Defender

  “We’ll try that.”

  The blank mannequin face is more human with each step.

  “What are we going to do about the eyes?” I ask. “There’s no way to know.”

  “I guess we can make them brown. That’s a safe, neutral color.”

  For skin tone we choose a warm Latino brown, a shade darker than Stick.

  The hair is easy. Black, shoulder length, parted near the middle, and with a slight wave.

  Not too wide at the forehead, and a little weak at the chin.

  When we’re done building, I study the results. “Wow. It’s almost like a real person. Like it could be a photo if you didn’t get too close.”

  “I can tweak it some more to make it seem like an actual picture. Add a light source, give it a little shadowing and a gleam in the eyes.”

  Stick’s a wizard with photo fakery. He’s always sending me joke shots of himself Photoshopped into exotic places or historical events. He’ll splice himself into the background so he shows up as a time-traveling trespasser, a face in the crowd.

  “Too bad we can’t show her chipped front tooth.”

  “I’ll see what I can do overnight. A little homicide homework.”

  Sketching her out on the screen, it’s like we’re bringing her back to life.

  “You think this will work?” I ask.

  “Worth a shot. What else have we got?”

  I’ve been sunk so deep in what we’ve been doing that when I look around now, I’m surprised by the crowd in the café, the hum of music and conversations I tuned out. My coffee’s cold.

  “I’ll check for her on the missing-person sites,” Stick says.

  I stare out the window at the empty street. The road crew has quit for the day, leaving behind that block-long trench. I get a split-second flash of her grave, a hole in the ground where she’s buried unmarked and unknown.

  “She’s not really missing anymore. We know where she is.”

  “We found her body. Now we need to find her name.”

  THE BEAT WAKES me up. Feels like I fell asleep only minutes ago.

  What is that—the road crew already? It’s barely light out.

  Boom boom boom boom.

  I get out of bed and stagger down the hall to the kitchen for some orange juice. The booming comes with me. When I flick on the light, I wince at its brightness.

  Boom boom boom. Sounds like they’re bombing the neighborhood.

  I pour a glass of juice. Then I hear the front door open.

  Who’s up this early?

  Heavy footfalls coming down the hall. Must be Dad. What’s he up to now?

  Standing at the counter I don’t turn when he comes into the kitchen. Too tired. I drink just to be doing something. His steps get closer, then stop right behind me.

  Go away. I can’t deal with you.

  “Tyne.” His voice rumbles in my ear.

  I try not to shiver.

  “Need your help.” He’s hoarse, exhausted.

  “Can’t,” I mutter. “Too early.”

  His hand rests on my shoulder, making me flinch. I almost drop the glass. Breathing in, I smell something strange on him. Kind of metallic. Coppery. His touch freezes me. I keep my eyes on the counter.

  “We have to clean it up.” He sounds groggy, like he’s sleepwalking, sleep-talking.

  “Clean what?”

  Out of the corner of my eye I catch something falling from his hand past my shoulder. A drop of red that lands in my juice. It spreads in the orange, followed by another drip.

  Staring down, I see his boots behind me, surrounded by a puddle of crimson on the white tiles. I spin around. My glass shatters at my feet.

  He’s soaked in blood, head to toe.

  “No!” I shout. “What—what’s—? You hurt?”

  He shakes his head, throwing off a spray of blood. “It’s not mine.”

  He grabs my wrists. “We have to clean up.”

  He pulls me after him, my feet sliding across the wet floor as I fight to break free.

  “Don’t!” I beg. “Don’t make me.”

  The red runs off him like he’s been swimming in it. The smell is choking me, thick and gagging. I can taste it on my tongue.

  Reaching the front door, he throws it open. But there’s no hallway. Just the furnace room in the basement, still flooded, but now in blood. Blood pouring from cracks in the walls, holes in the ceiling.

  He yanks me forward till I’m knee-deep.

  “No! Please!” I shriek. “Let me go! You can’t make me!”

  Dad leads me to the pump, which is pounding away—boom boom boom.

  “Don’t let it stop!” he yells over the noise.

