The Family Plot

by Megan Collins

  I see it again—photos taped to a wall; sketches taped to studs—and a chill winds up my spine. But it’s too much right now, trying to make sense of that similarity, so I shake the thought from my mind.

  eleven

  Elijah returns after dark.

  When I open the door to his insistent knock, it’s like opening it to the past. For a moment, it’s his father I see on our porch, with a smile he’s biting back, certain he’s finally got us. I always knew, I hear him saying, there was something evil here.

  But then I blink, and it’s Elijah there, glowing gold in the porchlight. He was unexpectedly kind to me, earlier today, his voice gentle as he asked the questions, as he encouraged me to take my time. Standing with him in the backyard, his team already gathering, I regarded the shed like if I turned away, it might start creeping toward me. Elijah shifted then, blocking that terrible, ivied place from my line of sight, and I managed a grateful flick of my lips before seeing the view his moving had exposed: the yellow tape of Andy’s grave. The other crime scene in our woods.

  Now, I expect Elijah to tell me that Fritz has made a full confession. Already, I feel the burden of the looming challenge: reconciling the man I thought Fritz was with the monster he turned out to be; modifying every memory where I saw him be good to Andy. But then I notice the officers behind Elijah. There are five of them, out on the walkway, looking off to the sides as if scanning our yard for danger, for shadows that move with a human shape. They each rest a hand on the gun holstered to their belts, while Elijah, dressed in his usual slacks and coat, forces a tight, toothless smile.

  “We have a warrant to search your house.”

  He holds up some papers, and I stumble back in surprise, a movement he takes as an invitation to enter.

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” a voice growls behind me.

  I smell Charlie before I see him. His cloud of whisky precedes him.

  “Actually,” Elijah says, passing him the papers. “Judge Matthews was the judge of that, as you’ll see from the signature.”

  Charlie skims a finger down the first page, elbowing me aside as I try to read it, too. “You’re looking for… evidence and instrumentalities of a crime,” he says. “Well. I believe my sister already gave you free rein of an entire shed full of evidence.”

  “You can keep reading,” Elijah says.

  Behind him, one of the officers wipes their feet on the front mat, an oddly polite gesture for someone invading a home.

  Charlie’s head snaps up. “You’re looking for the brand.”

  “The Blackburn Killer’s brand?” I blurt. “Why would it be here? Shouldn’t you be searching Fritz’s house?”

  Elijah opens his mouth to reply, but Charlie, still reading, steamrolls over him. “This says the warrant can only be executed in the daytime, six a.m. to ten p.m. And it’s”—he pulls his phone from his pocket, clicking it to check the time—“9:47 right now. I hardly think you can do a competent search in thirteen minutes. I suppose we’ll see you in the morning then?”

  He steps forward, as if to usher the officers out, but Elijah stands firm.

  “As long as we begin before ten p.m.,” he says, “we can be here as long as we need to. So, yes. Maybe we will see each other in the morning.” Something almost mirthful glints in his eyes as he glances beyond us toward the back hall. “Who else is on the premises right now?”

  “Premises!” Charlie echoes. “Such an official word for someone who’s going to be rummaging through our underwear drawers.”

  Elijah ignores him, looking at me to answer.

  “M-my mom and Tate,” I say, and I hope he doesn’t mistake my stutter for nervousness. Mostly, I’m bewildered, watching his gaze slink across the foyer, sharp and suspicious.

  “We’ll need to detain you all for the duration of the search,” he says.

  “Detain us?” I picture handcuffs, cold against our wrists. “Are we under arrest?”

  “No,” Elijah says. “Not at this time.”

  Fear ripples through my confusion in slow, icy waves. “I don’t understand. What about Fritz?”

  “We’ve let him go for now.”

  “You’ve what?”

  “Amateurs,” Charlie grumbles.

  Elijah’s gaze is cool as it shifts from Charlie to me. “He remains a person of interest,” he says, “but without direct evidence connecting him to the room beneath your shed, we have no reason to hold him.”

  “It’s Fritz’s shed,” I remind him.

