J is for Judgment (Kinsey Millhone 10)

That was Mom’s job, and I suspected Dana would tackle it with a vengeance once I had finally left her in peace.

“Mind if I use the bathroom?” I asked.

“Help yourself.” She grabbed the broom, attacking the corners of the room, coaxing dust away from the walls. While she exhumed the remains of Michael’s presence, I moved into the bathroom. The area rug and the towels had been removed. The door to the medicine cabinet was hanging open, the interior empty except for a sticky circle of cough medicine on the bottom shelf. The glass shelves above were tacky with dust. The room echoed oddly without the softening influence of a shower curtain. I used the last scrap of toilet paper and then washed my hands without the benefit of soap, drying them on my jeans in the absence of a hand towel. Someone had even taken the bulb from the fixture.

I moved back into the bedroom, wondering if I should help. There was no sign of a dust cloth or a sponge or any other cleaning implements. Dana was going after the dust as if the process were therapeutic.

“How’s Brian doing? Have you seen him yet?”

“He called me last night when he’d been through the booking process. His attorney’s been in to see him, but I’m really not sure just what they discussed. I guess there was some kind of problem when they brought him in, and they’ve put him in isolation.”

“Really,” I said. I watched her sweep, the broom making a restful skritching sound against the carpet. “How’d he get into trouble, Dana? What happened to him?”

At first I thought she didn’t intend to respond. Dust appeared in little puffs as she swept it away from the wall. Once she completed her circuit of the room, she set the broom aside and reached for a cigarette. She took a moment to light it, letting the question sit there between us. She smiled with bitterness. “It started with truancy. Once Wendell died …well, disappeared…and the scandal hit the news, it was Brian who reacted. We used to have huge battles every morning about his going off to school. He was twelve years old and he absolutely did not want to go. He tried everything. He’d claim he had stomachaches and headaches. He’d throw temper tantrums. Cry. He’d beg to stay home, and what was I going to do? He’d say, ‘Mom, all the kids know what Daddy did. Everybody hates him and they all hate me, too.’ I kept trying to tell him what his dad did had nothing to do with him, it was completely separate and had no bearing on him at all, but I couldn’t talk him into it. He never bought it for a minute. And honestly, kids did seem to pick on him. Pretty soon he was getting into horrible fights, cutting classes, skipping school. Vandalism, petty theft. It was a nightmare.” She tapped her cigarette against the already laden ashtray, flicking a quarter inch of ash into a tiny crevice between butts.

“What about Michael?”

“He was just the opposite. Sometimes I think Michael used school as a way of blotting out the truth. Brian was oversensitive where Michael made himself numb. We talked to school counselors, teachers. I don’t know how many social workers we saw. Everybody had a theory, but nothing seemed to work. I didn’t have the money to get us any real help. Brian was so bright, and he seemed so capable. It just broke my heart. Of course, in many ways Wendell was like that, too. Anyway, I didn’t want the boys to believe he killed himself. He wouldn’t do that. We had a good marriage, and he adored them. He was very family-oriented. You can ask anyone. I was sure he’d never deliberately do anything to hurt us. I’ve always believed Carl Eckert was the one who was fiddling with the books. Maybe Wendell couldn’t face it. I’m not saying he didn’t have his weaknesses. He wasn’t perfect, but he tried.”

I let that one sit there, unwilling to challenge her version of events. I could see her faltering attempt to correct the family story. The dead are always easier to characterize. You can assign them any attitude or motive without fear of contradiction.

“I take it the boys are different in more ways than one,” I said.

“Well, yes. Obviously, Michael is the steadier, partly because he’s older and feels protective. He’s always been a very responsible kid, and thank goodness for that. He was the only one I could depend on after Wendell’s …after what happened to Wendell. Especially with Brian so out of control. If Michael has a fault, it’s being too earnest. He’s always trying to do the right thing, Juliet being a case in point. He didn’t have to marry her.”

I kept myself still, making no response at all, because I realized she was giving me a critical piece of information about the situation. She assumed I was already in possession of the facts. Apparently, Juliet was pregnant when Michael married her. She went right on, talking as much to herself as to me.