PART FOUR

1

AMY

July 1983

 

Everything was different that summer. Before, whenever Mom wanted Wavy and Donal to come visit, she would call Aunt Val, and Kellen would deliver them. That summer, it was Aunt Val who called and said, “Why don’t Wavy and Donal come see you for a few weeks?” Mom insisted that she would pick them up, and I went with her.

 

After we got off the highway, we drove along narrow gravel roads, following directions Val had given Mom. When we got there, Wavy and Donal were alone in an old farmhouse surrounded by hayfields.

 

“Where’s your mother?” Mom asked.

 

Wavy shrugged.

 

“We’re supposed to tell you that she had to go to the doctor,” Donal said.

 

“Well, she knows I’m picking you up today, right?”

 

Wavy pointed at the grocery bags by the kitchen door. Their luggage. She seemed so annoyed that I wished I had stayed home. In the car, Wavy dug in her book bag and pulled out a package of Magic Markers. Choosing a bright turquoise one, she leaned across the seat toward me. Just below the hem of my shorts, she started drawing what would become an elaborate peacock over the course of the drive home. I knew my mother would screech about even a fake tattoo that covered my whole thigh, but I didn’t stop Wavy. Her hair tickled where it brushed against me, and it smelled like gunpowder.

 

That was what I loved about her. You never knew what she would do.

 

The first thing she did was ruin Leslie’s summer. Wavy didn’t even arrive until after the Fourth of July, but the ruining was retroactive.

 

Leslie had a crush on a lifeguard at the city pool. Miss Goody-Goody even broke the rules and drove by his house when we were supposed to go to the library. Then she ditched her one-piece swimsuit and bought a bikini so small she had to shave off most of her pubic hair. The lifeguard was a year older and more popular than Leslie, but by July, I started to think she had a chance with him. On his breaks, he let her climb up the chair ladder to bring him a can of pop.

 

Then Wavy came. Wavy, with her eyes that weren’t any particular color except dark. Even after Mom told her to take it off, she wore eye shadow that made them look smoky. She didn’t like to swim with all the people, so she sat on a lawn chair, wearing a cowboy hat, a wispy skirt, her motorcycle boots, and a tight white T-shirt with no bra. A year before it would have been a costume for a weird little girl, but that summer it seemed strangely sophisticated. Wavy relaxed in the chair and crossed her legs, swinging her foot back and forth.

 

When Leslie’s lifeguard went on break, he climbed down and bought two cans of pop. He walked over to where she was tanning in her skimpy bikini, looked past her at Wavy and said, “Who’s your friend?”

 

“She’s my cousin,” Leslie said.

 

“What’s her name?”

 

“Why don’t you ask her?”

 

Leslie should have said, “She’s only thirteen.” That might have worked to shut him down. What didn’t work was him asking Wavy her name, because she just shook her head. A year before, it might have passed for shyness. That summer it was an alluring mystery.

 

“Oh, come on. You won’t even tell me your name?”

 

Wavy looked through him.

 

“You want a coke?” He held out the can to her. She took it and rolled its cool, sweating surface over her arms and across the back of her neck. Then she set the can down next to her chair. Done with his offering. Done with him.

 

He sat on the deck chair next to hers and for the rest of his break, he sweet-talked her. In response, he got a big, fat nothing.

 

All he managed to do was break Leslie’s heart.

 

He wasn’t Wavy’s only suitor, either. The way she strolled up and down, her skirt swishing around the tops of her boots, her narrow hips jutting out, it was like throwing chum into a pool of sharks. The old guys were the worst. Guys who had to have been twenty-five or thirty. They were more persistent, too, offering her cigarettes and beers.

 

“She can talk, right?” Leslie’s lifeguard asked me one day.

 

“If she wants.”

 

“How do I make her want to talk to me?”

 

By then, I knew the answer: “You need to be Jesse Joe Kellen.” Besides being one of the few people she would talk to, Kellen was one thing Wavy would talk about.

 

Leslie’s friend Jana came over to our house with this book, Forever. She got it at summer camp and she said, “Oh my god, you have to read it.”

 

We read it. Jana’s sister Angela even read the dirtiest parts out loud to make us laugh. Angela was pretty, with gray eyes and a dimple in her chin. She had a boyfriend, but I don’t think she’d done anything but hold his hand. As for me, I thought, I’m never doing that with a boy. Never.