  Grabbing a bucket, he wades in. He goes deeper and deeper. Then he goes under.

  I open my mouth to scream. But the floor gives out, and I plunge into the flood. Gasping, I suck it in. Drowning.

  GAGGING, I ROLL over to the side of my bed.

  Dry-heaving till I can breathe again, I hang my head over the edge.

  I’m shaking like crazy.

  I sit up and swipe at my damp forehead—slick with sweat, not blood. Still, I can smell it, taste it.

  Fumbling around in the gray darkness, I find a half-full can of Coke on my desk and gulp the flat soda.

  My brain’s been going in circles all day, after the visit from Slimy.

  What were he and Dad arguing about? And what were they doing in the basement? Is Slimy involved in the killing? Is that who Dad’s covering up for? But why?

  Were they going down to visit the scene of the crime, and the hole in the wall? But why would they do that? The body’s gone. There’s nothing to see.

  Questions chasing questions.

  I go to the window and suck in the cool night air. The view from here is like a window on another world, looking at the rich new condos with their balcony gardens in the shiny towers rising up around us. The good life, so close I can see what I’m missing.

  Stick tried to give me some alternate explanations for why Slimy showed up today. Like he was just here to see the damage done by the road crews, all those cracks in the foundations and the broken pipes. And when Dad was saying he didn’t want any part of it, wouldn’t do it, maybe he was talking about the way Slimy always covers up problems, hides the damage so he won’t have to pay for repairs. Slimy’s notorious for hazardous conditions in his buildings. They’re death traps, disasters waiting to happen. Maybe this time he was trying to go too far, and Dad wouldn’t go along with his plans in case the whole place came crashing down.

  Who knows? Can’t be sure of anything.

  But whatever Dad’s done, as long as I’m keeping his secret, I’m in on it too.

  Like we’ve both got blood on our hands.

  GROWING UP, I never felt poor till I came here.

  Uncle Jake’s huge house is north of Toronto, in Richmond Hill—Rich Hill, I always called it. It has a pool and hot tub, a three-car garage, a garden and a backyard that’s more like a field. And five bathrooms! When Mom told me that, I asked her why so many. She just said, Because they can.

  Jake is in construction, building condos and subdivisions around the city.

  We come here now and then to visit, because my grandmother lives with Uncle Jake and Aunt Vicki. We is me, Mom and Squirrel. Dad’s a no-show. The whole family used to make the trip on Christmas, so all the Greers could be together. But the past few years Dad has found any excuse to keep us away—bad weather or a bad day at the Zoo, too busy or sick, whatever. The real reason is that Jake gets drunk and things get ugly. They argue. Now Dad keeps his distance from the drama.

  But Squirrel loves it here. It’s like Disneyland to him. There’s a gaming room with a TV so huge it wouldn’t fit in our apartment, the pool, dogs to play with, room to run, trees to climb.

  “I’m gonna bounce. Gonna bounce,” he keeps saying as we drive up to the house. Jake’s got a trampoline too.

  Mom pulls onto the long driveway. The place always makes
me feel like we’re showing up in our scratched pickup to clean the pool, mow the lawn or do some landscaping. As we park and get out, two dogs run toward us.

  Squirrel races across the lawn to meet the German shepherds. We watch as they lick and nuzzle him. They bark, he barks back. He thinks he’s one of them. The lost runt from their litter.

  Aunt Vicki waves to us from the front door.

  Squirrel yells, “Aunt V, can I go swimming?”

  “Too cold. We closed the pool for winter.”

  “Can I trampoline with the dogs?”

  She smiles. “If you can get them on there. Why don’t you go around back? It’s all set up.”

  She knows Squirrel is a human tornado, so she tries to quarantine him when we visit, letting him run wild in the yard but keeping him out of the pristine house. He races off with the pack now, and we follow.

