Thicker Than Water (7 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

S
tan is a pretty good cook. Better than Mom, though I feel a little traitorous to say that. When he’s home, he always cooks. Tonight, we’re eating this baked chicken casserole with saffron rice. I don’t even know what saffron is, but it’s fantastic. It took him less than an hour from the time we got home to have dinner on the table.

Where Mom had him beat, however, was in conversation.

He’s cleared his throat twice now, and each time it sounds like a shovelful of gravel is trapped in there. He’s barely said more than a handful of sentences since we got through the press mob and into his house.

One of those sentences was, “Why don’t you take some time to get yourself together?” So I took the opportunity to ball up the suit on the floor of my closet and take a shower. Now I’m in jeans and a T-shirt.

What’s really sad is that this moment—eating chicken, sitting in silence, and wearing my own clothes—is the absolute high point of my day.

We weren’t sitting in silence at first. The phone kept ringing, and Stan kept picking up the receiver only to set it back down. He peeked out the window and said three news trucks had followed us from the police station. Eventually, he just unplugged the phone.

He didn’t yank the cord out of the wall or anything like that. Stan’s not a “big reaction” kind of guy. Even since Mom died, there haven’t been any wracking sobs, no anger, no fury. He’s held it together. A little stricken, maybe, but more or less composed. He’s a quiet man, and her death didn’t do anything to change that.

He’s staring at his plate, eating his baked chicken methodically.

For the first time, I sit and watch him.

This is going to sound crazy, but until this moment, I hadn’t given too much thought to
who
killed my mother. I’ve been so fixated on telling people that I
didn’t
do it that I haven’t had a spare moment to wonder who
did
. Actually—that’s not true. I’ve thought about it, but without close examination. I’ve assumed some random criminal broke in. Some caricature of a bad guy, someone with a knit cap, a blindfold, and a five o’clock shadow. Some sleazy freak from an episode of
Dateline
crossed with last week’s guest star on
Law and Order.
Maybe a rapist who killed her when she fought back. Maybe a thief who killed her when she discovered him. Her wedding and engagement rings were gone, so either would fit.

In all cases¸ a stranger. Not someone who knew her.

Now I think about it. I try to remember if anyone questioned Stan.

He must feel me looking at him. “What’s on your mind, Tom?”

“I was wondering what you were doing that night.”

He knows what night I’m talking about, and he doesn’t pretend not to. “I was on Patrick Street. Staking out a drug dealer.”

He might be quiet, but he’s intense. It’s hard to hold his eyes, so I push chicken around my plate. “Were you with anyone?”

“You think the cops are investigating the hell out of you, but they’ve left me alone?”

The profanity lets me know I’ve gotten to him. Otherwise, his voice doesn’t change. “I’m just asking a question, Stan.”

He holds my gaze, and for a moment I think he’s going to throw me out of here. I don’t really suspect him, so I don’t know what I’m digging for.

Or maybe I do suspect him. Maybe I’m wondering if I’ve been living under the same roof as a murderer.

My head is a mess.

“No,” he says. “No one was with me. But based on reports and check-ins, I was nowhere near here.”

This is the first time we’ve talked about my mother since she died, and it’s completely the wrong kind of conversation. We’re not really talking about
her
anyway. We’re barely even talking about the crime. We’re talking around it.

“Check-ins?” I say. “Like on a radio?”

“Yeah. Just like that.”

“What, you can’t lie about where you are?”

He puts his fork down. “Do you really want to do this, Tom?”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“You’re funny.” The way he says it implies there’s nothing really funny at all.

“Everyone is pointing at me,” I say. “I didn’t do it.”

“Do you suddenly think I committed this crime?” he says evenly.

“You’re one of the few people who don’t think
I
committed this crime. Maybe that means something.”

He frowns. “I don’t know what you mean.”

My heart beats so hard it hurts. “Everyone thinks I killed my mother,” I say, keeping my voice even. “You don’t think that, or you wouldn’t be letting me stay here. Maybe there’s a
reason
you don’t think that.”

We stare at each other for the longest time. I can hear myself breathing. I can hear
him
breathing.

We’re both sharing the same thought. It’s so clear, I swear I could read his mind right now.

Stan breaks the eye contact first. He slices into another piece of chicken. “Charlotte Rooker doesn’t think you did it either,” he says. “You want to interrogate her next?”

I wouldn’t mind five minutes to ask her a few questions about what happened in the woods. “I’m not interrogating you,” I say.

“But you’d like to,” he says. “Go ahead.”

“What?”

He looks up again. “I said, go ahead. If you need to clear me in your own way, go ahead.”

I swallow. I expected a fight. Maybe I
wanted
a fight. He’s taken me by surprise again.

People don’t usually surprise me. Definitely not twice in one day.

When I don’t say anything, he pushes food around his plate again. “I loved your mother, kid.” He hesitates, and emotion weighs down his words. “Sometimes I wonder what she saw in me, because I’m almost fifty years old, and I’m pretty set in my ways. When I bought a ring, I wanted to do some big proposal. Go to a ballgame and write it on a scoreboard. Hire a skywriter. I don’t know.”

I swear he’s almost blushing, but at the same time he sounds like his voice might crack and he’ll cry. I hold my breath and don’t move.

“She was so unassuming,” he says. “So simple. In a good way, you know?”

I know. How could I not know?

He looks at me. “Of course you know.”

“Of course,” I agree. My voice is hollow.

“I had all these plans, but when I had the ring in my pocket, I couldn’t wait. She was coming over to cook me dinner. I didn’t even let her get in the door.”

I laugh, but there’s a hitch of a sob in there with it. “She thought you set that up. She thought you let her think she was coming over to cook dinner, but you planned to propose.”

“Really?”

I nod. “She thought you were going to propose at the table, but you couldn’t wait.”

