crumpled onto the carpet and began to cry.
Suddenly, Chief Durham didn’t look mad anymore. He got down on the floor next to her and wrapped a big arm around her shoulders. “You know I love you. Maggie, tell me you believe that.”
She continued to cry, but nodded.
“We’re doing the best we can,” he said as he rocked her in a hug. “We’re doing the best we can.”
They stayed like that for a while, sitting on the floor, hugging and rocking.
Charlie climbed down from the tree. Things were getting weird in the neighborhood. He wanted to go home and get back in bed, but there was still one more light on.
He sprinted past the willow and dove to the grass, crawling across Mr. Merlin’s perfectly-cut lawn on his stomach.
The old Marine sat hunched on his couch inside, elbows on his knees, his face washed in color from his TV. Like Mrs. Banderwalt, he wasn’t really watching it, just…staring. The coffee table in front of him was messy with magazines and a half-eaten TV dinner, plus the rifle he kept in his garage, taken apart next to a bunch of cleaning stuff. Eventually, Mr. Merlin turned off the TV and just sat there in the dark.
Charlie crawled across the lawn, then struggled his way back up the frog sheet and into his parents’ bedroom.
When he heard Aunt Francine get up, he quickly lay on the bed with his eyes shut and his mouth open. A closed mouth was the move of a rookie fake sleeper.
“Hey, Bubba.” She sat gently on the bed and wiped his forehead. “You’re sweating. Did you have a bad dream?”
Charlie rolled over and looked at her, wondering if he should tell her about all the things he’d seen. But he couldn’t let her know he’d been outside, not until he had something to report.
“Stranger and stranger,” he whispered.
“They’re just dreams,” Aunt Francine said. “Things’ll look better in the morning.”
She kissed his head and went back into the guest room.
Charlie closed his eyes and tried to sleep for real, hoping she was right.
Chapter 21
It takes a lot of argument to convince most people of the truth.
[ x ] TRUE [ ] FALSE
Francine’s routine for the next few days took on an enjoyable consistency: breakfast for Charlie, over to Bruno’s for a morning work session, back home for lunch with Charlie, back to Bruno’s for the afternoon, home for dinner and a bedtime story. Rinse, repeat.
She was definitely getting the hang of the babysitting thing. And while she and Bruno hadn’t uncovered any damning connection between Lischka and Roland in Bruno’s metric ton of research, she’d gotten up to speed on things quickly, and already felt like a major contributing member of the team.
Given the subject matter, it was inappropriate and weird and just plain icky to describe the work as fun, but that’s what it was. The sudden surge of domestic espionage (or, if they went with Francine’s name for it: domespionage) had brought a spark back to her soul. The fact she was doing it all with Bruno didn’t hurt either, because he was the anti-Ben in almost every way. Some of those ways were not so great—Ben had been a sharp dresser and a pretty good cook, whereas Bruno had a bottomless supply of horrifying ties and seemed content to survive on Oreos alone. But the oddly likable history teacher more than made up for those shortcomings. He was interested in Francine’s life. He didn’t interrupt her when she spoke. His laugh was easily given, and never came at her expense.
Professional colleagues, Francine recited to herself as she crossed under the willow tree, late for their next afternoon session because Charlie had made a big deal about eating the one carrot she’d served with his lunch of mac and cheese. Maybe her anti-lima bean speech had been a touch too passionate.
“Hey, sorry I’m late.” She joined Bruno in the kitchen. “Ew, why do you have that?”
Bruno tossed the Hardy Boys paperback he’d been reading onto a pile of textbooks about police procedure and criminal psychology. “These old mysteries have some good tricks sometimes. I think I just needed something a little less clinical for a minute. I’m starting to feel like a zombie.”
“I’m not shaming the technique. You just need better taste in your lead characters. The Hardy Boys are dorks. It’s all about the Drew.”
“I forgot you were such a Nancy superfan.”