  This place has a Disney feel for me too, but not the fun-and-rides kind. No, it’s more of a fairy-tale vibe. When I was little I thought Aunt Vicki was some kind of ice queen. With skin so pale you can see the faint blue veins at her temples, her winter-sky eyes and long platinum hair, she’s perfect for the part. She looks like ice cubes wouldn’t melt in her mouth. But Aunt Vicki’s not a mean queen, more of a sad and lonely one in her ice palace. The house is always cold, and it feels like a museum, with a lot of beautiful stuff on display but no soul living there. Vicki used to be an interior designer—that’s how she met my builder uncle—but that was years ago. Uncle Jake doesn’t like her working anymore. She’s so thin and delicate, and kind of spacey on her anxiety meds.

  I would have skipped this trip, but I wanted to visit Gran and ask her about Mad Dog.

  I spot her across the wide backyard in her flower garden, and go over. As I come up on Gran from behind, I find her kneeling in the dirt, like she’s digging, or burying something. But when I get closer I see she’s just examining some small purple flowers poking up from the earth.

  My shadow falls over her and she flinches. She glances up, startled.

  “Oh, Tyne, honey. Scared me.”

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to sneak up.”

  “I just get lost in the little things. Like these crocuses. Last blooms of the year.” The flowers show a sunburst splash of orange inside their violet petals, at their heart. “The rest of the garden’s gone into hiding for winter. But these brave souls aren’t scared of the frost.”

  She stands up, slow and stiff. Gran’s over six feet tall, just a few inches shorter than me. Seeing her is like looking in a time-machine mirror; we share the same sharp features, long nose, high cheekbones. Her green eyes are paler than mine, like a plant that’s been growing in the shade. And if you look closely, her left eye is damaged, the pupil wide and permanently dilated. Mad Dog did that to her. She’s got an old-lady slouch, from all the years of trying to fit in the world. But still, she looks like me, plus fifty years.

  She rubs her hands like they’re hurting, and bends to pick up her pruning shears.

  “These things make my fingers ache. Too small for me, like everything else. Ever get the feeling this world is made for munchkins?”

  “All the time.” I smile.

  “I used to have some oversized gardening tools that fit my hands. They were my mother’s. Never been able to find any like them. Left mine behind when I moved out of the Zoo.”

  “Well, we probably still have them down in the basement, in storage. You could come by.”

  She gives a little shake of her head. “No. Can’t go back there.”

  We wander through her hibernating garden.

  “Not much to look at now,” she says. “But do you want to see something secret?”

  “Sure.” I’m here for secrets.

  Crunching through dead leaves, she leads me over to the gardening shed, which sits tucked away in the shade of an old oak tree. I’m expecting tools and supplies inside. But when Gran opens it up, it’s like a door to summer.

  Inside it’s ten degrees warmer, and brighter than the clear winter day.

  “My getaway garden,” Gran says. “My escape from the world, from weather and winter.”

  Sunlamp bulbs are strung up from the ceiling, shining rich yellow light on the green oasis. Rows of potted plants line the walls. With everything blooming, hidden away in this alternate floral universe, it smells glorious.

  “Wow!” I say.

  “Jake built it for me. Always been good with his hands.”

  Uncle Jake is a natural at construction. The other half of his job is demolition: he tears old places down to make way for the new. A maker and a breaker, he likes to say. Jake’s good with his hands, but he’s bad with them too.

  One of the big fights between the brothers was over what Jake did with those hands.

  It’s not stuff I was supposed to know, but I overheard it years back by being in the basement of the house at the right time.

  Dad, Jake and Gran were talking about what was wrong with Vicki. She kept getting hurt, and not by accident. This time it was a broken wrist.

  “I didn’t mean it,” Jake was saying. “She’s just a fragile thing, like she’s made of eggshells.”

  “That’s garbage,” Dad said. “Maybe you believe your lies, but we don’t. Before, you claimed she was clumsy, or she bruised easy. You think Mom can’t see the signs, after what she went through?”

  “You saying I’m like him, the old Mad Dog? Telling me how to treat my wife?”

  Things got heated, louder and angrier, till Gran’s soft voice broke in.

  “Stop it, Jake. Please. For me, stop.”

  They went quiet then. “Sorry, Mom. It’s only…I was drinking. Things got out of control.”

