“Goddamit, Debby, er Libby, what you’re women’s lib now? Help your old man out.”
“Do you know why I’m here, Runner?” I asked.
“Nah.” He walked over and grabbed himself a beer, shot me an eyebrow-y look that made his entire forehead disappear into folds. I had assumed he’d be more shocked to see me, but Runner had long ago pickled the part of his brain capable of surprise. His days were so baggy and pointless, anything could happen in them, so why not a visit from a daughter after half a decade?
“How long it’s been since I seen you, little girl? You get that flamingo ashtray I sent you?” The flamingo ashtray I got more than two decades ago, when I was a nonsmoking ten-year-old.
“Do you remember the letter you wrote me, Runner?” I asked. “About Ben? About how you know he wasn’t the one who … did it.”
“Ben? Why would I write to that jagoff? He’s a bad-un. You know, that wasn’t me that raised him, that was all his mom. He was born weird and he stayed weird. If he’d been an animal, he’d of been the runt of the litter and we’d of put him down.”
“Do you remember the letter you wrote me, just a few days ago. You said you were dying and you wanted to tell the truth about what happened that night.”
“I sometimes wonder if he was even mine, like if he was even my kid. I always felt kinda like a sucker, raising him. Like people were probably laughing about it when I wasn’t around. Because thaint nothing about him that reminds me of me. He was 100 percent your mother’s boy. Momma’s boy.”
“In the letter—remember the letter, Runner, just a few days ago—you said you knew it wasn’t Ben that did it. Did you know, even, that Peggy is taking back your alibi? Your old girlfriend, Peggy?”
Runner took a deep pull off the beer, winced. He looped one thumb over the pocket of his jeans and gave an angry laugh.
“Yeah I wrote you a letter. Forgot about that. Yeah, I’m dying, got scoli … what’s it with the liver when it goes bad?”
“Cirrhosis?”
“Right, got that. Plus something wrong with my lungs. They say I’ll be dead within the year. Knew I should have married someone with health insurance. Peggy had some, she was always going to get her teeth cleaned, get prescriptions.” He said it like she was dining on caviar, prescriptions.
“You should always get health insurance, Libby. Very important. You ain’t shit without it.” He studied the back of his hand, then blinked. “So I wrote you a letter. A few things need to be put to rest. Lot of shit went down that day of the murders, Libby. I’ve thought about it a lot, it’s tormented me. That was a bad damn day. Like, a cursed day. A cursed Day,” he added, pointing at his chest. “But man, there was so much fingerpointing going on then—they’d put anyone in jail. I couldn’t come forward like I wish I could have. Just wouldn’t have been smart.”
He said it like it was a simple business decision, then he burped quietly. I pictured grabbing the tin pot and smashing it across his face.
“Well, you can talk now. What happened, Runner? Tell me what happened. Ben’s been in prison now for decades, so if you know something, say it now.”
“What, and then I go to jail?” He gave an indignant grunt and sat down on his beach towel, blowing his nose on one corner. “It’s not like your brother was some babe in the woods. Your brother was into witchcraft, Devil shit. You hang around with the Devil, sooner or later you’re gonna have to fuck … shoulda known it when I saw him with Trey Teepano, that fucking … fucker.”
Trey Teepano, the name that kept coming up but went nowhere.
“What did Trey Teepano do?”
Runner broke into a grin, one cracked tooth leering over his bottom lip. “Boy, people do not know shit about what went on that night. It’s hilarious.”
“It’s not hilarious. My mom is dead, my brother is in prison. Your kids are dead, Runner.”
He cocked his head at that, stared up at a moon as curvy as a wrench.
“You’re not dead,” he said.
“Michelle and Debby are dead. Patty is dead.”
“But why aren’t you, don’t you ever wonder?” he spat out a jelly of blood. “Seems weird.”
“What’s Trey Teepano got to do with it?” I repeated.
“Do I get some reward money or something if I talk?”
“I’m sure, yeah.”
“I’m not innocent, not entirely, but neither’s your brother, neither’s Trey.”
