Good Neighbors(37)
Standing in thresholds, dripping Slip ’N Slide water and sand oil, these children corroborated: Lainee Hestia, Sam Singh, the Ottomanelli twins, and to his chagrin, Charlie Walsh: Yes, Charlie said. She said that stuff. But she lied a lot. Dave Harrison glared, not at the detective, but at his mother, without answering, until Jane Harrison announced that maybe Bianchi ought to come back, as clearly her son had a fever.
After each interview, feeling strange and hypocritical (If it was true that Arlo had done wrong, why were they letting their children play on his Slip ’N Slide? And if it wasn’t true, why were they corroborating a false narrative?), they cleaned off and kept their children home. At last, the Slip ’N Slide was empty, water streaming along yellow plastic. Looking out their windows, they saw what they’d neglected: propelled by the force of its water, and lacking a handler, the yellow plastic had careened across the Walsh lawn and gotten stuck against the common privets that divided the Wildes from the Schroeders.
Cat Hestia, who’d plugged the hose in to begin with, had left for her silent meditation class by then. The Walsh family was gone, too, having scheduled a lobster dinner at Waterzooi. The water kept spraying, none wanting now to turn it off. All thinking it was someone else’s job. They didn’t dare go near that tainted Wilde house right in front of Detective Bianchi, who would see them. They didn’t want to get caught pulling the yellow plastic from the shrubbery just as the Wildes returned from wherever they’d been, either. The family might get the wrong idea. Arlo might shout. Or worse.
As Detective Bianchi was leaving, Peter Benchley rolled out his door and stopped the man. They spoke for nearly half an hour. Maple Street was surprised—hadn’t known Peter was capable of that level of interaction. This haunted them. What if, all this time that he’d been watching, he’d been seeing, too?
I’ll swear to it in court, Linda Ottomanelli heard him say. There’s no way Arlo Wilde hurt that girl. Not that day, anyway. Probably not any day.
Bianchi left.
The water kept running, flooding the Wildes’ side lawn and reaching into the Schroeders’. Linda Ottomanelli and Rhea Schroeder sat drinking red wine on Rhea’s porch, but the rest stayed inside their houses with their doors shut.
At last, Rhea stood. She made a big deal of it, arms wide as if to say: It’s always me, isn’t it? The buck stops here. She cut through the Wilde lawn, to the Walsh house, and turned off the hose. Petite and walking with what they noticed was just the hint of a limp, she dragged the Slip ’N Slide toward her porch to allow the Wildes’ lawn to dry. The rest of Maple Street felt silly, that they had not done this.
They felt ashamed.
* * *
While Gertie and Arlo were waiting on the police department front steps, Fred Atlas walked to an outgoing connection and called them back. Arlo explained the problem. Fred told him to sit tight. He had a criminal attorney friend by the name of Nick Sloss, who’d meet him there.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Arlo said.
Silence on the other end for a good few seconds. Arlo waited, shorn of pride. “I think you’d better believe it,” Fred said.
When they returned, it was explained to the Wildes that because Arlo was the suspect, and Gertie was not, they needed to be placed in different rooms while they waited. This seemed specious—like a divide-and-conquer plan of attack. But they felt that arguing would make it seem like they had secrets to protect—a story they needed to get straight. And in truth, the nature of the accusation was so shocking that they weren’t thinking straight.
Gennet led Gertie to a new room, shut the door behind him, and sat next to her instead of opposite. “Are you absolutely certain this accusation is false?” He had a kinder demeanor than Hudson. She felt empathy from him, even though his expression, too, was an emotionless mask.
“It’s a sickness. You’d be helping him if you told me the truth,” Gennet said.
“Have you met Rhea?” she asked. “Her son threw a rock at our house. This”—she pointed at the fresh scab on her cheek—“this is from her ring. She slapped me. She blames me for what happened to Shelly, I think. Because my kids lived… Or, I don’t know. I can’t pretend to understand how she thinks.”
Gennet took a photo of her scab. “Did anyone see her slap you?”
“Sure. The whole crescent. Ask any of them.”
Gennet wrote this down.
“I should tell you something,” Gertie said, her voice lowered. “I’m not an eye-for-an-eye person. Bitter just makes more bitter. It’s toxic. Every book says so. So that’s not why I’m saying this, but you tell me you’re doing your job and you want to find out the truth, and I think you’re being honest with me, so I should tell you.”
Gennet looked up from his notes. He had freckles across the bridge of his nose. His wedding band was an old-fashioned claddagh, heart pointed down. She pictured him meeting his wife at Croxley’s Ale House in New Hyde Park after work, noshing the all-you-can-eat wings. He looked the type.
“Rhea’s the one who hurt that child. This is her guilt talking.”
“What makes you say that?”
“She told me once, that she was unhappy. That she wanted to cause her family hurt. That Shelly galled her. Something about her hair. She hated brushing it. And Julia, my daughter, she told me. She saw the bruises. Said there was evidence Shelly was keeping. Pictures.”