You Can Never Tell

by Sarah Warburton

  My lips tightened. I needed to know what was out there. I clicked the link and opened the discussion about Brady.

  The first post was an overview, bare bones. A man was arrested in Sugar Land on charges of homicide. A female body was found in his home. He’s being held in conjunction with several other missing persons. His wife has been missing since last week.

  Another poster had linked to an online news story, and I clicked through. First the article stated that Brady was in custody, that he’d been charged but hadn’t confessed. Then came a series of quotes from people who had worked with him, the rotating crew of men who had staffed those trucks and done roofing, wiring, plumbing, HVAC, windshield repair, locksmithing. A good boss. Really skilled. Liked to joke around.

  And then I read about the bodies.

  Already they were linking Brady to previously unsolved deaths. A young woman, younger than my younger sister, found in pieces in the soft soil at the edge of the Brazos River. Tortured, then dismembered, just like Brady had done in front of Michael. Another, a Mexican citizen in his forties, had been slaughtered in the “Killing Fields” off Calder Road in League City, left where so many others had been killed since the seventies. How had I not known that the site of this many murders was less than an hour from my front door?

  Back in the forums, posters were speculating about other possible victims, including the missing drivers of those abandoned cars. And I wondered how many bodies might be stashed where they’d never be discovered—under the slab foundation of a house in our very neighborhood? In a bayou I drove over on my way to H-E-B for groceries?

  Scanning the page, I saw it hadn’t taken long for people to jump to conclusions about me.

  Turned in by a neighbor. The guy was there for hours, was he helping? Involved?

  Do you think the wife was involved?

  Which wife? The one that’s missing or the one that drove her husband to the police station?

  Maybe they wanted out, so they turned Brady in.

  Were they defending Brady? Like Michael and I had set him up? This wasn’t some creepy episode of Criminal Minds, where the truth was always the most extreme explanation. But in a world where dismemberment was only one house away, the truth was extreme.

  The same poster who’d opened the thread wrote: I think it would be more common for Brady’s wife to have been involved than for a couple he’d only met like a year previously. We’re still waiting on more details about the number of his victims, but IMHO it’s likely a serial killer would have been operating for much longer than that.

  Thank you. At least someone didn’t think Michael was the devil.

  Then the full import of what I’d read sunk in.

  Brady’s wife. Lena.

  Of course she must have been involved. She must have known what he was doing. I shut the laptop and pushed it away from me, but the leaden weight of the truth was cold iron in my gut.

  Somehow I’d tamped down the full gravity of that knowledge and fought back against it, but after seeing it printed in the blunt words of an anonymous stranger, there was no way I could doubt it. I’d been so focused on Brady, his voyeurism and violence, and on Michael, the way his trauma had changed him, that I’d been able to skirt the truth.

  Lena was another friend I’d never really known.

  I must have groaned, because Grace stuck her lip out, her tiny brows drawn together.

  When I didn’t immediately smile and say something reassuring, her face crumpled and she wailed.

  I was being stupid, poking at an open wound. There weren’t any answers: not online, not from Michael, not from the police, not if Lena herself rose from the dead. Death didn’t have a reason why; no explanation was good enough.

  Shutting the laptop, I slid it under the sofa and reached out, pulling Grace close. Her head smelled so sweet, and she turned her face into the crook of my neck and snuffled. My tears dampened her soft hair, and we sat like that for a while. I wished I could be content to keep my eyes closed.

  But I knew I wasn’t ready to stop looking.

  * * *

  Another evening of awkwardness, another night of restless dreams, another morning where Michael drove away early, leaving me both relieved and bereft.

  I was sitting on the couch, turning the remote control over in my hands, trying to resist the urge to surf the news programs for information, when I heard a gentle knock on the front door. I tensed, glancing at Grace kicking on her play blanket. But no reporter would knock so gently, eschewing the doorbell as if afraid they’d wake the baby. I peeked through the window of our front door and saw Rahmia. The beveled glass fragmented and refracted the pale pink of her hijab so that it looked like blossoms on our tree.

