Starke said nothing.
“There was a part of him… a private part, an ugly part. Mean. Know what I’m saying? When he drank, he could be just… mean.”
“I hear he drank a lot,” Starke said.
“‘Just part of the business,’” she replied. “That’s what he always said. It was bad, but not intolerable.”
“But sometimes he brought business home with him?”
“Sometimes.”
“A lot?’
“He’d get angry about some stupid thing, or something that happened that day…. Things happened. Look, you know me well enough to know I’m not one of those women who lay down and take it. I give as good as I get. But you can’t actually believe I’d—”
“Did he ever hit you?”
Ten seconds passed. “Sometimes, yes.”
“Chloe?”
Shelby hesitated. “I was always there for her. She knows that. It was just her and me sometimes when he’d go off, so we’re tight. That’s all.” She felt Starke’s silence pushing her toward a terrifying edge. “What was I supposed to do? File a complaint every time something happened?”
“The law was always there for you, Shel,” he said. “You know that.”
“Oh Christ. Pull your head out of your ass, Ron. Put all this on public record? Do you have any idea what that would have done. To his business? To the foundation and all its good work? To him? To Chloe and me? The whole thing collapses. Everybody loses.”
“Behind closed doors he was a drunk, Shel, apparently a violent one. Only two people in the world could have put a stop to that, the two people who were in there with him. Jesus, Shel, at least Chloe had the sense to talk to—”
Her thumb found the phone’s “end” button and she pressed it hard. Like she needed his lecture. Again, Shelby found herself listening to the rush of blood in her ears. She knew Starke would focus on finding the truth. But why was he fixating on the wrong truth?
When she could breathe again, Shelby felt a familiar gravity pulling her toward her office down the hall. There’d been countless nights of her life during the last couple of years—nights when her husband was gone or out whoring or too drunk to stir—when its force was irresistible, when she followed it desperately alone and unthinking, like a moth drawn to the licking heat of flame. Shelby still knew the routine. She stepped to the left side of the hall as she passed the framed family portrait they’d had made when Chloe was six, because the hardwood floorboards on the right side had a noisy squeak. She lifted up while turning her office doorknob, because Paul never did get around to oiling that hinge. The light switch for the overhead was on the left, always on, and if she’d wanted light she could have twisted the silent dimmer knob and entered her former sanctum with no one the wiser.
This time she didn’t want light, and wasn’t at all sure she wanted to go in again. She peered into the murky space. The only one who’d used the office lately was Chloe, who knew she was allowed in only after homework was done and her bedroom was picked up. Her daughter’s world—her online world, anyway—was always waiting on her mother’s computer, and Shelby understood the attraction better than most. But the only times Shelby went into the room anymore were when she wanted to snoop a bit, to make sure her daughter’s social media life was under control, to peek over Chloe’s shoulder as she chatted and Instagrammed and Snapchatted and explored her electronic universe filled with countless seductions. Chloe was just old enough to appreciate the incomparable thrill of danger.
Shelby sipped cold coffee at the threshold. Across the room, their new desktop PC crouched in shadow, in sleep mode, just like her daughter. Its only sign of life was the pale green eye of its power indicator, and its stare was relentless.
Her phone vibrated silently in her hand. She recognized Starke’s number.
“You were way out of line,” she answered. “My family life is none of your goddamned business.”
“Shel?” His voice had calmed. “We’re still waiting for final word from the coroner.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Starke cleared his throat. “How’d you know he was shot?”
Combustion is available September 27, 2016.
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