I remember when she told me, the following day. She spent the night, of course. They’d gotten to that point, and I was almost eighteen years old, and more than capable of staying home on my own. I could think more carefully about that, but I don’t need my mind to draw any pictures, thank you very much.

Especially not now.

It was more practical anyway. We used to live two hours away from here, so it wasn’t worth driving all that way just for an evening. When they first started dating, they used to meet in Annapolis and go to one of the chain restaurants there, followed by a movie. It was all so high school. Mom loved it.

She met Stan online. I knew something was up when she’d stay up late at night, giggling over the ancient desktop we kept in the corner.

Stan’s lost in the memory. His eyes look damp.

I clear my throat. “I didn’t mean to interrogate you,” I say, my voice rough.

“It’s all right, Tom. I’ve got questions, too.”

Immediately, my defenses click back into place. “For me?”

“No. For everyone.” He waves a hand around. “Like you said, everyone thinks you did it. If you didn’t, everyone is on the wrong path.”

My eyebrows go up. “Can you do anything?”

“You mean, can I assist with the investigation?”

“Yeah.”

“No.” He gives a heavy sigh and picks up his fork again. “Conflict of interest. And I’m not going to be investigating much of anything for at least a few days.”

“Why not?”

He takes a sip of his beer. “Because I filed a harassment complaint against Charlotte Rooker’s brothers, and the commanding officer thinks it would be best if I went on administrative leave until official charges are filed.”

Holy crap. There’s the third surprise. You could knock me out of this chair with a feather. He’s dropped this news so unassumingly, like we’ve already had a conversation about this.

I cough. “You what?”

“You heard me.”

“Is that how you got me out of there?”

He nods and takes another bite of chicken.

I blink at him. “You filed a harassment complaint? Seriously?”

He looks at me, and his eyes show a spark of anger for the first time. “Yes. Seriously. Maybe what happened beside the church was a misunderstanding, but for them to come after you in the woods like that . . . that should never have happened.”

My stomach sinks. “So you think it might have been a setup, too.”

“Charlotte is a nice girl. I’ve known her family for years. I don’t think
she
set it up.” He snorts. “You can’t exactly fake insulin shock.”

There’s more to say. I can hear it. “But?”

He shrugs a little. “I think maybe her brothers thought they’d catch you doing something that would stick. I told them you were out by her grave. I didn’t know Charlotte was out there, but
they
did.”

I scowl and stab at my chicken. “And I thought Danny was a prick.”

“That one wants a moment in the spotlight. It’s probably a good thing he wasn’t the one to find you with her. You stay away from him, Tom. You hear me?”

I snort. “Gladly.”

“I’m not kidding.”

“I’m not either. I don’t want anything to do with any of them.”

His fork goes still on his plate. His voice takes on a knowing tone. “Not even Charlotte?”

I think of the way she felt when her body crashed into mine. All curves and warmth and vanilla and sugar.

When she was unconscious. I’m such a freak.

I take a bite of chicken. “No girl is worth getting shot over.”

He laughs. “You might change your mind about that one day, kid.”

Then it’s like he realizes he laughed, and the comment hangs out there. We fall silent for a while, eating our food. The kitchen clock ticks away the minutes.

“They’re not going to solve it, are they?” I finally say.

Stan doesn’t say anything, so I glance up. “It’s been too long, without any leads,” I say. “That’s why they’re putting all the pressure on me. You’ve got to lock someone up.”

“That’s not how investigations work,” he says. “We don’t lock someone up because it’s
convenient
.”

My eyes narrow. “So you’re saying everyone in prison is one hundred percent guilty? They’re not there because the community needed someone to punish, just to prove that the bad guy was off the streets?”

“You’re making me out to be a prosecutor, a defense attorney, and a judge,” Stan says. “I’m none of those things. All I can tell you is what I do, Tom. Not any of those other people.”

“But there’s nothing left to investigate. Your house has been cleaned up. The murder is almost a week old. There are no clues. It’s me or nothing, isn’t it?”

“There has to be something left,” he says.

“How do you know? How can you be so sure?”

He leans forward and puts his forearms on the table. “Because you’re telling me you didn’t do it. I know I didn’t do it. There’s a clue out there. We just haven’t found it yet.”

“Maybe you’re not looking in the right places.”

He points his fork at me. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“So where do we start?”

He puts his fork down and sighs. “The cops have been over this house. They’ve been over the video camera of the two convenience stores on this block. They’ve been over the body. They’ve looked at you, and they’ve looked at me. No forced entry. No sign of a struggle. I’d been off for three nights, and then I was on, so whoever did it knew my schedule—or they got lucky.”

“So what else is there?”

He sighs. “That’s the problem, Tom. There
is
nothing else.”

 

The cops might be pointing their fingers in the wrong direction, but that doesn’t mean they’re not being thorough.

During interrogation, they’ve asked me about my father. Several times.

I don’t have anything to tell them.

If this had happened when I was young, when every day felt like a game of hide and seek, I might have shared in their suspicion. I didn’t keep anything about him a secret—there just wasn’t much to share.

I remember nights when I could have sworn that my mother stayed up all night, sitting beside my bed.

I remember days when she’d show up at school to check on me, worry lines permanently creased into her face. She’d ask the teachers if she could volunteer for the afternoon, and she wouldn’t leave my side for hours.

This was all years ago. None of it is helpful. I never actually saw my father, not after we left him. My mother never verbalized her worries. She let me live my life, and I let her live hers.

They asked if I knew of a way to contact him. That was almost laughable. I don’t even have a picture.

I told them about the memory of the car and the alley and the promise to get ice cream.

I might as well be reading from a paperback for as helpful as that is. It didn’t take the police long to tire of that angle. Why chase my father down when they had a prime suspect right in front of them?