by Lutz, Lisa
“Your mother wanted me to remind you to stay away from the neighborhood and the neighbor.”
“He entrapped me.”
“What?”
“The last arrest was a trap. He told me to meet him at Twin Peaks. He asked what it would take to get me to leave him alone. He had the cops on hand if he didn’t like my answer. He didn’t like my answer.”
“Why can’t you stop?”
“Because innocent people don’t keep secrets like that. They just don’t. I’ll pack my things.”
“No.”
“I agreed to your terms. Besides, I’ve already overstayed my welcome.”
“Forget my terms. I knew you wouldn’t listen to me anyway. Just stay. At least when you’re here, I have some idea what you’re up to.”
I settled into his couch and transitioned the topic of conversation off of me. “So, that was your wife,” I said.
“Ex-wife,” Henry replied, and I could tell from his tone that the discussion was over.
I fell asleep long after midnight, my mind twisting around the day’s events. I drifted off to sleep with a certain resolve. This case wasn’t over. I just wouldn’t get caught again.
THE DAVID SPELLMAN PROBLEM
Saturday, April 22
1400 hrs
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“Rae just called. There’s some kind of emergency at your parents’ house.”
“A 911 kind of emergency?”
“I doubt it,” Henry replied grumpily. “It has something to do with David.”
“Sounds fun. Can I come?”
I took Henry’s lack of response as a yes and accompanied him on the ride.
The “emergency” my sister spoke of would never have been given that title in other households. But there is a certain level of predictability that all the Spellmans possess, and when one of us deviates entirely from our known patterns, well, this can be cause for alarm. David, arguably the most predictable of all of us, has essentially never strayed from his usual MO. Until recently, that is.
Twenty-four hours after David arrived at 1799 Clay Street, ostensibly to “keep an eye on” his youngest sister, Rae called Henry in a panic. It turns out that in that full day’s time my brother had put on a pair of pajamas and a bathrobe, sat down in front of the television, and not moved except for short bathroom breaks and trips to the pantry. Rae, finding this behavior in itself suspect, kept a watchful eye on her thirty-two-year-old brother and finally made the call to Henry after David ate an entire bag of Cheetos, half a pound of M&M’s, and two packages of Twizzlers, depleting my sister’s emergency snack food stash by 50 percent.
The phone call Rae made to Henry went something like this:
RAE: [whispering] Henry?
HENRY: Rae, why are you whispering?
RAE: You need to come over. There’s something wrong with David.
HENRY: Is he breathing?
RAE: Dude, if he weren’t breathing, I would call 911 and perform CPR.
HENRY: I really don’t like being called “dude.”
RAE: There’s something seriously wrong with David.
HENRY: Be specific, Rae.
RAE: He’s been watching TV all day.
HENRY: And?
RAE: He’s only eating junk food. What time is it?
HENRY: Around one P.M.
RAE: He just opened a beer.
HENRY: I really don’t think this is an emergency, Rae.
RAE: He’s given me almost three hundred dollars since he arrived. Every time I ask for money, he forgets that he just gave me some. Henry, please hurry! Before it’s too late!
My sister’s hyperbolic response to David’s behavior hinged on a number of factors: her genuine worry, based on seriously atypical behavior; her desire to regain mastery of the remote control; her desire not to be relieved of her entire junk food supply; and, most importantly, her desire to have more quality time with Henry.
Henry, Rae, and I peered at David through the keyhole of the living room door. We studied him the way primatologists observe gorillas. Each of us offered our own careful assessment.
“I think he’s having a Lost Weekend,” Rae said.
“No,” Henry replied. “He’s not drunk enough.”
“Maybe he’s having a MILFO,” Rae suggested.
“He’s too young for that,” Henry replied.
“Then what’s wrong with him? He doesn’t shower or go to work. He drove over here in his bathrobe. Did I mention that?”
“I think he’s just depressed,” said Henry.
“Maybe he’s never watched a lot of TV before and now he realizes how fun it is,” Rae suggested.
“Wrong. He’s guilt-ridden,” I interjected, and kicked the door open with my foot. I walked into the room and stood in front of the television.
“Move,” was David’s only response.
“Make me,” I replied.
“I will,” David replied, his dull, glazed face flushing with anger.
I smacked the power button on the TV with the palm of my hand. David switched it back on with the remote. I smacked the power switch again. David responded in turn. I walked to the back of the television and pulled out the power cord.
“Why do you have to be such a bitch?” David asked.
“Because you’re an asshole,” I replied. “Did you think I was going to side with you just because you’re my brother?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” David said, seething.
I didn’t realize how angry I was until he started talking back. I wanted to see guilt, despair. Instead, he wanted a fight. And I was ready for one.
“I should have warned her about you.”
“If you know what’s good for you, Isabel, you’ll shut up right now.”
I picked up the bowl of pretzels from the coffee table and began tossing each twist as a single punctuation mark.
“Are you threatening me?” Pretzel toss.
“Stop that.”
“No.” Pretzel toss.
“I’m warning you, Isabel.”
“You’re warning me?” Pretzel toss.