“Damn right. My girl cracks cases with little more than a trusty flashlight and a bold initiative that, sadly, the milquetoast Hardys will never possess.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll be pulling a rubber Gerber mask off of Lischka, either way.”
“That’s Scooby Doo.” Francine opened the fridge, revealing the classic bachelor staples of lunch meat, a six pack of pop, and a stack of documents marked “Euro-Argentinian immigration records.”
She opened one of the pop cans, something called 50/50, and took a sip. “This stuff tastes like Windex,” she said. “Though not entirely in a bad way.”
“It grows on ya,” Bruno said, as he began a series of callisthenic lunges. “And as far as the books go, I will say I like Nancy better too.”
“Nice try, brown noser.”
“It’s true! Our family had a bunch of Hardy Boys books and a few Nancy Drews. I’m the youngest of five boys, so guess which books I got to read?”
“Yeah, but your brothers probably all say ‘Gee’ and ‘Golly’ now, and never get more exotic than the missionary position. You should thank them for broadening your horizons.”
“And what did Nancy teach me?”
Francine slumped into a chair and kicked her feet up onto the teddy bear tablecloth. “Always look for details, trust your instincts, listen for what people say with more than their words. She and I solved mysteries all the time, even outside of the books. She was kind of my imaginary friend as a kid.”
“I’m picturing lots of tea parties with stuffed animals on Friday nights.”
Francine chucked a balled-up piece of paper at him. “She showed me I was good at this kind of stuff. If I’d been a shittier person, I could’ve been one of those psychics who charges people to talk to their dead relatives. Alas, a trace amount of morals doomed me to limit my talents to party tricks.”
“Like what?”
“I’d entertain the girls at the salon by guessing what they’d done the night before, or help find my neighbor’s dog. In both cases, the suspects had been breathlessly chasing the opposite sex. And one time when Ben—”
She stopped abruptly, and tried to cover her slip-up with a gulp of 50/50.
“Ben?”
“My ex-husband.”
Bruno’s body language tightened a little, like she’d brought up something she wasn’t supposed to. If he wasn’t interested, why the reaction? She’d seen it happen a couple of times in the last few days, hints of interest that were quickly abandoned. The guy was a short-circuiting traffic light flipping from enthusiastic green to sudden red at random intervals, keeping Francine in the stressful limbo of yellow.
“Blech,” she said. “I didn’t mean to bring him up.”
“No, it’s fine. I like to know what you’re thinking.”
I’ll take “Things Ben Never Said” for 200, Alex.
“He hangs around my thoughts now and then, which I can mostly handle. It’s the dreams that get me.”
Bruno nodded. “I had that, too.”
“With an old flame? How’d you get rid of ’em?”
“The usual. Time, self-reflection, starting my own detective agency.”
“And it’s worked?”
“I’d like to up my solve-to-fail ratio on the cases, but yeah, it helped thin out the dreams to more manageable levels.”
His gaze became distant, and for a moment Francine recognized in his expression loss, regret, and things she didn’t have words for but understood anyway. And for the first tim
e, she could see just how exhausted he was.
Anytime she went home to take care of Charlie, Bruno kept right on working. He almost always had a new detail or clue he’d uncovered in the kitchen’s library of text by the time she returned. His enthusiasm was infectious, and she always excitedly joined in on whatever new thread he’d found. It was part of being a good partner, but her responsibility now required something a little different.
“We’re taking the day off tomorrow,” she announced.
“What?”
“Garage Sale Day. I think it’s almost as big of a deal around here as the Fourth of July parade.”
“You don’t think we should keep working?”
“I think both of us could use a break from the Brigadeführer and the teddy bears.”
“I guess a break would be nice, but I’m not so sure about the garage sale idea. I try to keep a low profile.”
“C’mon! Fresh air, cheap junk, social opportunities. Maybe we’ll have a Eureka moment while we’re browsing non-functioning eight-tracks and cracked fondue pots.”
“Okay. I surrender. A day off it is.”