“What did you do, Runner?”
“Who ended up with all the money? Wasn’t me.”
“What money, we had no money.”
“Your mom had money. Your queen bitch mom had money, believe me.”
He was standing now, glaring at me, his oversized pupils eclipsing his irises, making his blue eyes look like solar flares. He tilted his head again, in a twitchy, beastlike way and started walking toward me. He held his palms outward, as if to show he wasn’t going to hurt me, which just made me feel like he would.
“Where’d all that money go, Libby, from Patty’s life insurance? That’s another mystery for you to think on. Because I sure as shit don’t have it.”
“No one got money, Runner, it all went to defend Ben.”
Runner was standing right on top of me now, trying to scare me the way he did when I was little. He was a small man, but still had a good six inches on me, and he breathed on me hard, his breath all warm, tinny beer.
“What happened, Runner?”
“Your mom, always keeping money to herself, never ever helping me, and I put years in on that farm, never seen a dime. Well, the chickens came home to roost. And your goddam mom brought it on herself. If she’d given me that money …”
“You were asking her for money that day?”
“All my life, I owed people money,” he said. “All my life, never able to get ahead, always owing. You got any money, Libby? Hell yeah you do, you wrote that book, didn’tcha? So you’re not really innocent either. Give me some money, Libby. Give your old man a little cash. I’ll buy me a liver on the black market, then I’ll testify to whatever you want. Whatever baby wants.” He poked me with two fingers in the middle of my chest, and I began slowly trying to back up.
“If you were any part of that night, that will be found out, Runner.”
“Well, nothing was found out back then, why should anything be found out now. You think the cops, the lawyers, everyone involved in that case, everyone who got famous from that case”—he pointed at me now, his lower lip jutting out—“You think they’re just gonna, what, ooops, our mistake, here you go, Benny boy, go ahead and enjoy your life. Nah. Whatever happened, he’s in there the rest of his life.”
“Not if you tell the truth.”
“You’re just like your mother, you know, so … cunt. Never go with the flow, always do things the hard way. If she’d just helped me once, in all those years, but she was such a bitch. I’m not saying she deserved to die …” he laughed, bit a hangnail … “but man, was she a hard woman. And she raised a goddam child molester. Sick fuck. Never, ever was that kid a man. Oh, and you tell Peggy she can suck my dick too.”
I turned to go at that, and realized I couldn’t get back up without Runner’s help. I faced him again.
“Little baby Ben, you really think he did those killings by his-self? Ben?”
“So who was there, Runner? What are you trying to say?”
“I’m saying Trey, he needed money, he was a bookie who needed to be paid.”
“By you?”
“I’m not going to cast inpersions right now, but he was a bookie. And that night he was with Ben. How do you think he got into that shit-ass house?”
“If that’s what you think happened, if you think Trey Teepano killed our family, you need to testify to that,” I interrupted. “If that’s the truth.”
“Wow, you know nothing.” He grabbed me by the arm. “You expect everything, want everything for free, one big handout, me risking my neck for … I told you to bring money. I told you.?
??
I slipped his grasp, grabbed the mini-fridge and began dragging it over below the ladder, the thing rattling loud enough to drown out Runner. I climbed up on it, and my fingers were still several inches short of the top of the tank.
“Give me fifty bucks and I’ll get you up,” Runner said, assessing me lazily. I stretched to grab the edge, up on my tiptoes, straining, and then I could feel the fridge tilt beneath me, and I fell to the ground fast, hitting my jaw, biting the side of my tongue, my eyes watering from the pain. Runner laughed. “Jesus, what a mess,” he said looking down at me. “You scared a’ me, little girl?”
I skittered behind the fridge, keeping my eyes on him as I looked for things to pile on it, climb out.
“I don’t kill girls,” he said, out of nowhere. “I wouldn’t kill little girls.” And then his eyes brightened up. “Hey, did they ever find Dierdre?”
I knew the name, knew what he was trying to say.
“Diondra?”
“Yeah, Di-on-dra!”
“What do you know about Diondra?”
