Blood Sugar(58)

The flames were being fanned plenty without my parents. My nosy neighbors called their other neighbors, who then called their friends, who then called old friends they hadn’t spoken to in years. It was like a pyramid scheme of “Did you hear about Ruby Simon? Yes, her husband, found dead in bed. But clearly the police think she did it! Well, no arrest yet, but they searched her house!”

The blaze crackled and spread in all sorts of directions, including toward Hannah. She called me that week. “Hey, Ruby, can we talk?” Roman had advised me not to talk on the phone about anything at all that could possibly involve Jason or the other three bodies, in case the police were listening. But I didn’t want to seem suspicious, in case the police were listening.

“Hey, Hans, I’m actually heading out. Where are you? Maybe I can come by.”

“At the shop.”

“Oh, perfect. I’ll be in the area. I’ll stop by.”

I walked into her store and was taken with the expansion. I hadn’t been there for a while and had no idea Hannah had rented out the spaces on each side of her original area. She’d knocked down some walls and now had an entire room devoted to her own line, Vampire in the Sun. I was so sincerely happy for her, I momentarily forgot my precarious situation.

I exclaimed, “It looks amazing in here!”

“Thanks. Yeah, I’m planning on taking over the whole block if I can. Create my own department-slash-lifestyle store.”

As I looked around, Hannah took a step away from me, rather than giving me her usual big hug and “Try this on” greeting. I decided to peruse the racks, casually. But this was an act, because I barely looked at the clothes as they passed through my hands. Hannah kept her distance and folded distressed tees. She said, “So, I was thinking. Remembering, really. And, like, that night. You know. That night my dad died. Did you wake up at all? Or hear anything? Or, like, see my father after we got back?”

Oh, fuck.

I casually took my hand off the clothes and faced her. This conversation deserved attention and respect, even if she couldn’t look me in the face.

“No. I just got you and Erika up the stairs and we all sort of passed out.”

“Well, you didn’t pass out. Exactly. ’Cause you were sober.”

“Yeah, but I mean, I fell asleep. I was exhausted. A lot of dancing. And then sugar crash from all the candy. You know.”

I could feel the new tension between us growing. So I asked, “What’s going on? You okay? You haven’t mentioned that night in a long time.”

Hannah finished folding the shirts into an expensive little pile. “I guess I’m not okay. ’Cause Detective Jackson came in here to talk to me.”

I could now feel myself sinking into the trendy deep-red-stained cement floor. And decided honesty was going to be the best policy. “He thinks I killed Jason. Because Jason’s mother went to the police and accused me. You know how he was estranged from her. And she always blamed me for it. But the detective thinks she is credible. So now I’m a suspect in the detective’s mind.”

Hannah looked miffed. “Oh. I remember my mom had to deal with people thinking she killed my dad. I guess the spouse is always suspected.”

“Yeah. It’s been really rough.”

I waited for some words of comfort. But Hannah didn’t give me a peep or expression of sympathy. She moved over to another pile. This time buttery soft leggings. And began refolding.

She said, “Well, the detective guy didn’t say a word to me about Jason.” She looked up at me. Her blunt bangs framed her eyeliner perfectly. “He wanted to know about the night my father died. He kept asking for details. Like when we got home that night, how drunk I was, and specifically how you acted the next day.”

I knew why. But I had to pretend. “Why?”

She had to pretend too. She shrugged. Then said, “I barely remembered this, but I guess my dad had a wound on his head, or something, when he died. The detective kept asking if anything from our kitchen was missing. Like a small knife. Or something that could have made that wound. He even showed me a photo of my dad. Dead. All zoomed in on that head area.”

I was truly angry at Detective Jackson for doing this to my friend. “That’s horrible!” I said. “What a dick for showing you that.”

“He wasn’t a dick. He’s just trying to get to the truth.”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Hannah continued, “I told him I couldn’t remember. It was such a crazy time. But that he could talk to my mom. That she might remember more.”

“That’s smart.”

“I guess I’m smart, sometimes.”

“Hannah, you’ve always been smart.”

We stood there. At an impasse of friendship, choices, and lies.

Then she said, “Wanna know what’s really weird, Ruby?”

I nodded. No longer able to predict where any of this was going.

“The detective didn’t ask me anything about Erika that night. Only about you.”

I had to keep it together, and said, with the right amount of anger, “Yeah, well, he has it out for me.” I knew that neither Hannah nor her mom would ever remember the missing keychain charm at this point. And even if they did, Detective Jackson would never be able to find it. Not in my house, or my car, or my parents’ house, or my office. He could get all the warrants he wanted and look and look and look. A few days after Richard Vale died, during my usual scheduled volunteering hours, I buried it with all five bloody flamingo feathers deep in the bird sanctuary. Under trees, among hundreds of other feathers, hidden in damp soil and decaying natural debris.