What the Dead Leave Behind

by David Housewright

  “I’m not lying.”

  “Then tell me what the fight was about.”

  “It wasn’t about anything.”

  “Did you hear that, McKenzie? Kid must think we’re stupid.”

  I remembered my promise and shrugged.

  “Do you want to know what I think?” Downing added. “I think the fight didn’t end at the Bru House and he doesn’t want to say. Isn’t that right, Critter? Critter—what kind of name is that? Do your parents think you’re a tiny animal? A rodent?”

  “It’s because my little brother couldn’t pronounce—”

  “No one cares, Critter.”

  “I don’t like it when—”

  “When you saw Malcolm at the party last night, what did you think? Did you think it was time to finish this thing, this fight that wasn’t about anything? Did you and Malcolm decide to take it outside?”

  “No.”

  “I think that’s exactly what you did. The two of you went to the park last night to finish your fight. Either that or you waited outside for him to leave and jumped him. Is that what happened?”

  “No.”

  “What did you do to Malcolm?”

  “Nothing. I never touched him.”

  “What did you do when you left the house?”

  “I went to a different New Year’s Eve party with some friends from college.”

  “Are you lying to me?”

  “No.”

  “I think you’re lying to me.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Whose party did you go to?”

  “I didn’t know the host. My friends invited me—”

  “Give me an address.”

  “I don’t have—”

  “The friends you say you went with—give me a name.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You’re lying, kid. I don’t like it when people lie to me. It tells me that you think I’m stupid. What do you think, McKenzie?”

  I shrugged some more.

  “I think we should arrest him,” Downing said. “I think we should take him to jail.”

  “Jail?” Critter was clearly panicked. “Why?”

  “Let me tell you how it works, kid. I can bring you in; I don’t even need a reason. The law lets me hold you for a minimum of thirty-six hours without a charge. Because it’s the holiday, because it’ll be hard to scare up a judge to listen to your whining, I bet I can keep you in jail until Monday morning. Is that where you want to spend the next three days? Do you really want to do that to your mother?”

  “But I didn’t do anything.”

  “Public brawling.”

  “It wasn’t a brawl. It was—”

  “It was what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where did you go last night?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Your choice, kid. If you want to spend the weekend in jail, it’s all right with me. Stand up.”

  “No.”

  Downing rose to his feet and fished a pair of handcuffs from his pocket. Critter stared at them as if they were the scariest things he had ever seen.

  “Stand up,” Downing repeated.

  “Please,” Critter said.

  “Critter,” I said. “Answer the first question and you won’t have to answer the second question.”

  Downing spun to face me. From the expression on his face, he wasn’t so much angry at me for interfering as he was confused.

  “Critter,” I said. “Tell us what the fight was about and we’ll end this. Everyone can go home.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Just remember, this is all on you, kid,” Downing said. He took hold of Critter’s arm and pulled him out of the chair. Critter kept staring at the handcuffs, and I wondered, Was Downing really going to use them? Knowing what I knew, was I going to let him?

  “He was with me,” Diane said.

  We turned toward the entrance to the kitchen. Diane was standing in the doorway; Katie and Jayne were crowded behind her. So much for privacy.

  “Last night,” Diane said. “Christopher was with me at my house. McKenzie knows.”

  “Diane,” Critter said.

  “With you at your house?” Katie said. “I don’t understand. I thought—Chris, I thought you went to a party.”

  Diane stepped deeper into the kitchen.

  “Chris spent the night with me,” she said. “He was there from eleven thirty until two thirty this morning.”

  “What are you saying?” Katie asked.

  “I’ve been sleeping with your son. I’m sorry.”

  “No. No, no, no, that’s—that’s not possible. Chris is—”

  “He’s an adult now. Twenty-one…”

  “He’s my child.”

  “Katie…”

  I was astonished by how fast she moved. Katie’s hand came up from her hip and slapped Diane’s face with such speed, the force of the blow sent her hard against the wall. It reminded me of a gunfighter in one of those classic Western movies—Gregory Peck outdrawing Richard Jaeckel.