“I always wondered if they killed her that night, you never saw her after that night.”
“Ben’s … girlfriend,” I prompted.
“Yeah, right, I guess. Last time I saw her, it was with Ben and Trey and I sort of hope she just run away. I like the idea of being a granddaddy sometimes.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Ben’d got her pregnant. Or that’s what he said. Made a big deal out of it, like it’s hard to do. So I saw her that night and then she never showed up again. I worried she might be dead. In’t that’s what they do, Devil worshipers—kill pregnant ladies and their babies? She sure did disappear.”
“And you didn’t say anything to the police?”
“Well, how’s that my business?”
Patty Day
JANUARY 2, 1985
9:12 P.M.
The house had gone silent for a few beats after Runner sped away, finding someone else to bully for money. Peggy Bannion, she was his girlfriend now, Patty’d heard—why doesn’t he go harass her? Probably already had.
One beat, two beats, three beats. Then the girls had turned into a mess of questions and worries and small hands everywhere on her, as if they were trying to get warm by a really weak campfire. Runner was scary this time. He’d always had a bit of menace to him, he’d always been temperful when he didn’t get his own way, but this was the closest he’d come to attacking her. For the most part. When they’d been married, there’d been tussles, little slaps upside the head, designed more to infuriate, to remind you of your helplessness, than to really hurt. Why is there no food in the fridge? Smack. Why is this place such a shithole? Smack. Where does all the money go, Patty? Smack, smack, smack. You listening to me, girl? What the hell you do with all the money? The man was obsessed with cash. Even in a rare fatherly moment, grudgingly playing Monopoly with the kids, he’d spend most of his time sneaking money out from the Bank, clutching the bright orange and purple bills in his lap. You calling me a cheat? Smack. You saying your old man’s a cheat, Ben? Smack, smack, smack. You think you’re smarter’n me? Smack.
Now nearly an hour after Runner had left, the girls were still huddled on her, near her, behind her, all over the sofa asking her what was wrong, what was wrong with Ben, why was Dad so mad. Why’d she make Dad mad? Libby sat the farthest from her, tucked in a bundle, sucking a finger, her worried brain stuck on the visit to the Cates’s house, the cop. She looked feverish, and when Patty reached out to touch her cheek, she flinched.
“It’s OK, Libby.”
“No it’s not,” she said, unblinking eyes fixed on Patty. “I want Ben back.”
“He’ll come back,” Patty said.
“How do you knoooooww?” Libby whimpered.
Debby hopped on that. “Do you know where he is? Why can’t we find him? Is he in trouble because of his hair?”
“I know why he’s in trouble,” Michelle said in her most wheedling voice. “Because of sex.”
Patty turned on her, furious at that simpering, gossipy rhythm. A hair-in-curlers, whisper-in-the-supermarket tone. People were using that tone to discuss her family all over Kinnakee right now. She grabbed Michelle by the arm, harder than she meant to.
“What do you mean, Michelle, what do you think you know?”
“Nothing, Mom, nothing,” Michelle blurted. “I was just saying, I don’t know.” She started to blubber, as Michelle did when she got in trouble and knew she’d done wrong.
“Ben is your brother, you don’t talk hateful about your brother. Not inside this family and definitely not out of it. That means, church, school, whatever.”
“But Mom …” started Michelle, still crying. “I don’t like Ben.”
“Don’t say that.”
“He’s bad, he does bad things, everyone at school knows …”
“Knows what, Michelle?” She felt her forehead start burning, wished Diane were there. “I don’t understand what you’re saying. Has Ben, are you saying Ben has done anything … bad … to you?”
She had promised herself she would never ask this question, that it was a betrayal of Ben to even think it. When Ben had been younger, seven or eight, he’d taken to sliding into her bed at night, and she’d wake up with him running fingers through her hair, cupping a breast. Innocent but disturbing moments in which she woke up feeling sensual, excited, and then darted from the bed, pulling robes and nightgowns around her like a horrified maiden. No, no, no you don’t touch Mom like that. But she never suspected—until now— that Ben might have done anything to his sisters. So she let the question hang, while Michelle got more and more agitated, pushing her big glasses up and down her pointy nose, crying.
