The Detective's Garden (11 page)

ON THE DRIVE
to see his daughter in Durham, North
Carolina, Charlie Basin listened to uninterpretable lyrics on
college radio stations that faded in and out like better inten
tions. He whistled. When he arrived, he drove around campus,
past Duke’s gothic chapel and then over to the squat beige-and-
glass medical center. He parked and walked the bright halls,
following signs for the inpatient psychiatric unit. Finally, he
spoke to a nurse, a man, who led him into the locked ward. A
long pleasant hall with doors to each side. Pictures of beaches
screwed onto the walls. Tan drywall and blue trim. Not a bad
place, Charlie thought. The nurse, a thin sparse-haired guy,
stopped at a set of large windows. He gestured with an elbow.
“She’s there,” he said, “in the cafeteria.”

Charlene sat at a stainless-steel table. She was reading a
book. A small vase of fake flowers sat in the middle of the ta
ble. She wasn’t wearing a gown, just jeans and a red sweater.
She had a single dimple on her right cheek. She looked thin but
muscular, a woman at the height of her youth and health. She
wore slipper socks on her feet. Bandages wadded at her wrists.

When Charlie sat beside her, she said, “Hi, Dad,” and looked
down at her feet.

“Hey,” he said. He pointed toward her slippers. “What’re
you wearing?”

“These?” she said. She raised a foot off the ground. “They
gave them to me. No shoelaces allowed.”

“Oh,” Charlie said. He passed his thumb over his right eye
brow. “I want you to know that I listened when you said not to
come. I thought about it. Then I came anyway.”

“You want some lunch?” she asked. “I’m hungry.”

Charlie could smell fried vegetables, oil, garlic. “I’ll take
whatever you’re having,” he said.

She stood and went over to speak with the male nurse in the
hallway. She came back and they waited, neither knowing what
to say, until the nurse brought plastic trays filled with food
Charlie would rather not eat. Ginger carrot soup and some
thing with tofu. “This is good,” he said and pointed at his plate
with his fork. She looked up at him through strands of long
hair. Her eyebrows rose slowly. She didn’t believe him. “I mean
it,” he said. “It isn’t my style, but it’s good.” He pushed his
plate toward the center of the table. “Can I get you out of here
for a little while?”

“I don’t think they’ll let me out,” Charlene said. “Maybe you
can tell them you’re a senior special agent with the FBI.”

They took a walk around the campus. Charlene’s lips kept
moving as if she was about to speak. Charlie was quiet, trying
to work out exactly what it was that he was there to say. It was
easy to imagine that the white bandages around her wrists were
some kind of fashion statement. Her legs were bunches of mus
cle. Her cheeks looked like they’d been pinched. She had a kind
of impermeable beauty, like a statue, and Charlie understood
that it could scare people away.

Finally, Charlene said, “You know this is the first time you’ve
come down to visit, Dad?”

“Is it?” he said.

“Why do you think that is?”

“That’s hard to answer,” he said. “Work, I suppose.”

“You don’t have work now?”

“I don’t want to talk about work, Charlene,” he said. His
voice was soft. “Is that okay?”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“How about depression?” he asked. “How about what you’ve
done to yourself? How about you seeing a psychologist?”

“Jesus,” she said. She stopped beside a stone building and
leaned against a wall. “What is it that you want to know?”

“What do you talk about?” Charlie said. “With this thera
pist.”

“Lots of things,” Charlene said. “Sometimes my therapist
wants to talk about you.”

“He does?”

“She does,” said Charlene.

“Me?” Charlie said. “What for?”

“I don’t know,” Charlene said. “I told her about the days that
I couldn’t get myself out of bed. It made me so angry.”

“What’s that have to do with me?”

“You’re a cold person, Dad,” Charlene said. “You’re unemo
tional.”

“I am?” he said. “I don’t feel cold.”

They began to walk again, between two buildings set close
together and across a field where the ground was soft. They
were conscious of the distance between them and of how, occa
sionally, their arms brushed together.

“Tell me about something else,” Charlie said. “How about
this guy you’ve met. Kurt, right? Tell me about pre-law. Tell
me about what kind of law you’re interested in. Criminal? Mal
practice?”

“You don’t usually ask me so many questions.”

“I know,” Charlie said. “I should have.”

“What’s going on with you?” Charlene said.

“I don’t know.” He stopped walking. They were surrounded
by cherry trees in a terraced garden. He turned toward her. He
reached out and touched the soft knitted material at the arm
of her sweater. She pulled away and he let his hand drop. He
bent an elbow so that his forearm crossed his torso and his hand
rested on the biceps of his other arm. “You want to know what
really surprises me about this?”

“What?”

“You’re feeling pretty bad, I guess,” he said, “but you look
fine.”

She looked straight at him. She held her own arms. “Get
out,” she said. “I want you to leave.”

IN THE EARLY
evening, Clarisse pounded on their
door. Their father was out. The children were in their pajamas,
side by side on the bed, watching cartoons in which violent
actions were carried out but no one ever got hurt. The pillows
lumped beneath them. Clarke got up to answer. Curtains ob
scured the windows. No matter what was there, Clarke decid
ed, he’d stand between his sister and the spit of the future. He
did not open the door. “Hello,” Clarke said loudly.

