Dead Letters(80)

“If Zelda killed her, there’s no coming back,” I finish. “She can’t come back here, unless she wants to get arrested for murder.”

“All we know is that somebody died in that barn. We won’t know anything more until they get DNA results or dental records or something.”

“True,” I acknowledge, staring out the window. I reflect, trying to decide whether my sister really could have murdered a twenty-something-year-old girl and burned her body in our barn. When I left for Paris, I would have said no, no fucking way. Zelda might be crazy, unpredictable, and more than a little volatile, but she wouldn’t kill someone. She is also impulsive, unswerving, and more or less amoral. Things have been going very wrong for the last two years, and maybe, with her life collapsing around her…

“Any other notes? More letters?” Wyatt asks.

“We’re up to S.” I fill him in on the letters of the past two days, enjoying his surprised expression. P for policy, the letter Q, R for REM. When I tell him about the doctor Zelda was fucking, he clenches his teeth and squeezes the steering wheel in a restrained show of jealousy, and I feel a corresponding clench of the same emotion. “I guess we can add Kayla to the list. Racking up quite a score card,” I can’t resist adding. The flicker of anger in his eyes intensifies my own possessiveness and renews my fury at both Zelda and him.

“And S?” he prompts.

“I’m pretty sure S is for symptoms,” I say. “Did you happen to notice anything—” I pause, realizing I was about to say “erratic” or “unusual.” Those will not be helpful descriptions when dealing with Zelda. The answer is: Of course. “Let me rephrase: Was she more than usually weird these last few months? Forgetful or moody?”

“Well, yes, but I thought that had a lot to do with how much she was drinking. She was blacking out sometimes. But she’d started doing the weirdest thing.” He shakes his head. “She was making up these bizarre stories. Like, she would get wasted with me and the next day, when she couldn’t remember anything, she would concoct some crazy story of where she’d been. I’d ask her how she bruised her thigh, and she would say that she’d gone for a midnight bike ride through the vines and had banged into a post, even though I knew she’d gotten the bruise from tripping down the steps of her trailer and that she hadn’t touched her bike in weeks.”

“You were checking to see if she remembered?” I say, mildly hostile.

“Well, she’d started to have a real patchy recollection of what she’d been up to, and I wanted to see how bad it was getting,” Wyatt explains reasonably.

I sigh. “That’s called confabulation. It’s a symptom of Alzheimer’s and dementia.”

“What? Zelda wasn’t— What does that mean? You think she has what your mom does?”

“I think she was worried that she did. She went to see at least one neurologist, got a lot of info on early-onset. Of course, we’re a tad paranoid that we’re like our mother, so I don’t know if it was just…fear.”

“Was she taking anything for it?” Wyatt asks.

“You’re in a better position to answer that than me,” I point out.

“I mean, did you find any meds in her trailer?”

“She has a sizable pharmaceutical stash in there. I sincerely hope she wasn’t taking all of that shit, but who knows. Moderation isn’t one of her strong suits.”

“We should check her stash for prescriptions in her name,” Wyatt suggests. “See if she got diagnosed with anything or prescribed something. That would at least suggest she’s not crazy.” He smiles wryly. “Well, clinically.”

I nod my head. “Yeah, I guess we can do that on the way home.” I pause. “You don’t think—I mean, she’s only twenty-five. It can’t be dementia, right?” I want reassurance.

“It seems unlikely, Ava.” Wyatt pats my knee. “Probably just Zelda deflecting, pretending her problem was something other than…” He trails off with a cough, and he pinkens delicately.

“Alcoholism,” I finish flatly. “You can say it.” Wyatt glances over at me anxiously, wanting to see if I’m upset. “It’s not exactly a revelation, Wyatt,” I say drily. “My entire family—we’re all alcoholics. Zelda and I have been drinking pretty heavily since we were fourteen. I know it’s…I know it’s happening. I know it’s something of a problem. I’m supposed to say, ‘I know it has to stop. I know I need to clean up.’ But I don’t know that. I very much don’t believe that.”

“It was something Zelda didn’t really want to acknowledge,” Wyatt finishes for me. “She felt quite strongly that it wasn’t a problem. She pointed out that she didn’t have a real job to fuck up, and her personal relationships were already totally damaged. She didn’t have any DWIs, had never stolen anything or killed anyone—”

“Well, I guess that means it counts as a problem now,” I say sardonically.

“It was a problem before, Ava,” he says, his voice flat. I glance away, not meeting his eyes.

We pull into the parking lot of the brewery, and I hop out of the truck, onto the gravel of the steeply inclined driveway. Two Goats is a small operation, a small barn perched on the side of the lake. The beer is decent, they sell a smattering of local wines, and you get as many homemade potato chips as you can eat. But, really, people come for the view. The back deck, filled with picnic tables and bar stools, hangs over a field of grapevines, the lake sparkling below. This is one of the best places to watch summer sunsets on the whole lake. Tonight, it’s bustling, filled with most of our thirsty neighbors.