 

Wavy found the book worth three words: “Not like that.”

 

“Oh, you think you know so much. I bet you’ve never even kissed a boy,” Leslie said.

 

Wavy gave us the smoldering look that had stolen Leslie’s lifeguard and said, “A man.”

 

“What man?” Angela said.

 

“Kellen.”

 

“You really kissed him? Like a real French kiss with your tongue?” Jana said.

 

“More.”

 

“How much more?”

 

Wavy flicked her finger against the Judy Blume book.

 

“Oh, bull. You’re lying,” Leslie said. “I wish you guys could see him. He’s huge.”

 

Wavy grabbed at her crotch like a guy and gave Leslie a nasty smile.

 

“He’s so disgusting. Seriously, he’s fat and he has all these gross tattoos.”

 

Jana and Angela weren’t listening to Leslie. They were staring at Wavy.

 

“So, you really touched him?” Jana said. “You touched his—his penis? What was it like?”

 

“Hot. Hard. Desperate.”

 

Leslie scowled, but Jana, Angela, and I broke up laughing. The dirty-minded Wavy was fun, but I assumed most of it was an act to upset Leslie. Ken in a dress.

 

“Do you really go all the way with him?” Angela said.

 

Wavy nodded, but Leslie said, “No, she doesn’t!”

 

I didn’t know what to believe. I was older than Wavy, but something had happened to her in the last year. She seemed a lot more grown up than I felt. She seemed more like Aunt Val, and not just her clothes, but the way she held her head, the way she walked.

 

“She’s not even fourteen. She doesn’t either go all the way,” Leslie said.

 

Wavy shrugged and flashed her ring at us. I’d thought it was costume jewelry, but that day she let us look at it up close, so we could see it was a real ring. Not some gumball prize that would turn your finger green.

 

“You wouldn’t! He’s so grody,” Leslie said.

 

Anyone else might have been offended, but Wavy wasn’t. She opened her backpack and took out a photo album. In the front were pictures of Aunt Val and Donal. After that were pictures of Kellen. Playing cards with some men. Holding Donal up to feed a giraffe. Standing next to Wavy, her in a pretty green dress. The last one showed him astride a motorcycle on a sunny day with his shirt off, tattoos all over. He smiled, his gold tooth glinting.

 

Jana was fascinated. She came back the next day and, instead of her younger sister, she brought a friend of hers. Someone who was a lot more popular than Leslie. That was Leslie’s consolation prize for losing the lifeguard.

 

Jana and her friend grilled Wavy about everything, which was funny since she hardly said more than a word at a time. Sometimes she didn’t even need a word, like when she used me to demonstrate some sexual position that seemed completely ridiculous when I was fifteen. I couldn’t imagine two grown-ups doing that with straight faces, and when I started giggling, Wavy collapsed on top of me, laughing.

 

They even got Donal involved. Luring him upstairs with cookies, Jana said, “Is your sister really getting married?”

 

“Kellen loves her. When we go swimming buck naked, he kisses her and lets her rub her boobies on him. It’s gross. He says, ‘Oh, Wavy.’”

 

Donal tried to make his voice deep and Wavy, who’d been drawing a dinosaur tattoo on his shoulder, flicked him on the back of the head.

 

“You go skinny-dipping with him?” Jana said.

 

That raised Wavy even higher in Jana’s eyes, but it reminded Leslie of her swimming pool tragedy. It left me with divided loyalties. I loved Wavy, but Leslie was my sister. I was sad and relieved when the two weeks were up. Maybe Leslie could get her lifeguard back, if she still wanted him.

 

Mom had planned the visit the way she wanted, but there was confusion about when Wavy was going back. Wavy was furious when she found out she wasn’t going home until after her birthday. Grabbing the calendar off the kitchen wall, she threw it down on the table and started counting off the days to indicate two weeks.

 

“Wavy, we’re going back on the twentieth. Your mother and I agreed.”

 

“You agreed. Not me,” Wavy said.

 

“I thought you’d like to spend your birthday with us.”

 

Wavy tapped her finger over the fourteen days again and she had a scary look in her eyes. A look that said she would do what she wanted.

 

“Goddamn it,” Dad yelled from the den, where he was probably tired of listening to Wavy’s mime-show argument. “Why not take her back tomorrow?”