“Michelle, I’m sorry I yelled at you. Ben is in trouble. Now, has he done anything to you I need to know about?” Her nerves were jagged: she had moments of pure panic, followed by moods of complete remoteness. She could feel the fear rising now, that propulsion, like taking off in an airplane.
“Done what to me?”
“Has he touched you in a strange way. A not brotherly way?” A free-floating gap now, like the engines shutting off.
“The only time he touches me is when he’s pushing me or pulling my hair or shoving me,” Michelle droned, her usual litany.
Relief, oh, relief.
“So what do people say about him at school?”
“He’s a freak, it’s embarrassing. No one likes him. I mean, just look in his room, Mom. He’s got all sorts of weird stuff.”
She was about to lecture Michelle on not going into Ben’s room without his permission, and wanted to slap herself. She thought about what Det. Collins had said, the organs of animals, in Tupper-ware containers. She imagined them. Some dried in tight, wooden balls, others fresh and assaulting when you opened the lid, let the smell hit you.
Patty stood up. “What’s in his room?”
She started walking down the hall, Ben’s goddang phone cord tripping her up, as always. She marched past his padlocked door, down the hall, turned the corner left, past the girls’ room and into her own. Socks and shoes and jeans lay everywhere, each day’s flotsam abandoned in piles.
She opened her bedside table and found an envelope, In Case of Emergency scrawled on the front in Diane’s elongated cursive that looked just like their mother’s. Inside was $520, cash. She had no idea when Diane had sneaked that in her room, and she was glad she hadn’t known, because Runner would have sensed her holding out. She lifted the money to her nose and smelled it. Then she tucked the envelope back inside and pulled out a bolt-cutter she’d bought weeks ago, just to have on hand, just if she ever needed to get into Ben’s lair. She’d been ashamed. She started back down the hallway, the girls’ room looking like a flophouse, beds against each wall except the doorway. She could picture the police wrinkling their noses— they all sleep in here?—and then the aroma of urine hit her and she realized one of them must have wet the bed last night. Or the night bef
ore?
She debated switching out the sheets right then, but made herself walk straight back to Ben’s, stood eye-level with an old Fender Guitar sticker he’d partly scraped off. She had a quick moment of nausea when she almost decided she couldn’t look. What if she found incriminating photos, sickening Polaroids?
Snap. The lock fell to the carpet. She yelled at the girls, peeking out from the living room like startled deer, to go watch TV. She had to say it three times—gowatchTVgowatchTVgowatchTV-—before Michelle finally went away.
Ben’s bed was unmade, rumpled under a pile of jackets and jeans and sweaters, but the rest of the room wasn’t a pit. His desk was piled with notebooks and cassette tapes and an outdated globe that had been Diane’s. Patty spun it, her finger leaving a mark in the dust near Rhodesia, then began flipping through the notebooks. They were covered in band logos: AC/DC with the lightning slash, Venom, Iron Maiden. On the notebook paper, Ben had drawn pentagrams and poems about murder and Satan.
The child is mine
But really not
Cuz Satan has a darker plot
Kill the baby and its mother
Then look for more
And kill another
She felt a ripple of illness, as if a vein running from her throat to her pelvis had gone sour. She riffled through more notebooks, and as she shook the last one, it flipped naturally to the middle. For pages and pages, Ben had drawn ballpoint pictures of vaginas with hands going into them, uteruses with creatures inside, grinning demonically, pregnant ladies sliced in two, their babies half falling out.
Patty sat down on Ben’s chair, feeling giddy, but she kept flipping until she came to a page with several girls’ names written in pancake-stack rows: Heather, Amanda, Brianne, Danielle, Nicole, and then over and over, in progressively embellished gothic cursive: Krissi, Chrissy, Krissi, Krissie, Krissi, Krissi Day, Krissi Day, Krissi Dee Day Krissi D. Day, Krissi D-Day!
Krissi Day inside a heart.