  “It can’t happen again, Son. I mean it. I’ll be here for you, and for her. But I’ll be watching.”

  And I guess she has been, ever since. Because Vicki doesn’t get injured anymore. But you don’t have to hit to hurt someone.

  Another dirty family secret, but not the one I want from Gran today.

  “This is beautiful,” I say, basking in the heat of the sunlamps.

  “And you can get a tan from the ultraviolet light.”

  Gran gives me the tour, showing off a rainbow of tulips, irises and sunflowers, before we come to the rosebushes in the back. She stops by one dark bush that looks more dead than alive.

  “This one I’ve had for years, but I’ve never been able to get it to bloom.” The bush is wrapped in a dense tangle of vines and thorns, like it’s bound up in barbed wire.

  “Looks vicious.”

  “It’s called a creeper rose. Notoriously difficult to grow. They’re one of the darkest roses, a purple so deep it’s near black. Some people find them ugly, because the petals are kind of ragged, with frayed edges. They never bloom for me. The buds just die on the vine, unopened. But I split one open once, just to see. It had a black heart.”

  She rolls a bud between her fingers, giving me a dark grin.

  “Didn’t you have a roof garden back at the Zoo?”

  “For a while,” she says, and sighs. “I’d sneak up there whenever I could. Long as it lasted.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  “Oh. Douglas ended up throwing the pots and planters off the roof. Nearly threw me off too.” Her grin turns into a pained smile. “It rained roses that night.”

  There’s so much I want to ask her but can’t. She’s been through enough hell. How do I ask her if her husband was capable of murder?

  “I still keep him around,” Gran says, snipping off a wilted bud. “His ashes, I mean.”

  A cold draft blows through the open door, breathing on the back of my neck.

  “Why would you hang on to those?”

  “To be sure.”

  “Sure of what?”

  “That he’s nothing but dust. That he’s not coming back.” She runs her thumb lightly over a thorn on a creeper vine. “There must be something wrong with me, that I’m drawn to such nasty things.”

  I’m su
rprised she’s telling me this. She never talks about him. But maybe she feels safe here in her secret garden and is letting her guard down.

  I remember what Uncle Jake said to Dad, the drunken remark about how Dad beat his old man in the end without ever throwing a punch, never even fighting back. How Dad had the last laugh. What did that mean? Since Gran’s opening up a little, I ask.

  “How did he die?”

  That freezes her for a long moment, as if she’s holding her breath. I feel like I’m on the edge of something. Just when it seems like she’s going to speak, the quiet is broken by the roar of a car.

  We turn to look out the shed door, back to the house, and I spot Uncle Jake’s supercharged red Mustang pulling up the driveway. The engine gets the dogs barking. I glance back at Gran.

  “Sorry, honey,” she says. “We don’t talk about that. Better left forgotten.”

  What a family. We don’t talk about a lot of things.

  She takes my arm and closes up the shed. Gran’s guard is back up, and as we wander over to the house she chats about my basketball season.

  By the time we get there, Jake’s showing Squirrel a dog trick, where you make the dogs sit still while you balance a biscuit on top of their nose. And they’re not allowed to eat it till you give the command.

  “Stay!” Jake says, kneeling as he positions the treats on the dogs’ muzzles. Eyes locked on the food, the shepherds go cross-eyed. “See, Squirrel, you’ve got to show them you’re top dog. You’re the alpha. Leader of the pack.”

  Jake keeps them locked in place, vibrating in anticipation for a cruel half minute before he says, “Go!”

  And the dogs snap the treats out of the air.

  “Do it again! Again!”

  “Later, kid,” Jake tells him. “Don’t want to fatten them up. What kind of name is Squirrel, anyway? Dogs eat squirrels. Everything eats squirrels. I even ate one on a hunting trip.”

  He grabs my brother’s arm and goes to take a bite, making him squeal.

  Jake’s nothing like my dad. Short and handsome, with black wavy hair and a smile with too many teeth. Green eyes, not emerald like mine, or faded like Gran’s; his are the color of money. Where Dad is the silent type, his big brother is the life of the party.