  “On your family’s property.”

  Elijah nods to the officers, prompting a couple to head upstairs while two others breeze past us toward the back hall. The fifth, stocky and bald, remains in front of the door, a statue with crossed arms.

  “While my colleagues conduct the search,” Elijah says, “I need to question you all individually.”

  Question us. In the past, he’s said interview.

  “I’m happy to do it here, if you’d like. Or I can take you down to the station.”

  I gape at him, unable to form a response. Even Charlie is silent, fingers creasing the warrant.

  “Here then?” Elijah says after a moment. He gestures to the man behind him. “Officer Bailey will sit with you while you’re waiting.”

  He takes in the living room to his right, squinting at the towers of empty boxes, the artifacts of our childhood that Charlie’s organized into piles. Then Elijah smiles, a flash of his father in his teeth.

  “How does the dining room sound?”

  * * *

  “You’re doing a great job, Officer Babysitter.”

  Charlie’s at the head of the table, the place where Dad always sat. Mounted on the wall behind him is a deer head, the lashes around its dark eyes thick and feminine. Andy used to stare at that head when we ate the animals he and Dad had hunted, his jaw working at meat he’d eventually spit out when no one but me was watching.

  Now, the deer looks like a headpiece Charlie’s wearing. He grins at Officer Bailey, who stands by the doorway, expertly ignoring his taunts. He’s been guarding us for almost an hour, ever since Elijah took Mom to the victim room for questioning.

  Across from me, Tate is slumped over, cheek resting on her arm. Her hair spills onto the table in a messy pile, which Charlie—between quips—braids with restless fingers.

  From upstairs, there’s a thump, followed by a sound like furniture sliding across the floor. Charlie glances at the ceiling.

  “Are you sure you’re safe in here?” he asks Officer Bailey. “If we’re as murderous as you think, who knows what we might do? Maybe you should call one of your friends for backup.”

  Finally, the officer acknowledges him. “Is that a threat?”

  “No, Officer,” Tate says. Sitting up, she throws a glance at Charlie that slaps the smile off his face. He looks away like a chastised child before his eyes bolt back to hers.

  As their gaze lingers, I see it morph, deepening into something anxious and fearful. When Tate slides her hand across the table, Charlie grabs it, his fingers squeezing hers until his knuckles turn white. I study their shared look, their clasped hands, and a thought blazes through my mind.

  They know something.

  Tate winces as footsteps creak across the floor above us. She glances at Officer Bailey, finds him momentarily distracted by the deer head, and mouths to Charlie, They’re in your room. Charlie nods, slightly, then loosens his grip on her hand just to tighten it again.

  For the past hour, I’ve remained baffled about the warrant—why are the officers stomping through our house instead of Fritz’s?—but at the sounds from upstairs, from Charlie’s room, my siblings seem like they’re bracing for the ceiling to crash onto their heads.

  The thought pulses again: They know something.

  As if hearing the accusation, they let each other go, and it’s then that Mom returns. She shuffles to the table in her slippers before sinking into the seat next to Tate. As Mom releases a heavy sigh, Tate’s quick to rub her
arm, to put her head on her shoulder, but I’m still staring at the space between her and Charlie, trying to find the secrets they passed through the air.

  “Your father should be here for this,” Mom says, and the comment shoves a laugh out of Charlie.

  “Oh yes,” he says, “he’s missing quite the party.”

  “I just mean,” Mom clarifies, “that he always knew how to handle things like this.”

  “Murder investigations?”

  “Of course not.” Mom sets her elbows on the table, massaging her forehead. “He knew how to talk to the police. Every time Chief Kraft came by, Daniel was able to allay his concerns.”

  Charlie laughs again, loud and booming, and even Tate suppresses a smile.

  “What?” Mom says.

  “Dad never allayed anything. He was an asshole to Kraft.”

  Mom’s hands fall into her lap, her back straightening. “No, he wasn’t.”