 

“Because I don’t take orders from her.”

 

“Take her back tonight for all I care. Christ. I’m trying to work.”

 

Wavy slammed her hand on the table to bring Mom’s attention back to her.

 

“Don’t you act that way toward me, young lady.”

 

For a minute, she and Mom glared at each other. Then Wavy walked over and picked up the phone. I’d never seen her use one before, but she started dialing.

 

“Who are you calling?” Mom said.

 

“Kellen.”

 

“I don’t think so. You’re a guest here and you’ll go back when I say so.”

 

Mom came around the table and disconnected the call. From the look on Wavy’s face, I expected violence, but she won the argument with four words: “Guest? More like prisoner.”

 

In the morning, Mom packed us all in the car, even Leslie, who whined about it.

 

“Why do I have to go?” she said.

 

“We’re all going to drive up and spend Wavy’s birthday with your Aunt Val. Won’t that be nice? Happy birthday, Wavy.” Mom was so mad she looked like flames were going to shoot off her head.

 

“Why doesn’t Dad have to go?” Leslie said.

 

“Your father has to work. Do you have a job? No. You spent all summer at the pool, flirting with lifeguards. So shut up!”

 

Wavy and Donal didn’t seem fazed by Mom yelling, which made me wonder what they were used to, that he could go on happily playing with his cars in the front seat, while Mom blew a gasket.

 

The whipped cream on Mom’s shit sundae was that Wavy tricked her.

 

As we drove through Powell on our way to the farm, Wavy leaned forward and pointed for a turn.

 

“That’s not the way to the house, is it?” Mom said.

 

Wavy pointed for the turn again. Mom took it and drove down the street until Wavy said, “Here.”

 

“Cutcheon’s Small Engine? What’s that?”

 

“That’s where Kellen works.” Donal started to open his door, but Wavy stopped him.

 

“Now, look,” Mom said. “I’m dropping both of you off at home. I’m not leaving you here.”

 

Wavy slid her hand down my arm and was out of the car before Mom could drive off.

 

“Wavy!” Mom shouted as the door slammed. She scowled as Wavy walked toward the garage, but what could she do? Run after Wavy and force her into the car? After a minute, she drove off.

 

The cherry on Mom’s shit sundae was that when we got to the farmhouse, nobody was there. The back door was unlocked and dirty dishes were piled in the sink. Beer bottles and a full ashtray sat on the coffee table in the living room, next to a bunch of burned pieces of tin foil.

 

“It’s okay,” Donal said, when he saw the look on Mom’s face. “You can take me down to the ranch. That’s where I sleep anyway.”

 

“You don’t sleep up here?”

 

Donal gave Wavy’s it-is-what-it-is shrug.

 

The ranch looked like an armed compound you might see on the news. White supremacists or a religious cult. Past the gate stood two metal garages, and off in the trees a big metal barn. Clustered up by the road were four trailers, one with a deck on the front. Sitting on the deck, smoking, was a life-sized Barbie doll.

 

Donal jumped out of the car and ran to hug her. Then he took off toward the garages. The Barbie doll came down the porch, cigarette in her hand and said, “Hey, are you Donal’s auntie? And his cousins? I’m Sandy.”

 

We waited for an explanation of who Sandy was but she didn’t offer one.

 

“Do you want to come in for a drink or something?”

 

“Do you know where Valerie is?” Mom said.

 

Sandy was the prettiest sad woman I’d ever seen, and for a second, she frowned, more sad than pretty. “No, but she’ll be back later if you want to wait.”

 

“It’s okay to leave Donal here, with you?”

 

“Sure, hon. I’ll get him a snack here in a while. Did Wavy come back with you?”

 

Mom didn’t answer, so I said, “She’s at Kellen’s.”

 

Sandy was pretty again, smiling.

 

“Oh, he’ll be glad to see her. They’re so sweet to each other. Yesterday he took a big cooler full of ice and drove over to Garringer. They have a Baskin Robbins there, and he bought her a scoop of every flavor of ice cream they have. You know, for her birthday. Isn’t that the sweetest thing? Sure you don’t wanna stop for a drink? Donal could show you his little motorbike. He’s so cute on it.”

 

“No,” Mom said. She didn’t even wait to say good-bye to Donal.

