Now back to where I started: me waiting for Detective Kennedy to come get his tour while trying not to think about Daddy’s dead eyes.
Here’s the thing. First of all, I’d never seen dead eyes before, not even on a cat or a dog (Mama is allergic). Second of all, I was stunned by how similar Daddy’s dead eyes looked to his unsmile eyes. They were the same kind of empty, like even though they were staring right through me there was nothingness behind them, which was creepy enough with dead eyes, but living eyes? Third of all, I realized I had never really thought about Daddy’s unsmile eyes until I saw his dead eyes, and now I couldn’t stop thinking about them. I wondered how Daddy had been able to make his eyes look dead when he wasn’t and, most of all, what that meant about Daddy. Did Daddy feel dead inside when he made his unsmiles and that’s why his eyes looked that way? Or was it the opposite? Were Daddy’s unsmiles the real him? Had he always been dead inside and the other four smiles were him trying to make himself alive?
I was thinking about all this when I saw Detective Kennedy walking down the beach-house stairs.
“Nice keep,” he said when he got to me.
Detective Kennedy wasn’t very handsome, not like Daddy anyway. He was a little pudgy in the belly like me, and his nose was bent toward one side of his face, which made him look a little sinister. He had friendly eyes though, and thick, wavy, light brown hair. I wasn’t exactly sure how old he was, but I figured around Daddy’s age. He was wearing a suit and tie when he walked into the beach house; he’d taken off his jacket, but he still looked silly wearing his white shirt, tie, and trousers on the beach. I thought he’d just stand there trying not to mess up his shoes, but he didn’t. He reached down, untied them, and kicked them off, and then he loosened his tie, rolled up his trousers and sat down next to me. I saw that his shirt was wet under his armpits.
“God, I hate wearing suits.” He looked up at the sky. “It’s an oven out here. I’d much rather be in my swim trunks. I burn though.”
“Me too,” I said, surprising myself. I hadn’t meant to be conversational right off. Being that he’d said he made a lot of sand castles, I decided to test his credibility. “Do you know about castles?”
“I do actually. I won a blue ribbon for one once at the county fair.”
“Not sand castles,” I said. “Castles.”
“A little, I guess. I went to Ireland once—that’s where my ancestors are from—and I went to see some ancient castles.”
“What do they look like? Inside I mean.”
“Oh, you know, lots of red velvet and pictures of stiff-looking old men.”
“No armors?”
“One or two.”
“How’d you keep it from falling apart?”
He looked confused.
“The sand castle,” I said. “You said you won a blue ribbon. I’ve never seen sand castles at fairs.” Not that I’d been to any, but he didn’t know that.
His smile was slow and crooked. One corner of his mouth went up higher than the other. “We took pictures. And I don’t know about all fairs, but you can win ribbons for sand castles at this county’s fair. I grew up here. Right down there.” He pointed down one side of the beach, but I didn’t see any houses.
“You lived on the beach?”
“Not on the beach,” he said. “But not too far. When I was a kid, we went to the beach every day after school, and we practically lived on it during the summer. We probably made a gazillion sand castles.”
“There isn’t any such thing as a gazillion,” I said.
“Sure there is,” he said. “There’s a gazillion stars in the sky, aren’t there?”
I didn’t know how to answer that question because I wasn’t exactly sure how many stars there were in the sky.
“This sand castle is better than any one I ever made,” Detective Kennedy said.
“Better than the one that won the ribbon?” I asked.
“Much better,” he said. “Our standards aren’t all that high here. Must’ve taken you and your daddy a long time to build this much.”
“Only a couple of days,” I said. “We started the day we got here.”
“Did the two of you work on it this morning?”
“Just me. Daddy slept in. He and Mama were up late.”
“Where was your mama when you were working on the sand castle?”
“Swimming,” I said. “She swims three times a day here: first thing in the morning, right before lunch, and in the late afternoon before she starts making dinner. That’s one of the reasons why we come. She likes the ocean better than pools.”
“That makes sense. Do you come a lot?”
“Every summer since I was born.”
“And you always stay here?”
“No. This is the first time. We used to stay someplace else.”
“Different house?”
“Different island.”
“Which one?”
“Bodie,” I said.
“I went to school on Bodie when I was a kid,” Detective Kennedy said. “Busier over there, huh?”
“How’d you get to school?”
“I took the ferry. You ever seen a sunset from a ferryboat?”
I shook my head.
“Most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. When the sun dips into the sea, for a split second the water breaks into so many prisms of color it looks like the inside of a kaleidoscope.” He looked at me. “You don’t believe me? Well then, I guess I’ll have to show you sometime.”
I wondered why he thought he’d be knowing me long enough to show me sometime.
He fidgeted around, like a dog trying to make a comfortable spot, and then he laid his back all the way down on the sand, sprawled out his legs, stared into the sun, and closed his eyes. “Don’t tell anyone,” he whispered.
I figured he’d fallen asleep, he stayed like that for so long.
“Picasso—do you mind if I call you Picasso?” He turned on his side, propped himself up with his elbow.
