"I don't know."
"And remember, we'll be saving money every month. That's money we can spend on other things, like clothes for you. Like a car for you. Would you like that?"
I shrugged. "Yeah, I guess." I pulled out a Pop-Tart and started to eat it untoasted.
Dad didn't see or hear the shrug. "And wait till you see this boat we're getting! Forget the car, you'll be after me to borrow the boat. You can take a boat out by yourself when you're fifteen. Did you know that?"
I asked him, "Why would I want to take a boat out by myself?"
Dad continued talking. Nothing reached him. "Or you can take it out with me. Or with Suzie and me. It's an awesome experience. When you're out there in a boat, a mile out, two miles out, you're in your own world."
"So are you definitely buying a boat?"
"Yeah, we definitely are. We have it all picked out. It's my wedding present to her. And we're gonna name it after her, the Suzie Q."
I mashed the rest of the Pop-Tart into my mouth. Still chewing, I asked him, "Where's the money coming from?"
Dad smiled. "It's rent money. It's money that we're now throwing away on two rents." Dad reached over and took my hand. I hated how it felt, but I didn't pull away. "Honey, I know this is tough for you. I will never, ever, forget your mom. I knew your mom better than anyone on this earth. And I can tell you, without a doubt, that this is what she would want. She would want your life to get back to normal. A normal life, with a mother and a father, and a nice place near the beach. Healthy ocean air."
We both heard a knock at the back door. Dad didn't move to answer it, so neither did I. Then we heard Kristin's voice. "Roberta!"
Dad smiled. He got up and opened the door to Kristin and Ironman. "How are you doing?"
Kristin muttered, "Hello," and walked in.
Ironman followed. He didn't say anything, but he looked at Dad. Ever since that night in the trash trailer, Ironman has looked people in the eye.
The two of them sat in the living room with me.
Dad announced, "I'm gonna go in and crash. I'll see you all at work."
Kristin waited for him to leave. Then she started asking Ironman a series of personal hygiene questions. They've been doing this daily. To everyone's astonishment, they've developed quite a relationship in the past week. She asked him, "Did you floss?"
"Yeah."
"Did you brush with the whitening toothpaste and use the plaque rinse?"
"Yeah. Yeah."
Kristin ran her fingertips lightly over the fuzz growing back atop Ironman's head. She said to me, "Shaving his head was the best thing that ever happened to him. All that gross, greasy hair is gone. Now I'm working on his teeth. And his skin."
I noticed that Kristin had a touch of makeup on. She reached into a Marshall's bag and pulled out a red plaid shirt. She said, "Here, Will. Take this into the bathroom and try it on. I think it will look good on you."
Ironman took the shirt and walked dutifully into the bathroom.
I said, "Will?"
Kristin nodded. "Yes. I'm going to call him Will."
"Kristin! It's not like you found a dog. You can't just rename him."
"I'm not renaming him. William is his real name. Will is a diminutive of William. Like Kris is a diminutive of Kristin."
"I see. So what's my diminutive?"
"For Roberta? I don't know. Bobbi?"
"Yikes."
"Don't worry. You're not a Bobbi."
"Thanks."
"But that boy in there is not an Ironman, either. He's a Will."
"Okay. 'Will' it is."
Kristin rummaged in the bag and pulled out an amazing array of beauty products.
I said, "God, Kristin, where did you get all this stuff?"
"Most of it came from Nina. Every time she'd come over, like, for a makeover, she'd bring about a hundred dollars' worth of makeup. And then she'd leave it all."
I thought, Well, it didn't cost her anything. But I didn't say it. I said, "Her father just hands her money."
"I know."
"Of course, so does yours."
Kristin looked embarrassed. "That was before."
Will came back wearing the shirt. Kristin reacted, "Wow! I knew you'd look great in that." She handed him a tube of gel. "Here, take this in and rub some on top of your head. You don't want your scalp getting too dry. We need to take care of those baby follicles coming up."