 

An hour into the drive home Mom turned down the radio we’d turned up to avoid talking, and said, “How do you think Wavy seemed?”

 

My sister glared. Like the girl who stole her lifeguard, that’s how she seemed to Leslie.

 

“Happy,” I said.

 

“She didn’t seem hostile to you?”

 

“Only because you wanted her to stay for her birthday.”

 

“Oh, good grief. Would it be so terrible to spend her birthday with us?”

 

“She wanted to spend her birthday with Kellen. He bought her a lot of ice cream.” I laughed at the thought of her eating thirty-one scoops of ice cream, but nobody else did.

 

“I thought she’d outgrow having a crush on him. Some big, dumb motorcycle hooligan. And that filthy tattoo on his arm. I mean, do you girls think he’s cute?”

 

“Gag me with a spoon,” Leslie said.

 

I did a Wavy shrug, because I didn’t even think Leslie’s lifeguard was cute. I hadn’t yet seen a boy I thought was worth having a crush on.

 

“Well, she’s always been different,” Mom said.

 

“I bet she’s pregnant by the end of the school year,” Leslie said.

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

I wanted to say, “It means Leslie is a bitch,” but I kept my mouth shut.

 

“You know she’s having sex with Kellen,” Leslie said.

 

“I most certainly do not know that.” Mom tapped the brakes and looked at Leslie, who stared straight ahead.

 

“Well, she is having sex with him. Now you know.”

 

“You don’t know that,” I said. I still thought it was one of Wavy’s weird games.

 

“She said she went all the way with him,” Leslie said.

 

“Yeah, but—”

 

Mom braked hard and pulled over to the shoulder.

 

“What do you mean she said she went all the way with him?”

 

Leslie sighed like she was bored. “We asked her about her wedding ring, and Jana said, ‘Do you go all the way with him?’ and Wavy said, ‘Yes.’”

 

“What wedding ring?” Mom’s hands shook as she put the car in park.

 

“That ring she was wearing with the diamond.” Leslie smirked.

 

“Oh my God.” Mom said it about ten times and then she said, “I can’t believe you two have been keeping this a secret. Shame on you. Shame on you both. Tell me everything. Right now.”

 

We told her everything. No, not everything. Neither of us was brave enough to say, “Hot. Hard. Desperate.”

 

Mom put the car in drive and turned around. We were going back.

 

I felt like a traitor and I was glad the lifeguard had ditched Leslie. She deserved to lose her boyfriend for ratting Wavy out like that.

 

On the drive, Mom talked to herself, saying, “Oh, God, Val, how could you let this happen? You let this guy come around and you didn’t ever think there was something funny going on? It didn’t seem right to me. The way he touched her.”

 

I didn’t say it to my mother, but that was what struck me: Wavy let Kellen touch her.

 

*   *   *

 

Mom didn’t go back to the garage. Either she didn’t remember how to get there or she wasn’t ready to confront Wavy. At the farmhouse, there was a car in the driveway.

 

“Thank God, she’s home,” Mom said. She parked and opened her door, but Leslie and I stayed put. “Come on, you two. You’re involved in this.”

 

“Mom!” Leslie’s desire for revenge had gone to cold fear. Mom was going to make us tell Aunt Val everything.

 

I trudged up the stairs behind Leslie and Mom, my stomach in knots. The door stood open a couple inches. Mom knocked on the frame and called, “Val? Val? It’s Brenda.”

 

Nobody answered, so Mom pushed the door all the way open.

 

Beyond a certain amount of blood, your brain freezes up, like there’s a limit to how much blood it can understand. There was more than that in the kitchen. Past Mom’s shoulder, I saw a body lying in the doorway to the hall. A man in jeans and cowboy boots lay facedown in a puddle of blood. More blood was splattered on the wall and bathroom door.

 

Leslie bent over and vomited on her own shoes. That’s when I saw the woman crumpled on her side on the kitchen floor, with a chair toppled next to her. I knew Aunt Val from her long, brown hair soaked in blood.

 

I don’t know what other people would have done in that situation, but my mother walked around the table, picked up the phone and dialed 911. While she was waiting to be connected, she said, “Get your sister a cold, wet washcloth.”

 

That was Mom’s solution when someone vomited. I was supposed to step over my aunt’s body, go into the bathroom, stepping over another dead body on the way, and get Leslie a cold, wet washcloth. It wasn’t going to happen. Mom, she was on autopilot, trying to follow some inner guidelines for What to Do in a Crisis.