“Why would I? That’s my name.”
He chuckled. “True. I’m wondering if you remember what time your mama went for her swim.”
I knew that was it; his real questions were coming. I was a little nervous, but not as much as I thought I’d be. “It was still dark out. She always goes when it’s still dark out.”
“Do you know what time it was when you came out to work on your sand castle?”
“Not exactly, but pretty much as soon as it got light.”
“Which door did you use?”
“The side door.”
“Why the side door?”
“I’m not allowed to go in and out through the sliding glass doors because I might get the carpet dirty or wet.”
“Do you remember if the sliding glass doors were open when you left?”
“No,” I said.
“No they weren’t open, or no you can’t remember.”
“No I can’t remember.”
“And when your mama comes back in after her swim, does she usually use the sliding glass doors or the side door?”
“She doesn’t have a usual way. She hasn’t swum here that many times.”
“Let me see.” He counted on his fingers. “Eight times, right?”
“Seven,” I said. “She didn’t swim the day we got here.”
“How many of those seven times did she go back in through the side door?”
“Two, I think.”
“So today and one other time?” He didn’t wait for me to respond. “Why do you think she used the side door this morning, instead of going through the sliding glass doors?”
I bit my lip. “Because the sliding glass doors were locked?”
Detective Kennedy chewed on this for a while. He rose to a sitting position and looked into my eyes. The back of his shirt was covered with sand. “You seem like a brave kid, Picasso. The next few questions I’m going to ask you might be hard for you to answer, not because you can’t but because they might make you sad.
Do you think you’re up to it?”
“I guess.”
“Okay, then. Do you know about how long it was after you’d come out to work on your sand castle before you heard the shot?”
“It was right after I saw Mama starting to swim toward shore.”
“What made you look at the ocean? Didn’t you have your back to it like you do now?”
“I check a lot because Mama gets mad when I get sand all over the house. When I see her swimming back, I know I need to finish up pretty soon so I have enough time to rinse off real good at the outside spigot.”
“Where’s that?”
I pointed at the standing faucet at the top of the stairs.
“Does your Mama rinse off there too?”
“Sometimes.”
“What happened after you rinsed off?”
“I went inside.”
“And that’s when you saw your daddy?”
Instead of looking at Detective Kennedy, I started smoothing out one of the castle walls. I figured that was a good time to do what Mama does when she doesn’t want to answer questions, like when I asked about Jewels and she pretended she was fiddling with her zipper. I could feel Detective Kennedy staring at me. I stopped working and looked at him.
“Yes, that’s when I saw Daddy.”
“I’m sorry, Picasso. I know this must be hard. Just a couple more questions, okay? Are you absolutely sure your mama wasn’t there when you saw your daddy—I mean found him like that?”
“You mean dead?” I said. “No. She wasn’t there. She was still swimming.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Where were you when she came in?”
“Over by Daddy. I didn’t know that he was dead at first.”
“Was he?”
“Yes.”
“Did you say anything to him?”
“I can’t remember for sure.”
Detective Kennedy looked deep into my eyes. I couldn’t tell whether he actually felt sorry for me or if he was just pretending to. Daddy pretended a lot. “You did a real good job, Picasso. I might have more questions later, but I think that’s enough for now.” He rose, started rubbing the sand off his clothes, looked at me, and laughed. “I think it’s a lost cause. What do you think?”
In spite of myself, I laughed too. He looked like Gulliver with his hair all matted, his trousers rolled up, his clothes and toes full of sand.
“Finally,” he said. “A smile. And a very pretty one at that. See you later, alligator.”
“In a while, crocodile,” I said.
I watched him walk toward the beach house. When he was about halfway there, he stopped, turned around, like he had eyes in the back of his head and knew I’d been watching him. He waved.
I waved back and started working on my sand castle again, only this time it felt different. I was grateful, but not because I was trying not to think about Daddy’s eyes, which I’d pretty much forgotten about. I was grateful because my interview with Detective Kennedy was over. Awhile later, I saw that two white vans had parked in the driveway; one of them had a sign on it that read Channel 3 News. I realized I hadn’t noticed them arrive. I stood, looked toward the beach house. Even though I could see people moving around inside, I couldn’t really see them clearly. They were mostly just shapes. But still, it worried me a little.
Did someone see?
The Wives
We had decided to wait one year. We knew there would be a murder investigation and that the police would suspect all of us regardless, but if they found out that we knew one another, the risk of discovery would be greater. Once Oliver was dead, there would be no communication between us whatsoever. And there wasn’t. Yet the events of that day, and the year prior, had wound us together as tight as the neck of a noose. It wasn’t only that we knew one another’s thoughts, felt one another’s fears, experienced one another’s pain, or saw our own reflections in one another’s faces. It was as if we had been conceived by the same sperm and waited patiently in the same bloody womb to be born. Oliver’s death would mark our rebirth. Although we knew our journey through the birth canal and into the world would be unpleasant, we hadn’t anticipated how much so. Even with all our planning and preparation, none of us were ready for the cold slap of reality that greeted us, especially Diana.