  I opened the door and motioned her inside. Rahmia was carrying a disposable aluminum pan covered with foil and a gift bag dangling from her wrist, but she was already looking past me. “Where is your sweet girl? I have something for her too. She must have grown so much. It’s been too long since we’ve seen each other. I haven’t seen you walking, and I texted, but …”

  “I’m terrible about checking my cell phone. I’m so sorry.”

  She waved away my apology. “You had too many other worries on your mind. I brought you chicken pulao. You can eat it tonight or freeze it for later.” As she passed the food to me, our eyes met, and I remembered that one of mine was still black.

  “Thank you. You didn’t have to do this.” The pan was heavier than I’d expected, still warm, and a sweet yet savory aroma rose from it. Although it was just midmorning, suddenly all I wanted was to gorge myself on this gift of literal comfort. Instead, I brought it to the kitchen and slid it into the fridge. Maybe this homey casserole was exactly what Michael and I needed to break through the ice that had formed over our evenings. “Grace is in the other room on her play mat.”

  But Rahmia stayed with me in the kitchen. “This has all been very stressful for you. It’s a terrible thing. How are you doing really?”

  “I’m okay. I mean, it’s hard, I’m not sleeping well, but …” I squirmed.

  “And Michael, how is he handling all this stress?”

  “Neither of us are sleeping well. He’s still got work, though, so that helps.” I thought about those forums, the newscasts I hadn’t watched, the speculation and the reporting all mixed up together. “How much do you know about what happened?”

  Rahmia didn’t launch into an involved story. Instead, her fingers worried at the cord handles of the gift bag. “It was your neighbors, Lena and her husband. Michael found out about it. That’s what the news said.”

  “That’s true.”

  She took a deep breath and set the bag down on the table. “Your eye—”

  “I fell out of bed.” The truth didn’t sound any more convincing than when I’d said it to Elizabeth. “I really did.”

  Before I could react, Rahmia reached out and brushed my cheek, so lightly I barely felt it. “If you were not feeling safe, you could tell me.”

  Why did my eyes well with tears whenever anyone said anything nice to me? “I am safe. Brady’s in jail, the reporters are gone, there’s a policeman right out front.”

  “Sometimes the danger isn’t outside the house.” Her hands twisted and untwisted the hem of her hijab. “You could go somewhere better for you. Better, safer, for Grace.”

  “Michael wouldn’t hurt me. Really.” And then I remembered Rahmia’s work with the women’s shelter. “I promise, Rahmia. I’m safe at home. I’m safe with Michael.”

  “But you have other family too. Maybe this is a good time for you to visit your mother or your sisters.”

  “I can’t leave, not now.” All the reasons I’d told my own mother on the phone rose again in my mind: Michael needs me. The police won’t let me leave. But Rahmia’s words had awakened a childlike longing to be with my parents, familiar and loving, where I was always safe.

  She nodded, studying my face as if she could read my mixed emotions in it, until a squawk from Grac
e startled us both.

  “Would you like tea?” I asked, but she scooped the gift back up.

  “No, no, don’t bother. Your princess is calling me.” Rahmia went to find Grace, then dropped to her knees beside the play mat.

  “You are a princess,” she cooed. “Just the most beautiful girl. So much bigger than last time.” She reached into the bag and pulled out a small floppy bunny, shaking it to make it rattle. Grace smiled at her, and Rahmia crooned back in a mix of baby talk and Bengali. Grace squirmed as though her joy were too great for her body, and I laughed, almost surprised that I still could.

  Rahmia looked back over her shoulder at me. “We should take this princess on a parade. She deserves a little fresh air, and so does her mama.”

  I hesitated, and she patted Grace’s plump little leg. “There is no one out there now. I walked from my door to yours and saw nobody, not a single nosy neighbor or newshound. Is that the word? Put on a sun hat and your glasses, and we’ll walk, just for a bit. I won’t let anything happen to this sweetheart.”

  And despite how little Rahmia looked, how round and friendly and no more threatening than Bibi, I believed that she would protect us, that she could.