 

“Yes, my name is Brenda Newling and I need to report an emergency. My sister’s been—I think she’s been shot.” Mom started off all business, but by the end her voice was shaky.

 

While the 911 operator talked, Mom picked up a dish towel and turned on the kitchen faucet.

 

“It’s off County Road 7. Near Powell. I don’t know. I don’t know the name of the road.”

 

All we had were a series of landmarks and turns written on the back of an envelope. Maybe the road didn’t even have a name. Mom frowned, her lip trembling, as she wrung out the towel. She held it out to me, but I was paralyzed.

 

“God, I don’t know! It’s Valerie and Liam Quinn’s house. You turn off the highway after the tractor dealership and take the left. There’s a silo there with a tree growing in it. I think it’s four miles and—coming from Powell. What do you mean is it Belton side or Powell side? I don’t know what county it’s in! Amy, please.”

 

She was waiting for me to take the towel. I made myself move, following the same route she had taken, around the table on the opposite side of Aunt Val. The towel felt good in my hand. Fresh. Cool. Not hot and sticky like the blood that was attracting flies.

 

A few drops of water dripped off the towel, and Mom and I watched them fall to the floor. That’s why we saw it at the same time: a footprint in blood. A small one, and then another, a trail of them going toward the back door.

 

“Oh God, Donal.”

 

Mom laid the phone on the counter and followed the footprints out the door. In the dirt at the foot of the porch steps, there were no more prints. The blood had dried or soaked into the ground. Mom looked toward the road, the barn, the meadow.

 

“Wavy,” I said, because at that moment, I realized her mother was dead.

 

“Get in the car,” Mom said.

 

Leslie and I stared at her.

 

“Now! We have to tell someone who can help. Someone who can tell the police where this is.”

 

Mom drove down to the ranch without making us put on our seat belts. As we pulled up in front of the trailer, Sandy came down the steps. Her tanned legs seemed a mile long below her white shorts. She smiled at us. Beautiful. Something to look at that wasn’t blood.

 

“Hey, girls.”

 

“Where’s Donal?” Mom opened the car door and got out.

 

“Oh, he went up the hill to see Val. She’s up there now, if you want to see her.”


2

BUTCH


I don’t know why, but Liam had a taste for crazy women and dumb women. My ex-wife wasn’t a beauty queen, but at least she had half a brain in her head. Not Sandy. She came into the lab at full tilt, running in high heels with her tits bouncing, never even looked to see if it was safe.


“It’s Val. There’s a problem,” she said.


That wasn’t news. All Val did was cause problems.


“You’re going to have to take care of it, Sandy. We’re busy down here. Where’s Liam?”


“He took the bike out. It’s serious, Butch. You have to come.”


I left Vic and Scott to cook, and followed Sandy out.


When I got to Sandy’s trailer, there was a woman on the porch. An older, straightlaced version of Val with housewife hair and a pink sundress showing off her chubby arms. Val’s sister, Brenda. She looked shaky and the two girls sitting in the car looked freaked out.


I figured it was some bullshit problem, because people like Brenda get upset easy. Maybe they’d gone up to the house and caught Val and Liam in one of their fighting and fucking moods. Maybe Val was high. Maybe Liam had given her a taste of the back of his hand. If she’d been my wife, I would’ve done it more often.


“Hey, Brenda. We met once before. I’m Butch.” I held out my hand but Brenda just stared at it.


“Val and Liam are dead. I think they’ve been murdered.”


I pulled my hand back, I was that shocked. Sandy started screaming.


“Liam! You didn’t say Liam! You didn’t say! Oh my god! Liam!”


“Shut up, Sandy. Calm down and let me think.” I wasn’t some wet-behind-the-ears idiot, and the first thing I thought about was the lab.


“What happened?” I said.


“I don’t know. I think they’ve been shot. And Donal’s missing. I didn’t know the address to tell Nine-One-One.”


I could see if I didn’t play things right, I was going to have a bunch of ruined product and the cops sniffing around. What I needed was help. Kellen could say he didn’t have the stomach for dirty work, but you could’ve fooled me. We once went to take care of some former business associates of Liam’s who backstabbed him. Kellen wouldn’t pull the trigger, but he didn’t blink when I did. That’s what the situation called for. Somebody who wouldn’t blink.