✶ ✶ ✶ ✶
After making Bruno give a “cross-my-heart-hope-to-die” promise that he would relax for the rest of the night, which probably meant Oreos and Hardy Boys, Francine left a little earlier than usual. Charlie was still out playing and wouldn’t be back for at least another hour, meaning she returned to a house that was empty and silent. Back in San Francisco, she would avoid this by regularly leaving her TV on all the time. The people were made of light and couldn’t talk back, but they helped make an empty space feel just a little less empty.
She was about to head down to the family room to turn the big screen on, when something inside her volunteered the idea of grabbing the skull and crossbones tape lying in the closet upstairs. Maybe things had been going a little too well with Bruno, and some self-sabotaging part of her psyche was getting restless. Maybe it was having the power of intentionally hurting herself instead of waiting for others to do it. Whatever the reason, when she trotted down into the family room a few moments later, she did so with the tape in hand.
Ellie and Pete’s family room was almost, but not quite, a basement. Walls of shiny wood met soft white carpet under the spread of low-wattage lamps, placed on either end of a pretzel-brown leather couch. A big screen TV the size of a washing machine sat between them below a row of high windows level with the ground outside. With a blanket-draped rocking chair in one corner and a fake-rock fireplace in the other, the room really gave the kitchen a run for coziest space in the house. Francine enjoyed the charm for as long as she could before slotting her cheap plastic torture device into the VHS player.
The big screen slowly warmed and brought to life the terrible harbinger of her bittersweet memories: Snuggle Bear. The stuffed animal, cursed with sentience, happily peddled a new scent of fabric softener before yielding to a glittering marquis that read: Friday Night Movie: Pretty in Pink.
Poor Molly Ringwald had only about twenty minutes to be bewildered by yet another romantic dilemma before the soundtrack strangled and the picture warbled to a reception hall. This marked the exact point, three years ago, when Francine had realized the horrible thing she’d done, and had screamed loud enough to wake half of metropolitan San Francisco.
Ben had run into the room with a hastily grabbed umbrella, ready to do battle with a cabal of scheming burglars. Instead, he instead found his wife cradling an ejected VHS tape and sobbing so hard it took her three tries to explain she’d irrevocably recorded over the first half of their wedding with a John Hughes rom com.
Gone were Ellie and the other bridesmaids putting on frilly tangerine dresses that made them look like loofas with legs. Gone was the cranky flower girl who threw petals at her brother until she was escorted the rest of the way by a laughing Ben. Gone was Francine’s walk down the aisle, her eyes shining with more happiness than she’d previously thought possible. So many rare, treasured moments, relegated to the porous hold of memory, all because Francine had wanted to save a few bucks on a video rental.
Ben had lifted her from the floor and coaxed her into a waltz, mirroring their better-dressed doppelgängers dancing on screen. “I remember every second of you walking down the aisle,” he’d said. “I don’t need the tape.” Then he’d used a 49ers cap and the umbrella to mime a top hat and cane, and Francine’s sobs had turned into laughs. Then he had declared that dancing to the video was mandatory for every viewing, and Francine had agreed. It probably would’ve been a treasured tradition every anniversary, if only they’d made it to one.
Francine slid down to the carpet, resting her back against Ellie and Pete’s leather couch as the punishment continued: Ben with his winning smile and sharp tuxedo; Francine in a glove-fit wedding dress, her brunette locks styled to absolute perfection. The flushed newlyweds received speeches of sentimental gold, cut it up on the dance floor, and gave a champagne toast to the gathered friends and family for helping celebrate their love.
He had been in love with her then. Hadn’t he?
Francine scrambled forward and jabbed the eject button so hard it nearly broke. She yanked out the tape and drew her arm back, ready to smash the time capsule against the fireplace so she’d never fall prey to its caustic images again.
But what if Charlie came home? He didn’t deserve a scene like that.
And she couldn’t do it, anyway.
The tape had the same possessive grip on her as the blank quiz upstairs, and the ring on her finger. She wasn’t rid of him. Not yet.