  “How could you, Diane?” she asked. “He’s my son.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  “What is wrong with you? How could you do this?”

  “Mom,” Critter said.

  “You were my friend.”

  “Stop it, Mother,” Critter said. “Don’t you dare talk to my woman that way.”

  He attempted to push past Katie to Diane’s side, but his mother stopped him.

  “Your woman? Listen to yourself. Your woman? She’s older than I am.”

  “Age is just a number.”

  “Christopher, no,” Diane said. “Don’t, don’t…”

  “Do you think I’m going to let her treat you like this? I love you.”

  “Oh no—no, no. What have I done?” I don’t think Diane was talking to us as much as she was to herself. “How could I let this happen? Katie, I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t talk to her,” Critter said. “Talk to me. And don’t be sorry. Mom, why are you behaving like this? You’re ruining everything.”

  “Oh. My. God,” Katie said.

  “We’re both adults. What’s the big deal?”

  “Oh my God.”

  From the living room came a voice—“I’m home”—followed by “What’s going on?”

  Jayne shrieked his name—“Malcolm”—and ran toward him. She wrapped her son in her arms. He nearly lost his balance and had to flail his own arms to keep upright, which was difficult because he was holding what looked like a quart-size Tupperware container.

  “What the heck, Mom?” he said.

  “You’re all right, you’re all right, you’re all right,” Jayne chanted. “I was so scared…”

  Malcolm saw the rest of us filing out of the kitchen.

  “What is this?” he asked.

  Jayne grabbed both of her son’s arms and pushed him back so she could get a good look at him. Her face went from happy to angry just like that.

  “Where were you?” Jayne asked. “I was worried sick.”

  “I’m sorry. I crashed on a friend’s couch.”

  “Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

  “I dropped it into a sink filled with water and it quit on me.” Malcolm opened the Tupperware. It contained white rice and a smartphone. “I was told the rice would absorb the moisture and dry it out. I hope so. I’d hate to have to buy a new one.”

  “Where’s your car?” Downing asked.

  “In the driveway. I know you. You’re the detective who investigated my father’s—who came over when my father died.”

  “We were so worried,” Jayne said. “We called everyone we knew. We even called the police.”

  “I’m so sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean to worry you. I just—I had too much to drink so I … I should have called. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re hurt.”

  Jayne’s hand went to Malcolm’s neck just below his ear. There was a bruise there, and from the look of it, recently ac
quired. Malcolm took his mother’s hand and pushed it down.

  “I’m okay, really,” he said. “I ran into something.”

  Like a lover’s bite? my inner voice said. Because it sure looks like a hickey to me.

  “Ran into something?” Jayne asked. She seemed skeptical, too. “Who were you with?”

  Malcolm was gazing across the room at where we all stood in a loose knot. His eyes seemed to fall on Diane, but that could have just been my imagination. In any case, he either didn’t notice or didn’t care that Critter attempted to slide his arm around her waist. Diane shrugged it away with a hiss.

  “Can I tell you later, Mom?” Malcolm said. “I’ll tell you all about it later, okay?”

  Downing took my elbow and led me across the room toward the door.

  “I’m glad it all worked out,” he said.

  “Thank you,” Jayne said. She did something then that surprised Downing and me both. She hugged us each in turn. “Thank you for caring.”

  “Least I could do,” Downing said. He gave up the key to Malcolm’s car.

  “I have a question,” I told Malcolm. “Why did you leave your car in the park last night?”

  Again he gazed at Diane while he answered.

  “That’s where I met my friend,” he said.

  “Why there?”

  “It was convenient.”

  That way you could get together without anyone actually seeing you together, my inner voice said. I get it.

  “Mr. McKenzie,” Malcolm said. He leaned in and lowered his voice, although I thought everyone in the room could hear him just fine. “I want to thank you for—I know you’ve been trying to help me, and I’m grateful. I think, though, that we should forget the whole thing. What happened to my father, it’s just something I’m going to have to live with, isn’t it? Besides, it’s not like he was a nice guy or anything.”