I left Brenda and Sandy on the porch and went into the trailer. I called the shop and let it ring a dozen times. Nobody answered at Kellen’s house, either, and when I tried the shop again, I got a busy signal.


Brenda came in and said, “Did you give them the address?” She thought I’d called the cops.


“Yeah, they’re on their way. Look, we’re gonna take care of this, okay. Your girls are pretty upset, I bet.”


She nodded and the first tear snuck out.


“I know, Brenda. I’m sorry. This has got to be so hard for you. Here’s what we’re gonna do. Sandy, get in here.”


Looking like a raccoon with her makeup running all over the place, Sandy hiccupped and said, “Butch—he—he didn’t even—”


“Sandy, you have to pull yourself together. We’ve got things to do. I’m gonna take Val’s sister and her girls into town. You go down to the barn, and tell Scott to wrap things up down there. Do you understand? And tell Lance to go up to the farmhouse. To meet the cops.”


“What about Donal?” Brenda said.


“Don’t worry. I haven’t forgotten about him. Sandy, you and Dee go up in the meadow. When you find him, bring him into town to Kellen’s.”


“I should go with them,” Brenda said.


“No. I don’t want you getting lost up there and you’ve got your girls to take care of. So you come into town with me.” Last thing I needed was her wandering around out there, while I tried to get the lab cleaned up. Wherever Donal was, he knew how to get home.


“Why don’t I drive you over in your car, Brenda? Is that okay?” I said.


That way, I was in charge, and it left the guys any vehicles they needed to haul stuff away. My plan was to go by the garage and get a key to Kellen’s house. They’d be out of the way there, because I knew Kellen didn’t keep any product at his house.


After we got Brenda and the girls settled, Kellen could come up to the ranch and help me figure out what to do. We’d have to call the cops, but not until we cleaned up and had a story in place.


3

AMY


Kellen’s garage was the same as any other run-down mechanic shop you see in little towns. Two garage bays, both doors standing open. Lawnmowers and motorcycles in various states of disassembly. On the back wall were a window and a door. Parked there was what I knew had to be Kellen’s motorcycle. The fenders were chromed and all of it was covered in stars.


“I bet he’s in the office,” Butch said, but when he pushed the door open, he said, “What the fuck?”


Through the open door I saw what everyone else saw, I suppose. Wavy on the desk, leaning back on her hands, completely naked, resting her bare feet on Kellen’s legs. He was in the desk chair, his shirt off, his pants open. I didn’t notice any blood, although later that was all anyone talked about—the blood on his desk blotter. Small amounts of blood are almost invisible when you have a puddle of blood burned on your retinas like a sunspot.


I saw what everyone else saw, except that at the moment the door swung open, I saw Wavy smiling before her eyes went wide.


Kellen stood up, and as he fastened his fly, Butch lunged at him and swung. Butch punched him in the face and all Kellen did was say, “Goddamn, Butch, let her get dressed before you come in here and try to kick my ass.”


He didn’t look like he’d been punched until he saw Mom, Leslie, and me.


“You son of a bitch,” Mom said. “How long have you been doing this? How long?”


“Okay, ma’am, I know—I know how it looks.” Kellen put his hands up, like he was surrendering, or preparing for Mom to fall on him like a hungry lioness. “But I love her. We’re gonna get married.”


Kellen picked up a piece of paper from his desk and held it out to her. She took it and glared down at it, her face getting redder.


“Val and Liam know, okay? I bought her a ring and Liam signed the paperwork. He signed it today and the judge says—”


“Liam can’t give you permission to marry her anymore!” Mom twisted and tore at the paper until it was just a pile of scraps at her feet.


Then I understood the dead man in the hallway of the farmhouse was Uncle Liam.


While all this was going on, Wavy got dressed, pulling up her panties and tugging on her T-shirt and skirt. As she stomped into her boots, Mom stepped around Butch and reached for the phone that was lying off the hook on the filing cabinet. As she did, she looked down at the desk blotter and said, “You’re going to burn for this, you fucking bastard.” I’d never heard her use the F-word before.


Mom put the receiver to her ear and, for the second time that day, dialed 911. When the operator answered, she said, “I want to report a rape.”