Chapter 22
I like to keep people guessing what I am going to do next.
[ x ] TRUE [ ] FALSE
Francine’s knuckles machine-gunned on Bruno’s front door the next morning. He answered in a mild panic, toothbrush still in mouth. “What’s wrong?”
“C’mon!” She tied a red bandana around her head to suppress her humidity-poofed hair, then gestured to Mark and Laura Jean, who waved from the foot of the driveway. “The deals and the Cunninghams await.”
“Okay. Let me throw on a tie real quick.”
Francine sighed. She’d almost gotten him out of the house without one. He returned a second later, cinching a black and yellow zig-zag tie around the collar of his green shirt.
She gave it a quick tug. “Is this the Charlie Brown look?”
“Kids got me a Snoopy one, too. Where’s your Charlie?”
“I gave him five bucks this morning and told him he could buy whatever he wanted as long as it didn’t come from this block. Too many unknowns.”
Including you, Mr. Yellow Light.
“Get a move on, you two,” Laura Jean called playfully from the shadow of her huge sunhat.
Bruno and Francine reached the bottom of the driveway and Mark pulled Bruno into an enthusiastic handshake. “Michael, I propose we let these two chat while you and I discuss the Battle of Bull Run.”
“Yes, do.” Laura Jean shooed them away and the four of them started their stroll. “Francine, I am loving this bandana on you.”
“The store was all out of white lady sombreros, so I made do.”
“Excuse you, this is a sunhat! You’ll be sorry when you need shade.”
“Maybe I’ll find one secondhand.”
“You just might. Folks here in the Midwest don’t really go in for storage units, so all the debris of suburban living gets crammed into garages and basements. Then comes this one magic day of the year you get the chance to buy anything you want. Provided what you want is broken, out-of-style, or the subject of a recent safety recall. Oh, Lord in heaven, would you look at this.”
A banner stretched between the pillars of Lori’s house proclaimed the garage sale out front as “The Event of the Summer!”
Laura Jean sighed. “I only wanted to do the parade to distract myself from the twins leaving. If I’d known I was gonna have you to bother I wouldn’t even be in this competition with Lori.”
“I’m su
re you’re going to do a great job with the parade, and you’re doing as well as can be expected with me. C’mon, we have to check it out.”
Free balloons, a boombox playing inoffensive pop music, and an umbrella-shaded kiddie pool of wine coolers accompanied a dozen tables stacked with domestic junk. The Hens roamed the aisles, assisting customers and giving change from matching orange fanny packs.
Lori stood near a makeshift Brownie memorial, accepting condolences from customers who felt obligated to give them, considering the framed picture of the goat and accompanying candles.
Laura Jean inspected a store price tag hanging from the leg of a fondue pot. “She went out and bought stuff just to make the sale bigger.”
“Seven bucks for a hot cheese bowl is a good deal either way,” Francine wisely noted.
She was examining a glow-in-the-dark crucifix when she saw Del Merlin one table over. Del, who had noticed her at the same time, quickly looked down, then back up again, and finally offered a sheepish wave. Three of his fingers were covered in u-bends of metal splints.
Francine nodded in his general direction and considered herself a big person for doing it.
Behind Del, Lori left her exalted position at Brownie’s memorial and used her ample hips to push a woman away from a pair of zebra-print salad tongs. “Please don’t touch unless you’re going to buy.”
Francine watched as Lori grabbed her husband’s shoulder and whispered, “You’re security, Dennis. Keep an eye out for light fingers.” She gave him a little shove toward a table where Magdalena was examining a pair of cross-country skis she’d have a pretty difficult time smuggling out under her t-shirt. Dennis sulked over and kept watch, grinding his teeth as he did so. Francine wondered if maybe Eric wasn’t the only one who needed to vent.
Francine wasn’t quite ready to gift Magdalena the same nod she’d generously given to Del, but she wasn’t going to start anything, either. She had bigger problems.
“Hello, Francine.”
The familiar voice made her stomach drop.
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