Will again did as he was told. As soon as he was gone, Kristin turned to me. "Oh yes, Roberta ... Will told me something very interesting on the way over here."
I had a funny feeling. A nervous feeling. "Oh? What?"
"He said he was sitting in the guidance office at your school on the day Hawg got arrested."
Now I knew why I was feeling nervous. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. He said you were there, too. Is that right?"
"Right. I was."
"So you can tell me now yourself: Who arrested Hawg?"
"I'm not sure. Technically, I think it was Officer Dwyer."
Kristin focused a laserlike stare at me. "And who else?"
I said quietly, "The Head Louse."
"The Head Louse. Now, isn't that newsworthy? Isn't that the kind of interesting fact that a good reporter would pick up on?"
I admitted, "Yes."
"So why didn't you tell me? What's the big secret?"
"There's no secret." I volunteered, "His real name is Griffin. He's a detective."
"Why didn't you tell me who he was?"
I lied, "I didn't know. I didn't know until Hawg got arrested."
Kristin looked like she might not believe me. In a way I hoped she wouldn't. I was getting away with too many lies. I was getting too good at them. But she said, "So why didn't you tell me after that?"
"Because he made me swear I wouldn't. He said he might get killed, like in revenge. He's an undercover cop. He has people out for revenge against him all the time."
"So you were just being loyal to him?"
"Yes."
"Instead of being loyal to me? To your own family?"
I felt awful. I mumbled, "I'm really sorry, Kristin." And I really was.
The arcade was as quiet as a graveyard; so was the rest of the mall. I took a long dinner hour, which was more like two hours, and sat reading in the empty food court. Kristin, Will, and I had the closing checklist completed by five after nine.
As I was walking home across the near-empty parking lot, I became aware of a car following me. The driver accelerated, drew even, and shouted, "Roberta!"
I remembered my safety training; I kept walking. The car could contain a pervert who had, by chance, heard my name. But then I heard "Roberta!" again, and the voice sounded familiar. I turned and looked at the driver. It was Griffin. He was behind the wheel of a black Ford Taurus.
"I need to talk to you. It's about Hawg. Can I give you a ride to your house? Can we talk there?"
I felt a little creepy about that. I didn't want to see him in that carport again. But I decided, "Yeah, okay. I guess."
I got into the passenger side, and we started off. I didn't feel too good about my decision when Griffin remained silent all the way to 111th Street. He parked the car in the driveway, short of the carport, and we walked in through the kitchen door.
I sat down on the living room couch, but Griffin remained standing. He had a briefcase with him, a square black one with a brass combination lock. He set it down on the floor and started talking. "I tried to explain to you before that I'm just a part of a larger process. I'm not the judge; I'm not the jury. I'm just the cop they sent in and asked, 'Is there any evidence there?' I reported back, 'Yes, sir. There is some evidence.'"
He started to pace, his voice rising, "You know, if Hawg hadn't bolted across the road like that, everything would be okay now. That was a bad thing to do. It made him look guilty. Now everybody figures he was guilty."
Griffin fixed an angry stare at me. "This should have ended another way. I talked to Hawg for tw
o hours at the station. He knew what the deal was. He knew he wasn't going to take the fall for something he didn't do. And that's the god's honest truth, Roberta. I wasn't going to let that happen."
He clenched both fists and glared at me. "Hawg knew that. I even made him repeat it back to me, word for word, so that I knew that he knew." Griffin paused. He sat down heavily on the couch. His eyes became moist, then he whispered, "So why did he do it? Why did he run out into that road?"
I knew why, and I told him, "He didn't care. He didn't care about any of that stuff you just said. He just didn't want to be here anymore."
Griffin didn't believe me. "What? He'd rather be dead?"
I didn't say anything else, which made him get agitated again. He hopped up and started pacing as before, shaking his head vehemently. "I didn't do this to him. He did it to himself. I didn't kill him."
I assured him, "Of course you didn't."
