Good Neighbors(54)

They’d spent the afternoon at the police department. It had gone well. They’d stuck to the proper story. FJ’d been so nervous the whole time that he’d bounced his legs under the table until Bianchi asked him to stop.

“What?” she now asked.

He lurched into the room. Eyes red. Unsteady.

“Are you drunk?”

“Is Mrs. Wilde’s baby okay?” he asked.

“You worry too much,” she answered.

“Mom. It’s all over the news. Why isn’t she home yet? Why’s she still at a hospital?”

“EF-JAY,” she singsonged.

His breath was foul. His brown hair napped. “It was supposed to be a warning. Nobody was supposed to get hurt!”

“Ella! Upstairs! Now!”

Silence.

“Ella. I know you’re listening.”

A small shadow in bare feet squeaked like a mouse from behind the door, then ran. FJ started to talk again. Rhea held up her hand until she heard footsteps above and out of earshot.

“She’ll tell everyone,” she said.

“Sorry. I’m sorry. Is it murder?” FJ asked. “Am I a murderer?”

“Of course not.”

“The baby’s okay? Mrs. Wilde’s okay?”

Rhea frowned. Her face was still rippling under static lines on the news, and like a public beheading, it felt all wrong. She wasn’t that strange, angry woman with wrinkles. That woman looked scary! She was the mother of four, a professional, married to a professional. She wore Eileen Fisher. She’d spent seven years as head of the Garden City PTA. She was not a crank, an accuser, an hysteric. She certainly didn’t have the spare time to spearhead a witch hunt like some miserable stay-at-home loser. This was real. She was sounding a very serious alarm.

Her daughter, her most precious thing, was gone.

“Why are you worried about Gertie? She hit me! It hurts so much! That woman’s an ox. Do you know what she’s probably doing right now? She’s eating ice cream with her feet propped while everybody hugs her and tells her she’s pretty. The baby’s just fine or that cop would have said something, believe me. He would have called it a possible homicide but he didn’t. Honey, I don’t even think she got hurt. Did you hear all that screaming and carrying on? A woman about to miscarry doesn’t move like that. The EMTs practically had to restrain her to the gurney. She just got histrionic. She’s like that.”

FJ leaned against the counter. Wracking sobs contracted and expanded in his chest but made no sounds outside. “Oh, they’re all right. They’re all right. They’re all right. They’re all right,” he whispered.

She walked in his direction. Because of his maleness, she’d always felt a distance from him. Fritz had not filled that space. As a result, FJ had spent most of his childhood alone. It resulted in a romantic streak. He was always chasing girls, breaking his heart against them, imagining this was love.

“You’re upsetting me,” she said.

He tucked his chiseled face into giant man hands. He smelled like vodka and he needed a shave. She realized, suddenly, that he’d been missing practice. But he’d still been going out to all those parties.

“It’s just, what if we’re wrong? What if she just fell? What if it was all an accident?” he asked.

Rhea’s cheeks turned red. She pounded her bandaged knee with her fist. Sparks overloaded her vision—a slurry of color. She cried out from the pain.

“Mom!”

“Well, who do you think did it? Me?”

“Of course not,” he answered, but there was a flash, a pause. Something hidden.

“You’re trying to hurt me when I’m already down. You know I’m under all this stress!”

“No, Mom. Please.”

She didn’t look at him. The words wouldn’t come out right if she looked at him. “You loved Shelly, didn’t you?”

“Ah, mom. I was never around. Even when she was little and wanted to play, I was such a jerk. I just wish I’d been—”

“So many children have come forward with testimony. This is only the beginning. The police won’t help. I know that now. It’s up to us. You and me.”

FJ placed his hands on the counter and began to sob. The sound filled the room, jarring and baritone.

“Stop. It hurts me to see you cry like that.”

“Sorry. I’m sorry.”

She reached over the refrigerator. Pulled down a bottle of red and got a pint glass. Filled it halfway. “Here,” she said.

He was too far gone. Didn’t seem to see it.

She forced it into his hands. “I’ve never done wrong by you. You’re on varsity. You’ve got a full ride. What more could you want?”

He gulped it down. His lips and teeth went as red as his eyes.

“Go to bed. You’re overstressed. In another week, when you’re rested, you can start back at practice. I’ll call the coach. I’ll explain. You know how I’m good with that. It’ll be fine. Back to normal in no time.”

He made this pain grimace that she wasn’t used to seeing on him. Only on Shelly.

“There’s no fingerprints. You wore gloves. There’s no witnesses except Peter Benchley, and that junkie never saw your face. Trust me, I’ve been through this. They’ve got nothing. They were just trying to scare you today. That Bianchi’s a toad.”