  “Yes, he was,” Tate agrees. “Where do you think Charlie gets it?” She nods toward Officer Bailey. “He didn’t say much to him, which was part of it, of course—it drove Kraft crazy—but when he did respond, he always had some slick, sarcastic remark. He loved to toy with him.”

  Look around, Dad said to him once. Any bodies you find are up for grabs.

  “Toy with him,” Mom repeats. “No. I don’t think so. Daniel handled the police, the same way he handled everything in this house. Clogged pipe—who called the plumber? Smoke detector chirping—who changed the batteries? He may have been… gruff, sometimes, and he certainly wasn’t chatty. But he took care of us. He kept us safe. And”—she sighs again—“there’s not another man in the world who would have put up with me.”

  “Hey,” Tate says, scooting closer. “No one had to put up with you. Why would you say that?”

  Mom waves off Tate’s sympathy. “You know what I mean. I wasn’t a typical mother. Nothing like my own. I didn’t read you bedtime stories. I hardly ever cooked. I taught you about the Alphabet Murders before the alphabet itself. And Daniel…” Tears pool in her eyes, turning them as glassy as the mounted deer’s. “He was fine with all that. He was not”—she grimaces before using Charlie’s phrase—“an asshole.”

  “Dahlia?”

  Our attention jolts toward the doorway, where Elijah stands, notebook in hand. He squints at Dad’s deer, studying the animal like he thinks he knows it personally. Then he turns to me, expression dark.

  “You ready?” he asks.

  * * *

  We resume our positions from the other day—him on the couch, me in the armchair. The victim room, lit by a single lamp on the couch’s end table, is painted with shadows. Even Elijah’s face has an inky sheen.

  He starts by repeating his questions from this afternoon—how I discovered the trapdoor, where I got the key, what made me so intent on going down there—and again, I slog through the answers, which, I’m surprised to hear myself articulate, all lead back to Ruby.

  “Tell me about your father,” he says next.

  “My father?”

  I try to conjure his face, but for a second, all I see are his clothes: heavy tan jackets, boots with inch-thick soles. I can’t bring to mind the man that Mom just spoke about, the one she swore took care of us—sons, daughters, and wife alike. All I see is how he looked each time he went out the door, and I realize that whenever I imagined us burying him, I pictured him lying in his coffin, still dressed for hunting.

  “What about him?” I ask.

  Elijah shrugs, affecting a casual air. “What was he like? What did he do all day? It doesn’t appear he had a job, so I’m curious.”

  He touches his pen to his notepad, eager to write.

  “You mean you’re suspicious,” I say.

  Because suddenly I get it. The warrant. The thumps from upstairs. Even Mom’s unprompted praise, the second she returned from speaking to Elijah. If I wasn’t so horrified, I might laugh at how long it took me to understand.

  They think Dad was the Blackburn Killer.

  My body responds first: head shaking, pulse racing, cheeks heating with furious disbelief. Then I spit out the words that disprove their theory.

  “Whoever killed those women is the same person who killed Andy,” I say. “Andy saw the room under the shed, and the Blackburn Killer murdered him for that. And my father would never have killed my brother. His son. So he wasn’t the Blackburn Killer.”

  “That’s interesting,” Elijah says, jotting something down. “Your defense of your father is predicated on the idea that he never would have killed your brother. Not that he never would have killed seven women.”

  My mouth drops open, ready to whip out a reply. But it hangs slack as his words sink in. “No,” I finally mutter. “I didn’t say that. Of course he didn’t kill those women.”

  He stood at Honorings, he chanted the prayers for Melinda, for Stephanie, for all the Blackburn victims. And beyond that, he was a simple man who greeted each morning by stepping outside, inhaling the crisp, salty air of this island. He was a quiet man who loved to hunt.

  Hunt animals, I remind myself, after a single queasy second. Not women. Contrary to what the islanders think, we did not live in Murder Mansion.

  “Is this about your father?” I ask Elijah. His hand, sprinting across his notepad, stops.

  “No,” he says, meeting my gaze. “It’s about yours.”