“Get out of here. Now.”
“No.” Pretzel toss.
“Henry, can you do something about her?”
“Isabel, stop throwing pretzels at your brother,” said Henry, unsure of how involved he should be.
I’d like it to go on record that David struck the first blow. Actually, it wasn’t a blow. It was a leap over the coffee table and an attack on the pretzel bowl, which he extracted from my tight grip and threw across the room.
“Everybody calm down,” Henry said, like a zookeeper at the wild animal park. But the pretzel pelts had charged David’s anger. He pushed me as I reached for his beer (it was my plan to keep this altercation purely in the food-fight category). The shove knocked me flat on my back. I felt a dull pain from my recent rib injury, but nothing that was incapacitating. I spun around and swiped the back of David’s knees with my shin. David crumbled to the floor.
In the distance I heard Rae say to Henry, “Ten bucks on Isabel.”
David put me in a loose choke hold. I bit his arm (not hard, just enough to loosen his grip) and freed myself.
“Psycho!” David shouted after I bit him.
“Okay, that’s enough!” Henry said more loudly.
“Ten bucks on Isabel,” Rae said forcefully. “Take the action now or the bet’s off the table.”
“For one thing, Rae, that’s a stupid bet. She’s a girl and he’s got about thirty pounds on her.”
“More like forty!” I shouted as I tried to twist David’s arm around his back.
“She fights different than he does,” Rae calmly said to Henry, by way of explanation.
“But he’s bigger and stronger,” Henry replied. “Both of you! That’s enough.”
“You’ll see,” my sister replied, practically on cue.
“Isabel, your ribs! The doctor told you not to do anything physical for six weeks!”1
“Shut up, Henry!” I shouted. He was giving up my Achilles heel.
David, on cue, elbowed me in the ribs.
“Ouch!” I shouted, still trying to twist his arm behind his back.
Rae continued her color commentary: “Izzy’s injury will make the fight more interesting, but I don’t think it will alter the ultimate outcome.”
David vs. Isabel: The Three Great Bouts
1987
The fight began when David ratted me out to the school principal for ditching class. I lay in wait for him outside the 7-Eleven he frequented for his after-school Slurpee.2 David won the bantam-weight championship with a headlock I couldn’t escape from.
1990
David locked the window of the downstairs office, so I couldn’t sneak in after curfew. I rang the doorbell, woke my Dad, and was grounded for two weeks. The following morning I attacked my brother in the kitchen as he was making breakfast. Our amateur wrestling lasted about five minutes, until I pulled out of his grasp and blinded him with my mother’s breakfast smoothie. David conceded defeat and I was grounded for another week.
1992
David found my marijuana stash and flushed it down the toilet. I retaliated by turning off the hot water while he was in the shower. He then put chewing gum3 in my hair while I slept. The next morning I woke him up by assaulting him with his entire library of history books (David was a bit of a World War II buff). When David launched himself out of bed to cease my attack, I caught his index finger and twisted it back behind his arm.
Unable to move because of the pain, the then nineteen-year-old David was at my mercy.
“Say uncle,” I said.
“Uncle.”
Score: Isabel–2; David–1
Which brings me to our final bout. I relied on the fact that David had yet to determine how dirty I would fight. I made him believe I was capable of anything, which gave me the edge on the psychological front. Rae’s bet was a good one. David was physically stronger, but I fought without any sense of decency. However, my brother’s memory was solid. He knew my tactics and kept his fingers out of my grasp for as long as he could.
I yanked on his ear instead. When he reached to pull my hand away, I twisted his arm behind his back and stretched his index finger back until he screamed for help.
“Say uncle.”
“Help me!” David said, I think to Henry.
“Isabel, that’s enough,” Henry shouted, quickly approaching.
“Stay out of this,” I responded, my voice in a Dirty Harry whisper.
“Apologize,” I said to David, pushing the limits of his joints.
“Ouch! She’s going to break my finger.”
Henry grabbed my wrist and squeezed hard. “Let go,” he said, with his unique authoritative air. He is a cop. I released the grip on my brother and watched David roll onto his back and grab his hand in pain. David looked up at me and glared.
“Petra cheated on me,” he said, slowly getting to his feet. He then sat down on the couch and finished his beer in one giant swig.
My rage mutated first to sympathy and then to complete mind-blowing shame. All eyes in the room stared at me with blanket distaste. My brother’s expression was one of cold disdain, Henry’s spoke of disappointment, and Rae seemed to suddenly realize how fantastically flawed I really was.
I exited the room and went to the refrigerator. I removed two beers and returned to the living room, uncapping one and handing it to my brother as a flimsy peace offering. I sat down on the couch next to him and allowed the silence to hang in the air. An apology was in order, but the right words wouldn’t come to me. I phrased it in the form of a question.
“I’m a horrible person, aren’t I?”
“Yes,” David replied, and we drank in silence.
Henry suggested to Rae that they give us some privacy to talk. They stole off into the kitchen, where Rae was treated to another unwelcome educational episode, this time a lesson in chess playing. I suspect Henry was hoping David and I would work out our differences. But this conflict was too complicated for either of us to know quite how to approach it. And so I plugged the TV back in and we stared at the screen, drinking in silence.