  The next thing I knew, we were stepping out the front door. The sky was the gorgeous cerulean of an Impressionist masterpiece. The shine of light on the trees and the warmth of the sun seemed like a thin screen over the horrible things that could happen behind closed doors.

  As we passed Lena’s house, Rahmia spoke more and more quickly, as if to distract me from the gravitational pull of the familiar place, now so terrifying. There wasn’t any way to tell if someone was inside. The windows weren’t dark, but they were shining with reflected light, which made them just as impenetrable. I imagined Michael standing behind that door, afraid for his life, afraid for us. I could picture every inch of the first floor of that house.

  The kitchen must look the same as I remembered, but if I stood there now, every shadow on the wall, every smudge on the grout, would be the afterimage of death. Or it could be nothing. After all, that kitchen was just a room. This house was just a house.

  Without realizing it, I had slowed down, and Rahmia was a few steps ahead of the stroller. She turned back. “Kacy, are you okay?”

  Despite the warm October day, I was cold as if that house cast a shadow. A shadow like the one that must have been underneath Lena’s broad smile, our shared jokes. Was it me? Did I attract something dark and dangerous?

  “What will happen to the house?” I asked. “I mean, if Brady goes to jail, what happens to it?”

  Rahmia stayed at a distance, as though she was also afraid of the thing we couldn’t see, unspeakable acts committed within those walls. But it wasn’t the house’s fault. Its builder was the same as mine, the same as hers, the same as Elizabeth’s. Rahmia answered, “I asked Alondra about this. After the investigation is over, and the trial, it might go to family, or it might be sold to pay the lawyers. But the HOA has to discuss things too. There are hundreds of houses in our community. This isn’t the first one where something bad has happened, just the worst.”

  My hands relaxed a little on the handle of the stroller, and I started walking again. The HOA as an agent of justice—that seemed as bizarre as anything else that had happened. And then it was behind us and we were at the corner, just as I had been with Lena so many times.

  “Do you mind if we stop by and pick up Bibi? I didn’t want to bring her into your home with the baby, but now that she’s safely in the stroller …” Rahmia’s fluttering hands twitched at the canopy, making sure Grace was protected from the sun.

  “Sure.” The sunlight felt amazing, but I was having the strangest sensation, like I was simultaneously walking with Lena and Rahmia. That spoiled rat of a dog is her baby, Lena whispered in my head, and I felt a flash of guilt, as though Rahmia would hear.

  But she just kept talking, telling me how much Bibi would love a little walk and how the dog her parents had when she was a baby used to be too delicate for walking and would end up perched on the canopy of her carriage or even tucked in beside her, but Bibi loved walking, she never got tired, even though her legs were so short that they had to move three times faster than other dogs’. Rahmia’s words filled my head, pushing the darkness aside.

  And I laughed again as she made her fingers flash like a dog’s moving legs.

  We did pick up Bibi, and after the initial yapping yelps and the spinning leaps with which she greeted us, we continued our walk.

  Grace kicked off the light blanket I’d draped over her. Stretching her legs out, she spread her toes, clearly relishing the breeze on her skin. There was also undeserved joy, new life, coexisting right along with violence and death. I’d forgotten how it felt to be with someone like Rahmia, someone joyful. It was like coming up from underwater and drawing a deep breath.

  Rahmia quickened her step, pulling the blanket back over Grace’s legs. “You’ll freeze your toes off, you pretty girl.” With a stronger kick, Grace got the blanket off again, and Rahmia rolled her eyes and let it be.

  When we reached the cluster of mailboxes, I opened mine and pulled out a sheaf of envelopes and fliers. We hadn’t checked in a few days. Now I put the mass of paper underneath the stroller.

  Rahmia handed me the leash and bent to open hers. Bibi started to bark, leaping and spinning on the end of the lead like a child’s toy. When Rahmia stood, she had a handful of mail. I could see a few bills and some of the advertising magazines that we got almost daily.