  “Edmond never found the evil he was looking for in my family,” I press on, “so you must be trying to do it for him. To carry on his legacy or whatever, because—”

  “I don’t want my father’s legacy.”

  “Because, otherwise,” I continue, “none of this makes sense. It’s Fritz’s shed. He called the photographs trophies. He asked me to help him get rid of the evidence. So I don’t know what story he told you, but to me, it was pretty clear who the Blackburn Killer was. Who my brother’s killer was.”

  “You know, it’s funny,” Elijah muses. “You’ve done a complete one-eighty on your groundskeeper.”

  “I— What?”

  “When I spoke to you about him the other night, you were adamant that he wasn’t a killer.”

  My skin flushes hot again, blood surging to the surface. “Haven’t you been listening? Didn’t you see the shed? Everything’s changed since the other night. Everything but your family’s suspicion of mine.”

  Elijah watches me, chewing the inside of his cheek.

  “In a way, I get it,” I say to his silence, “if that’s what this is about. I understand, better than most, the pull of family.”

  The pull of Andy, anyway. How, for every moment we lived together, I could always feel him in relation to me, like a cord connecting us, wrapped around both our waists. If one of us moved, we felt the tug of the other, even from different rooms. And when he was gone, I thought I still felt him out there, pulling on his end sometimes, trying to show me where he was.

  Elijah sets his pen on top of his notepad, which he balances on his thigh with one palm. “Dahlia. I assure you that my questions have nothing to do with my father. The fact is: photographs that we believe belong to the Blackburn Killer are in the room beneath your family’s shed.”

  “Fritz’s—” I start to say, but he puts a hand in the air.

  “There were also blue fibers found in the hinges of the chest in that room. Fibers that appear consistent with the gowns the killer dressed his victims in. We’ll know for sure if they’re a match once we hear from the lab.”

  I stare at him, absorbing this new information. All these years, I never saw the actual dresses. The only way I knew how to picture them was from the miniature replicas that Tate stitched for her dioramas. Now, I shiver, realizing how close to me they always were.

  Is that what Andy found in the chest that night? Maybe his ax grazed the fabric as it bit into the wood. Or maybe, by then, the gowns were gone—Jessie Stanton being the last to ever wear one.

  “If you think it was my father,” I say, “then why would the murders have s
topped? He’s lived here all this time, but there hasn’t been another murder on the island since Jessie Stanton. Doesn’t it make more sense, then, that the killer would be someone who… who died, or maybe left the island, or…”

  I trail off, hearing in my own words an argument for Fritz’s innocence, too.

  But he knew what was under the shed. At the very least, he knew.

  “Fritz called them trophies,” I reiterate limply. “So why else… How could…”

  My questions wither as I shake my head.

  Leaning forward on the couch, Elijah sets his notebook on the cushion beside him. I watch him fold his hands together, and I’m surprised by how thin his fingers are, how clean his nails. Without his pad and pen, he looks almost vulnerable. A detective without a weapon.

  “I promise you,” he says, and for a moment, I hear kindness, patience, tucked back into his voice. “I interviewed John Fritz extensively. And his answers, coupled with our findings in the shed, did not warrant his arrest at this time. We’ve let him go for the time being, but as I told you when I first arrived, he remains a person of interest in the case.”

  I let out a breath, my shoulders relaxing. “Okay,” I say.

  Elijah flicks his attention to the left. There’s a space there, on the wall, prominent as a missing tooth. Two days ago, Elijah pointed to the portrait of Kitty Genovese that hung in its place. Charlie must have removed the painting, planning to include it in his museum, but now, Elijah watches the empty wall like the space itself is a kind of clue.

  Tension squeezes back into my muscles as he slides his eyes, narrower than before, back onto mine.

  “Person of interest,” I say, echoing the phrase he used for Fritz. “But not suspect. I’ve seen enough documentaries to know there’s a difference.”

  “We’ll be thoroughly investigating every possibility,” Elijah says, and it’s like he’s reciting from those films, parroting the lines of detectives who, so often, never caught the killer at all.

  He reaches for his notebook again.