My response seemed to make him feel a little better, or calmer at least. He sat back down and opened that black briefcase. "Anyway, Roberta, I know you tried to help."
I interrupted him, "You asked me to help."
"Yes, I did. And you wound up doing a better surveillance than I did. I appreciate that, and I'm real sorry about what happened." He reached into the briefcase and pulled out a big brown envelope.
"I know what happened to your mother. I've heard your uncle and your cousin talk about it. I called down to a buddy of mine at the administrative offices. Sure enough, he was holding some stuff from that case that you're entitled to."
I stared at the envelope. It had the word EVIDENCE stamped on it in big red letters. I asked him, "What is that?"
"It's, uh, your property. Your family's property. Once your case is classified as inactive, any property that we seized as evidence gets returned to you. Provided, of course, that it's not forensic evidence. You never know. We might get a break in this case someday, and we'll need the forensic evidence."
I began to feel frightened. I asked, "What is forensic evidence?"
Griffin shifted on the couch uncomfortably. "It's, uh, stuff we would have to produce in a court of law. A weapon, or an article of clothing with, uh, blood on it."
I stared hard at the envelope, wishing I had X-ray vision. "So what's in there?"
"It's personal effects of your mother's. Her wallet. Her checkbook. Some children's books. A watch. Some papers."
I reached out for the envelope, and he handed it to me. I weighed it in my hand. "And where did this come from?"
"The sheriff's administrative office, down at the County Services building."
"So how did you get it?"
"That buddy of mine back-doored it. I told him you were good for this signature." Griffin held out a paper to me. "You just get your dad to sign it, and I'll get it notarized." He stopped to explain, "Another buddy does that. Then I turn it in tomorrow. Okay?"
I felt stunned, but I said, "Okay." I breathed deeply a few times. Then I asked him, "Griffin ... could I have gotten this package myself?"
"No. Only your dad could have."
"So why didn't he?"
He answered me very kindly. "A lot of people don't. There's nothing on this earth worse than the murder of a loved one. People want to close the door on that as soon as they can. I never would have opened this one up if I didn't know you, if I didn't think you would value these things. Am I right?"
I told him, "Oh yes. Yes."
I bent back the brad and opened the envelope. I reached in and pulled out two blue vinyl smocks—a small and a medium. I remembered them well. One was mine, and one was my mother's. Then I pulled out a wallet, a watch, a booklet for a prepaid college plan, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
Griffin pointed to it. "Tell me about the book."
I answered flatly, like I had told the story too many times, "Some days my mother would pick me up at the sitter or at extended-day. She'd always have a book with her. I'd hold the book on the way home. We'd read it when we got there."
"Was it always Dr. Seuss?"
"Between Mom and me it was. On my own I read older stuff. I started reading chapter books when I was five."
Griffin stared down at the floor for a moment. Then he clapped his hands on his knees and stood up. He said, "Well, I wanted you to have these things because you're entitled to them, but now I'd better get back to work." He walked through the kitchen and straight out. I hurried to lock the door behind him. Then I gathered up all the evidence, carried it into my room, and spread it out on the bed.
Mom had two pictures of me in her wallet, but no money. She had an old American Express card, an Atlantic County library card, and a Florida driver's license. The picture on the license resembled me a little. I read the information about the Florida Prepaid College Plan. I saw that Mom had circled the "lump-sum payment plan" description.
I thought the envelope was empty then, but I stuck my hand inside to make sure. It wasn't. I pulled out a small piece of paper, about the size of a dollar bill. It was very thin paper with a perforated edge, and it had the word RECEIPT printed across the top. Below that, seven years ago, a clerk had typed in: Surveillance videotape—Family Arcade, October 31, Mary Ann Ritter, homicide investigation. It was a receipt for a videotape. There was a receipt but no videotape. Griffin hadn't mentioned this.
I then turned my attention to the smocks. I tried my old one on, but it was nowhere near large enough. I couldn't fit both arms in at the same time. I tried my mom's on, and it fit perfectly.