  “Mal,” Jayne said. “He was a good father to you.”

  “He was a lying sonuvabitch who abused my mother. Bastard got what he deserved.”

  “Mal,” Jayne said.

  “Mom, I just don’t want to think about him anymore. You’re the one who’s important. You’re the one I should be thinking about.”

  “I would still like to know why you and Critter were fighting over at the Bru House the other day,” Downing said.

  The question seemed to throw him. Malcolm looked everywhere except at Downing before he said, “Like I keep telling McKenzie, that had nothing to do with my father.”

  “Nonetheless.”

  “My mother should never have called you. I’m sorry she did.”

  Downing didn’t like the answer any more than I did, but what was he going to do?

  I patted Malcolm’s arm as I moved past him toward the front door.

  “Call Erica,” I said. “She’s worried.”

  *   *   *

  My own car was still parked up the street, so we walked first to Downing’s vehicle. When we reached it, he said, “What the hell just happened in there?”

  “I’m not entirely sure, but I think the New Brighton Hotdish suffered a serious setback.”

  “Is that on us?”

  “I followed Diane Dauria to her home last night. I knew she was with Critter.”

  “That’s why you told him if he answered one question he wouldn’t need to answer the other. You were trying to spare him the embarrassment.”

  “No. I was trying to spare her. He wasn’t embarrassed at all.”

  “If I was twenty-one years old, I wouldn’t have been embarrassed, either. She’s a looker.”

  “She is that.”

  “Critter was willing to go to jail before admitting where he was. That tells me something, though, protecting Dauria’s reputation like that.”

  “Was he protecting Dauria’s rep or—now that the affair is out in the open, now that his mother is onto them, I don’t think Dauria will be inviting him to her bed anytime soon, and Critter probably knows it, so…”

  “Who was he protecting by refusing to reveal what his fight with Malcolm was about? Who is Malcolm protecting? Do you think it’s Dauria?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Meanwhile, Malcolm shows up out of the blue safe and sound with a hickey on his neck.”

  “You saw that, too, huh?”

  “He told you to quit the investigation.”

  “Makes me go ‘Hmm.’ How ’bout you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Yesterday Malcolm was desperate to find out who killed his father. He disappears overnight and suddenly he no longer cares? Something happened. Either someone talked him out of it—or he learned the truth and doesn’t want to share.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “Whatever it is, leave me out of it.”

  Detective Downing climbed into his car and started it up. I waited for him to drive off. Before he did, he lowered his passenger side window and called to me.

  “On second thought,” he said, “don’t leave me out of it.”

  *   *   *

  I drifted to the Mustang. By the time I reached it, the front door of Jayne Harris’s home opened and Diane Dauria stepped out as if she were in a hurry. She was carrying her coat and bag. She set the bag on the stoop, quickly pulled on the coat, retrieved the bag, and buttoned up as she walked briskly along the sidewalk. She slowed when she saw me waiting. There were tears in her eyes and on her cheeks, yet none in her voice.

  “Are you happy now?” she asked.

  “I am so, so sorry.”

  “What? No smartass remarks? No accusations? No denouncements? Aren’t you going to call me a cougar?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? It’s true, isn’t it?”

  “If you had asked me yesterday, I would have said yes. Now that I’ve had time to think about it—what have you done that guys haven’t been doing for ten thousand years?”

  “Katie was my friend. That’s the difference. This is all on me, McKenzie. How could I have been so foolish? You, though. You were actually trying to help me back there, weren’t you?”

  “A little bit,” I said, although, let’s face it, I was trying to help myself, too.

  “If I knew more men like you I wouldn’t be spending time with boys like Christopher. Tell me—why did you follow me last night? Tell me that.”

  “Curiosity; the fact that you left Mrs. Szereto’s party so early. To be honest, I thought you were leading me to the Hotdish party.”