“Wait, Mrs. Newling. Just wait.” Butch, not Kellen, said that.


“What’s the address here?” Mom said.


Sitting back in the desk chair, with a hand to his head, Kellen gave my mother the address and she repeated it to the operator.


“My name is Brenda Newling. It’s my niece. Yes, yes, I did make that earlier call. I had to leave there. I—no, this is not a prank. I was there and they were—” Mom’s voice got louder and louder until she was silent for a moment. “They’re there? You have someone at the house?”


Until then, Butch had been shaking his head, but he came around the desk and jerked the phone away.


“You dumb cunt. You called the cops out to the house? You called the cops?” he said.


“Valerie and Liam are dead! Somebody shot them! Yes, I called the police!”


“Fuck! Fuck!” Butch tossed the phone on the desk and ran out through the garage. A moment later we heard the car start and drive away. He’d left us there.


“Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry,” Kellen said.


Mom looked at Wavy and realized what she’d done: blurted it out with no warning. I’m calling the cops on your fiancé, and by the way, your parents are dead. Wavy started trembling. Kellen put his hands on her hips and walked her back until she was sitting on his lap. Wrapping one arm around her shoulders, he tucked her head under his chin. He kissed her hair and said, “I’m here, Wavy. I’m here.”


It seemed like that would be the end of it. Mom would stop yelling and saying awful things, and Kellen would take care of Wavy. He obviously knew how.


They were still sitting like that five minutes later when a police car pulled up. Mom went outside and, when she came back, two sheriff’s deputies were with her.


“Why don’t you girls step outside?” the younger deputy said, while the older one went into the office.


“Come on, Junior,” he said. “You’re gonna have to come with us.”


“Give us a couple minutes, okay?” Kellen said.


“No, you need to let go of her and stand up.”


“Jesus, Delbert, she just found out her mother’s dead. Give us two goddamn minutes.”


The deputy stepped back and we waited. Kellen set Wavy up on the edge of the desk and for a while they hugged each other. She whispered in his ear, and then she kissed him. That didn’t help the situation with the deputies, because it was a movie kiss, like when the hero and heroine are saying good-bye, and maybe they’re never going to see each other again.


The older deputy said, “That’s enough of that. You need to step back and put your hands on your head, Junior.”


Before he did it, Kellen reached into his pockets and tossed a handful of things on the desk: keys, bolts, a pocket knife, and loose coins that rattled across the desk and tumbled to the floor. He unhooked his wallet and tossed it on the desk, too. I could tell he’d done it before, from the way he turned around and laced his hands on the back of his head. The deputy cuffed him, while Wavy sat on the desk, watching.


The deputy turned to Mom and said, “Normally, we’d get another patrol car to take her to the hospital, but things are a little crazy today. We’ve got a real situation up at the Quinn place.”


“I know. This is their daughter. Have they found her brother yet?”


“Holy crap, ma’am. That’s the Quinn girl?” The deputy blinked. “I don’t know. I didn’t know he was missing.”


“I told Nine-One-One.”


“Well, a whole lot’s happened since then, so I’d better radio the sheriff and let him know.”


“Delbert!” The younger deputy shouted from the far garage bay. “There’s blood over here. A lot of it.”


“Ma’am, I need you to get these girls out of here. If you could take them out to the drive so I can secure this place.”


Mom gathered Leslie and me around her, but when she tried to bring Wavy into our huddle, Wavy refused. She put her arms around Kellen, where he stood next to the desk. Mom grabbed the back of Wavy’s T-shirt and tried to pull her away.


“Miss Quinn, you need to step outside,” the deputy said. Wavy didn’t move.


“Wavy, it’s okay.” Kellen couldn’t put his arms around her, but he leaned down and kissed her. “Go outside with your aunt. I love you. It’s gonna be okay, sweetheart.”


She looked up at him and shook her head, but she let Mom lead her away. Even though Wavy wasn’t fighting anymore, Mom kept her shirt clutched in one fist as we walked out through the garage. As we passed the other deputy, we saw what he was looking at. There were a dozen quarter-sized drops of blood on the floor and on a nearby workbench a puddle as big as a dinner plate. An hour before, I might have thought that was a lot of blood, too.


As we stood outside in the sun, I heard the younger deputy say, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. I got a gun over here, Delbert. There’s a gun over here with blood on it.”