I took it off and laid it down on the bed with the other long-lost possessions. I turned off the light and curled myself around them to sleep. But I had another dream: In the dream, I was in my room, in this room, asleep. I woke up when I heard the sound of the TV in the living room. It was blaring, impossibly loud, like the volume had been turned up all the way. There were no words to the noise, just static, like the sound from the void.
But I knew that if I went out to turn it off, I would be killed. I knew that there was a killer sitting in the living room, watching the blank screen, with the volume turned all the way up.
The dream was so real that I woke up still inside it. I found myself sitting bolt upright, listening for the TV sound. But there was only silence. Still, I was terrified, trapped between reality and the dream. I cowered in my bed, desperate for help. I tried calling out in a timid voice, "Dad." Then I tried it in a louder voice—"Dad"—never really expecting him to be there. But to my surprise, I heard a short knock on the door, and then Dad opened it.
"What is it, honey? What's wrong?"
"I—I had a dream. A nightmare."
"Oh. Oh no. Well, it's okay now. It wasn't real. Can I get you a drink of water? Or a soda?"
"No. No." I saw his eyes flicker to the evidence on my bed, but there was no sign of recognition. He didn't say anything about it. Instead he asked, "Do you want me to sit with you for a little bit?"
"No. No, I know you're here. So I'll be okay."
"That's right. I'm here. Don't you be afraid."
"Okay."
After he left I bound up all the evidence inside the two smocks. I stashed it all in the back of my closet, with my Dr. Seuss books.
But I put the videotape receipt in my wallet.
MONDAY, THE 16TH
Dad came out while I was eating breakfast. He had on a bathing suit and a Marlins cap. He looked like he might be going out on a boat.
He said, "Good morning, Roberta."
I held out Griffin's form to him. I said, "Dad? Can you sign this before you go?"
"Sure. What is it?"
"It's for a field trip. We're going down to the County Services building."
He signed the evidence request form. "That should be an interesting trip. I'll see you at work, then."
My first stop after breakfast was Isabel's Hallmark. I told Mrs. Roman the same story I had told Dad—that I was going to the County Services building on a field trip. That much was true. Then I told her I needed to get the f
ield-trip form notarized.
At that point Mrs. Weiss would have asked me, "Since when do you need to get a field-trip form notarized?" But Mrs. Roman didn't know any better. She dug out the box and put the raised seal on the form, just like I showed her. I took a pen and filled in the signature part while she returned the seal to the drawer.
She did ask me, "So why aren't you in school?"
I said, "I'm on my way. I just forgot to get this done last night."
Mrs. Roman was distracted, of course, since she was worried about running the store alone. She muttered, "Okay. I'll see you later," and walked off to straighten a display.
The County Services building was a sprawling red brick structure stuck in the middle of a gigantic traffic circle. I got off the bus in front of its main entrance.
I walked inside and over to a ceiling-high, glass-encased directory. There must have been a hundred office names in it, all spelled out in white rubber letters against a black background. I found a listing for the Atlantic County Sheriff's Department administrative office. It was in Room 102.1 set out walking and did almost a complete lap around the first floor until I came to it.
Room 102 was big—as big as Crescent Electronics. A lot of people were sitting in different-colored plastic chairs. Most were busy writing on clipboards. I figured they were filling out job applications.
I saw a guy who looked familiar. It didn't hit me for a moment, but then it did. He was Hawg's Juvenile Justice guy. Maybe he'd had enough of that and was applying for a new job.
Beyond the rows of chairs was a high white counter. An older woman was working behind it with six people lined up in front of her. I got in line behind them and inched forward.
Just before I reached the front of the line, a younger woman walked up, said something to the first lady, and then took her place. By now I had told so many lies that new ones were coming to me on their own. Like the Grinch in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, I thought up a lie, and I thought it up quick. As soon as the younger woman looked up at me, I said, "I was here before. That other lady told me to go get this form notarized and she would give me this package."
The lady took the receipt and the form and read them. "What kind of package is it?"