Ten minutes later, my cell phone rang.
“Hello?…Have we met?…Speak up. I can’t hear you…Who?”
David grabbed the phone out of my hands. “Hi, Mom,” he said. “Oh, sorry,” he continued, and handed the phone back to me. “That wasn’t Mom.”
“I never said it was,” I replied. “Hi. I think the connection is bad. I can barely hear you. That’s better. Oh, Mrs. Chandler. Hi. Actually, I do have some information for you. I can be there in fifteen minutes. Okay. Thank you. See you then.”
I got off the phone and turned to my brother. I finally saw how devastated this new bathrobe-wearing, cheese-puff-eating David was. Had I noted at the time how wrong I had been, I might have been able to prevent the further misinterpretations of evidence that would soon come. As it was, I simply tried to redeem myself with a collection of what I believed to be supportive, sisterly comments.
“You’re my favorite brother. You know that, right?”
“Shut up,” he replied.
“I’m here for you, if you need to, like, cry or something.”
“Shut up.”
“Do you want me to talk to her?”
David, in a flash, grabbed me by the collar of my jacket and pulled me close.
“If you say one word to her, I will hurt you.”
“So, you don’t want me to talk to her?” I casually replied.
“No,” David said firmly.
“You can let go of my collar now.”
More silence.
“So why was Mom mad at you?”
“Because she thought the same thing you thought. I had my suspicions, so I hired an investigator to follow her. Mom saw me one day meeting with the woman. She assumed the worst and I never convinced her otherwise.”
“Why not?”
“Because I didn’t want Mom telling you; I didn’t want you in the middle of it.”
More silence.
“What am I supposed to do?” I asked, hoping David would tell me what a normal sister might do under the same exact circumstances.
“I don’t know. Let’s talk about something else.”
Since I had another topic at the ready, I acquiesced. “Sure,” I said. “Have you noticed any unusual behavior next door?”
“I haven’t been looking.”
“Has he had any visitors? Been removing garbage late at night? Gardening at odd hours?”
“You’re pathetic, you know that, Isabel?”
“I call it wisely suspicious. If you want to call it pathetic, that’s your choice.”
David returned to his somber beer consumption. I thought perhaps I’d cheer him up with the latest family gossip.
“Have you met Rae’s boyfriend?”
“She has a boyfriend?”
“Yeah, you didn’t hear?”
“What’s he like?” David asked.
“He’s an awful lot like Snuffleupagus.”
“Meaning?”
“Sightings of him are rare.”
“Who was that on the phone?” David asked.
“Mrs. Chandler.”
“The lady with the nativity scenes you used to vandalize?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Why is she calling you?”
“She’s been struck by copycat vandals since the beginning of the year. Same MO as the ninety-two-to-ninety-three season.”
“You’re investigating?”
“I was. Case solved. Rae was the mastermind.”
On cue, Rae entered the room on Henry’s coattails.
“Rae, I don’t want to play checkers with you.”
�
��Pleeeease.”
“No. If you want another lesson in chess, fine. But I am not playing checkers.”
“Monopoly.”
“No.”
“Jenga.”
“No!”
“You are so prehistoric.”
I interrupted their classic spat to prep Rae for her confession.
“Put on a nice shirt,” I said.
“Why?” Rae replied, on guard.
“Because Mrs. Chandler might be easier on you if she doesn’t think you are a slob.”
“Must we do this now?” Rae asked assertively.
“Yes,” I replied. “I need to close this case once and for all.”
THE CONFESSION
Fifteen minutes later, Rae was standing in front of Mrs. Chandler explicitly stating the crimes for which she was guilty and, impressively, taking full responsibility. Unfortunately Mrs. Chandler wasn’t buying the story that Rae was the lone gunman.
“Are you telling me,” Mrs. Chandler asked, “that you alone managed to steal, buy, or borrow fifty eight-balls on your own, that you acquired over one hundred used cans of Guinness, that you made that crime scene out of the cherubs all on your own?”
“Yes,” Rae replied, not taking the bait.
“Dear, I find that very hard to believe,” Mrs. Chandler said, staring down my sister.
“Perhaps in a few days you’ll find it easier to wrap your head around the idea.”
“I doubt it,” Mrs. Chandler coldly replied.
“I’m ready for my sentencing,” Rae said, like a contrite bank robber in a courtroom.
“Excuse me?” Mrs. Chandler replied.
“She’d like to know how to make restitution,” I interjected.
“I’d like to know why she did it,” Mrs. Chandler said as she carefully observed my sister.
Rae shrugged her shoulders and repeated her previous evening’s explanation. “It was an homage.”
“I see,” Mrs. Chandler said, somewhat satisfied. “In the future, I’d appreciate it if you could keep your homages off my yard.”
“Certainly,” Rae replied.
“And now I want the names of the boys who helped you,” Mrs. Chandler said, “because they were not creating any homage. They were simply vandalizing something.”
“I’m willing to wash your car for a month or two,” said Rae.