“It’s Clarisse. I came home from the library and my house
smells like something’s burning.”

Clarke turned the deadbolt. Clarisse’s brow was furrowed,
but she didn’t hurry as she stepped inside. She wore flat green
shoes with bows on the top. King jumped off the bed. She had
on a ripped T-shirt and blue pajama bottoms. She said, “Your
house is on fire?”

“I don’t think so,” Clarisse Parish said.

“What does it smell like?”

“It smells like coal,” she said. “You guys know anything
about this?”

Both kids shook their heads. No, no. Clarisse squeezed her
hands together. A light dangled from a wire that hung from
the ceiling. Clarisse turned toward the door and opened the
gingham curtains. The moon seemed to float in the sky like a
curved fishhook.

“Where’s your father?”

King shrugged. Her hands pushed down against her hips as
though trying to retreat into pockets that her pajamas didn’t
have.

Clarke said, “Errands, I think. The hardware store. Grocer
ies.”

Clarisse said, “There’s something else.”

“What?” said Clarke.

“Come on. I want you to see it.”

The children put coats on over their pajamas. Phlox grew
along the edges of the stone walk. Every window in the house in
front of them glowed with harsh light. Clarisse Parish walked
briskly and the children hurried after. They felt a kind of cold
terror that they would never in their lives come to put into
words. Clarisse walked them through the house to the bath
room. The salt shaker lay on the floor. The stainless top, shoved
a few feet away, looked like it had been smashed beneath a foot.
Clarisse pointed at the tub. On the bottom, among the scratch
es and rust stains, salt curled into distinctive shapes.

Woodpile, scrolled the letters in salt, Sylphine, Basin.

Before they left, Clarisse served the kids apple cider, and
King asked to borrow a dictionary. Clarisse wore a ribbon in
her hair, a pale blue sweater. “A dictionary?” she said. “Sure.”
She touched King’s shoulder. She pulled a small volume off the
shelf in the dining room. “You can keep it,” Clarisse said.

In the apartment above the garage, King sat cross-legged
on the bed. She set the dictionary in her lap and took a deep
breath. Clarke knelt on the floor and pulled a pistol from one of
the bags beneath the bed.

“Let me see that,” King said. “I want to hold it.”

“Careful,” Clarke said. “It’s loaded.” He handed the gun to
his sister.

“It’s heavy,” she said.

“Better give it back to me.”

“It says ‘Beretta’ on the side,” King said. “What’s that
mean?”

“That’s the kind of gun it is.”

“What if Dad comes back?” King said.

“He won’t.”

“Where’d he get this gun?”

“The Army, I guess,” Clarke said. “Why’re you pointing it
at me? Give it here.”

“Why’s he keep it under the bed?”

“Shhhh!” said Clarke.

“What?”

“You hear that?” said Clarke.

“Nuh-uh.”

“Somebody’s on the stairs,” Clarke said. “Give it to me!”

“Here, here! Take it!”

“Oh, God,” Clarke said.

“Put it back!” said King

“Which bag was it in?”

“He’s coming, Clarke, he’s coming!”

Clarke slipped the gun inside a bag and they threw them
selves onto the couch. The door opened hard. Dominick
scowled. “Let’s go,” he said. “Ice cream,” and he hustled them
outside.

The Ford bumped hard over the ocean roads. A few dozen
snowflakes fell and scattered around in the cement. The sun
was a low slit between clouds, the sky a dark flat gray. Domi
nick whistled in the truck’s cab, trying to unwind. His knees
moved up and down casually. He said, “Let’s try to imagine this
is a real vacation.”

“Okay,” King said, but her leg shook back and forth. Clarke
kept looking out the window at the way the snow seemed to
dart around on the surface of the road. He reached over and
steadied King’s leg against the seat.

Dominick’s eyes swept the houses alongside the street.
“Look at that,” he said. He was smiling. Two kids in red jack
ets walked a fence rail like a balance beam, their hands stuck
out to their sides. “Reminds me of you two,” he said. His arm
lifted from the steering wheel and stretched along the back of
the bench seat. “Funny that something far away can remind
you of something that’s right beside you.” The weight of King’s
head pressed against his arm, between wrist and biceps. When
Dominick’s hand reached Clarke’s shoulder, he cupped it hard
enough that he could feel the sharp ridges of his son’s bones.

Dominick pulled into a parking space in front of a white ice-
cream parlor and sat quietly for a minute. Dry heated air blew
from the vents in the truck’s dash. Bits of ice flurried on the
glass. They watched the parlor’s door open and a family of five
come out, wearing gloves and carrying ice-cream cones.

“Come on,” Dominick said. “Let’s go inside. I’ll get you any
thing you want.”

On the way back, they sat packed in the cab. Each held a
cone in their hand. Chocolate peanut-butter cup. Peach sorbet.
Pralines and cream. The nose of the truck dipped over the little
hill of the driveway and bounced across a pothole. Roseanne
Small stood in the middle of the pavement. She wore a fur coat
and a long brown scarf. She flagged them down with both thin
white hands. Dominick unrolled the window but stayed in his
seat.

“I know who you are,” Roseanne said. The ocean wind picked
up and rushed over them and pushed her hair into a seabird’s
nest.