At first—in between her bouts of extreme sadness over the loss of Oliver of course—Diana obsessed over what really happened that day. Had she or hadn’t she called off the murder? The plan was to call Jewels the afternoon before, at five o’clock. If it was a go, she was supposed to say “The meeting is on,” and if not, if something went wrong, she was to say “The meeting has been canceled.” What had she said? Had she even made the call?
She recalled fretting over a credible excuse to leave the house, something we hadn’t thought to discuss in advance, and, yes, that’s right, telling Oliver she needed to run into town to pick up something she forgot for dinner. Oliver and Picasso sat either side of the coffee table playing Scrabble.
“Why don’t you let Picasso and I go get it,” Oliver said. “What do you need?”
“Salt,” she said. It was the first thing that came into her mind.
Oliver laughed. “Salt? Don’t they have any here?”
“Not that I could find,” she said.
“We can get by without it. The doctor says I need to cut back anyway.”
“No,” she said, a little too frantically. She calmed herself. “I’m making shrimp and grits. It’ll be bland without salt.”
“We could grill up some burgers instead.”
“The shrimp will go bad. You two stay here. I want to pick up another book anyway. I’m almost finished with mine. You can’t get that for me. You know how I need to read the opening page first.” She saw her book sitting on the sofa end table, the bookmark protruding not even a quarter of the way in.
“Anything we can do for you while you’re gone?” Oliver asked.
The question relieved her. “No, I’m good. Everything else is ready.” On her way out the door, she slid the book she was reading into her handbag.
Yes, she’d made the call, but what message had she left?
For a long while, Diana didn’t remember much of what happened that day. She didn’t remember her swim, or walking back to the beach house. She was just there. She had vivid nightmares. Sometimes Oliver was dead, but he began talking to her, told her how much he loved her and Picasso. Sometimes she felt the warm gun in her hand, smelled gunpowder, an unexpectedly smoky and tinny smell. Oliver, still alive, grabbed her ankle, held it tightly, cocked his head in disbelief, sadness, then fear. When she woke from these dreams, she felt nothing but curiosity. Curiosity about the look on Oliver’s face. Curiosity about the measured saturation of the blood on the short-looped carpet. Curiosity about her reactions: power, calm, relief. Pleasure.
There were things Diana was certain about. She remembered standing in the doorway, and Picasso walking into the room from the hallway, wearing her purple swimsuit, the one Diana had seen hanging on the bathroom hook before she headed out for her swim. Picasso cast an incredulous look at her mother, ran to her father. Pled with him. A woman and man appeared. Then two men in suits. One caught her attention. He wasn’t exactly handsome, but there was something about him. A commanding presence? He was tall but somewhat soft, especially around the middle, and his nose had obviously been broken. Diana chastised herself for being curious in that way while her husband lay dead just a few paces away.
She also remembered the younger detective questioning her, and how anxious and warm she’d become. Whereas once she’d shivered, sweat oozed from her pores. We had playacted that scene several times, but as Diana found out, reality was always more complicated than imagination.
“I apologize for this, Mrs. Lane,” the detective had said. “We were hoping to ask you these questions before the crime lab showed. But this’ll only take a minute. Can you tell me what happened?” He pulled a sm
all spiral-bound notebook and pen from a pocket inside his suit coat.
“Who are you again?” Diana asked.
She was doing what we discussed, attempting to take control from the start.
“Oh, sorry, ma’am,” he said. “I’m Detective Jones. Detective Kennedy and I are with Cooper’s Island PD.”
“What do you mean what happened?” she asked.
“Your husband was shot, ma’am.” He pointed at Oliver. “We’ve ruled out suicide. So that leaves—”
“Why have you ruled out suicide?”
“Was your husband depressed, ma’am?”
She pondered the question. Though Oliver hadn’t officially been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, he had mood swings and took medication for them. Like all of us, Diana had been seduced by the happy Oliver but fell in love with the brooding, misunderstood Oliver. “Sometimes, but not lately. I was just wondering how you know it was murder.”
“I don’t recall saying it was murder, ma’am,” he said. “It could’ve been an accident.”
“Do you think it was?” she asked, with perhaps a little too much interest.
“Doubtful,” he said. “Do you know anyone who might want to hurt your husband?”
“No,” Diana said. “Everyone likes—I mean liked—Oliver. What about burglary?”
“Is anything missing?”
“I haven’t checked,” Diana said. “Oliver usually traveled with several thousand dollars in cash.”
“Where did he keep the money?” Detective Jones asked.
“His wallet.”
“Nowhere else?”
“Sometimes he put part of it in a drawer.”
Detective Jones made some notes. “You’re sure he brought the money with him?”
“If you mean did I actually see it? No, I didn’t.”
“We’ll look into it,” Detective Jones said. “May I ask where you were at the time of the murder?”
“Swimming. I saw him when I came back inside.”
“You came back in through the side door?”
I Love You More Page 4