  “I don’t expect to be invited to many of those in the future. Poor Sloane, she’s going to be—she’ll never talk to me again. Never.”

  “Does she need to know?”

  “Do you think there’s any chance these people will keep it a secret?”

  “They’re your friends.”

  “Were my friends. I doubt I’ll forgive me, why should they? McKenzie, what exactly did you see last night?”

  The girl in the hat, my inner voice screamed at me. That’s why Dauria is being so expansive all of a sudden. She wants to know what you know.

  Oh, she’s good, I told myself, even as I answered, “I saw Critter drive up—”

  “God, I hate that name. I can’t believe Katie actually thinks it’s cute.”

  “I saw the two of you embrace in your foyer. When you shut the front door, I left.”

  “Before that?”

  “Did something happen before that?”

  She regarded me in silence for a moment. Her lips formed a thin smile.

  “What I said earlier—if I knew more men like you I wouldn’t be spending time with boys like Chris? I was kidding. It’s guys like you that drive me to younger men. They’re so much less complicated.”

  “They have more stamina, too. Three hours he was with you last night? Wow.”

  The fire in her eyes, this time it wasn’t volcanic so much as smoldering. I had the distinct feeling that we would never be friends.r />
  “I’m so tired,” Diane said. “I need to go home. Good night, McKenzie. I hope never to see you again.”

  “Don’t say that. We’re just starting to have fun.”

  *   *   *

  I waited until Diane was unlocking her car door and slipping inside before I drew my smartphone out of my pocket. At the same time, Critter Meyer emerged from Jayne Harris’s house. He searched up and down the street, saw Diane’s car, and started running toward it while waving his arms.

  “Diane,” he called. “Diane, Diane…”

  Diane must have heard him, seen him in her rearview mirror, yet she put the vehicle in gear and drove off anyway, leaving him panting on the sidewalk in front of me.

  “Diane, please,” he said.

  “Trouble in paradise?” I asked.

  The look in his eyes, the expression of pain on his face—for a moment they made me feel sympathy for him.

  “This is all your fault,” he said.

  “It’s called growing up in a hurry,” I said.

  “Fuck you.”

  I recalled my conversation with Vanessa Szereto about recreational sex and the need for both parties to be on the same page, only I decided it wasn’t something Critter wanted to hear.

  “Believe it or not, I’m sorry for you,” I said.

  “Fuck you.”

  “Yeah. Listen—I noticed that you never did answer the question about the fight with Malcolm. What was that all about, anyway?”

  His response was to give me a good look at the middle finger of both his hands before he stomped off.

  *   *   *

  I returned to the smartphone. Detective Downing answered on the fourth ring; traffic sounds told me he was driving.

  “Now what?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry to bug you.”

  “Yet you keep doing it.”

  “I need you to run another license plate for me.”

  “Why?”

  “It belongs to a woman who visited Diane Dauria at her home last night just before Critter arrived.”

  “This is important because…?”

  “Remember what I said before about grasping at straws?”

  “Monday. I intend to spend an uninterrupted weekend with my family. Send me a text and I’ll look into it Monday.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Happy New Year.”

  Downing responded by turning off his phone.

  *   *   *

  The holidays were so hectic for them both that Nina and Erica had been unable to make time for a tradition that stretched back to when Erica was five years old, a tradition that they were happily engaged in when I returned to the condo—making Christmas cookies. I watched mother and daughter from the door and reflected on their relationship: all of the disagreements they’d had; the arguments over rules, some clearly stated, others implied, that were set and broken and rewritten; the unspoken disappointment of one in the other when expectations went unmet; the promises, some made in haste, some unspoken, some shattered, some that would last until the end of time between two women living together, one growing up, the other growing old, bound in a way I probably would never know or understand—it all confused me. Except in moments like this when it was obvious that despite the quarrels they loved each other immensely. More than that, they genuinely liked each other, reveled in each other’s company. Respected each other. Wanted sometimes to be each other. It made me happy.