  As she flipped through them, I noticed something stuck in the grass under the mailbox. I bent to pick it up. A postcard, a real one—not an advertising circular—with a photo of the glass-fronted Martina V. Umana museum.

  I flipped it over, and there was Aimee’s familiar spiky writing: Are the police investigating you? Criminal or criminally stupid?

  C2C TRANSCRIPT

  10

  Helen: So the police have Brady in custody, they’re keeping a close eye on the neighbor who turned him in, and they’re going over the whole house, digging up the backyard, looking for bodies. Arguably, the most important evidence they find in the house is the cameras. They get their tech guys in and there’s tons of footage on Brady’s cloud drive. Almost every house Brady did any electronic work for, he put in a camera. Voyeur central. Including the neighbor’s house.

  Julia: Their so-called friends.

  Helen: And the baby. But there’s also footage of the murders. Now the police have plenty of evidence to charge Brady with a dozen murders, and Lena’s right there helping him.

  Julia: But no one knows that yet.

  Helen: Right. They’re only sure about Brady and the multiple homicides. At least, that’s what the district attorney says during his press conference. What they don’t have is any idea what happened to Lena. They process the entire house, every vehicle in the fleet of vans. Nothing. Not a drop of blood, not a scrap of evidence. The only things they find are Lena’s fingerprints, hair—

  Julia: Stuff they would expect to be there.

  Helen: Now they have this story that Lena was going to visit her aunt. And they have the texts from Lena to her friend. The aunt doesn’t know anything about this alleged visit. And then they find Lena’s car under an overpass by the Brazos River. Her phone, her keys, everything’s right there.

  Julia: So maybe that’s proof that she didn’t send the texts?

  Helen: Not really strong proof. Did she kill herself or stage her death? Did Brady abandon that stuff there? I mean, the two of them had dumped a body in a tributary of the Brazos once before.

  Julia: I could buy the story that she was dead and her husband did it, but I don’t see how anyone would believe she killed herself. Plus, the whole thing looked totally staged.

  Helen: But if she wasn’t dead, where was she? And what was she planning to do?

  CHAPTER

  21

  AFTER I PUT Grace down for her nap, I pulled the sheaf of mail out from under the s
troller and dropped it on the kitchen table. Between my art books, I had a folder of Aimee’s postcards, and I brought it over and sat down. I fanned them out, the mean-girl comments in angular marker on one side, photos of special exhibitions and opening events on the other. They didn’t have the sting they used to. In the back of my mind, I had been turning over ideas to reuse them, to create something beautiful from something spiteful. I thought I’d saved them all, but now I didn’t see the one with the picture of the modern take on Winged Victory. I’d wanted to compare it to my dream, but the memory of dream-Michael’s smirk made me sweep all the postcards up and flip the folder shut.

  I was also still crafting paper stars, even though no one was collecting them anymore. I’d used up the origami paper I had, and then I’d switched to marketing fliers and ad magazines, the glossy paper of varying thickness making each star a little different. I looked through the mail, tearing apart any pieces that appealed to me and stacking them to put in the shoe box where I kept my star paper. Some of the envelopes were trash credit card or insurance applications, one was a renewal notice for Smithsonian Magazine, but the last one was handwritten, personal. Not the fancy square shape of an invitation or a thank-you card, just a basic envelope with a stamp. I opened it and pulled out a piece of lined notebook paper, the edges ragged from where it had been torn from a spiral binding. In blotchy ballpoint, someone had written: It’s people like you who should have been killed. I hope you rot in hell.

  My throat constricted, and I glanced at the windows and the front door. Strangers were attacking, just like before. They’d read the story in some paper or seen it on the news, and we’d been found guilty. They were coming after us, and no part of the new, happy life I’d built was safe. My breath was quick and shallow, making me light-headed. I forced myself to inhale deeply. Nobody was in the house. The curtains we’d chosen hung undisturbed, sheltering us from any passersby. The golden oak of the kitchen table was smooth under my hands. This time it wasn’t just me; it was Michael and Grace. I had to be strong for them.