Home Front(39)

In the kitchen, Betsy hadn’t moved. She sat in the chair, looking mutinous, with her chin jutted out and her eyes narrowed.

“I’m not going in late. Everyone will stare at me,” she said.

“Who do you think you are, Madonna? A bad hair day doesn’t stop school. Get your backpack.”

“No.”

He looked at her. “Get your backpack and get ready, Betsy, or I’ll walk you in to first period, holding your hand.”

She opened her mouth in horror, then clamped it shut. “Whatever. I’m going.”

He looked through the kitchen to the family room, where Lulu lay curled on the couch, with her blanket and a stuffed orca, watching the video of Jolene reading her a story. “Lulu, come let me put your boots on you. Lulu. Come here.”

“She’s wearing the headband,” Betsy said primly.

Michael marched into the family room and picked Lulu up. At the movement, the headband slid off her head.

“I’m inbisible!” she screamed.

He carried her screaming and squealing out to the car and strapped her into her car seat. Betsy, silent and glowering, climbed in beside her.

Lulu burst into tears. “I want my mommy!”

“Yeah,” Michael said, starting the car. “Don’t we all?”

*



The first week without Jolene almost drove Michael into the ground. He’d had no idea how much there was to do around the house and with the kids. If his mother hadn’t had such boundless energy, he would have had to hire full-time help. She’d been a lifesaver, no doubt about it. Jolene had enrolled Lulu in after-preschool day care, which lasted until four o’clock. That meant his mother could work until almost four, and then pick Lulu up from day care, and get to Michael’s house in time to meet Betsy so that she never came home to an empty house—one of Jolene’s strictest rules. By the time Michael got home at six, his mom had usually started dinner and done some laundry. She was shouldering a big part of his burden.

Even so, he wasn’t doing well. Betsy was a whirling dervish; he never seemed to be able to anticipate her reaction to the simplest of things. She could burst into tears over nothing and then be mad as a hornet five seconds later. And Lulu wasn’t much easier to handle. She had taken to wearing her ratty gray cat ears almost all the time. She swore she was going to stay “inbisible” until Jolene came home, and when Michael ignored the game and picked her up anyway, she screamed like a banshee and sobbed that she missed her mommy.

And then there was the Keller case, which was showing all the signs of becoming a disaster. Keith still hadn’t spoken to anyone, not even his court-appointed psychiatrist. Michael had waived his client’s right to a speedy trial, but at the moment competency to stand trial was a legitimate concern.

His intercom buzzed. “Michael? Mr. Keller is here to see you.”

“Send him in.” Michael closed up the file and opened a pad of paper.

Edward Keller walked into the office slowly, looking nervous. He was a big man with close-shaved black hair and a bushy black Tom Selleck mustache. He was pale and sweaty-looking in his plaid shirt and Wrangler jeans.

Michael stood up, extended his hand. “Hello, Ed. I’m Michael. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

Ed shook his hand. “My wife wouldn’t come. She tried … she just can’t talk about it yet. Emily was like a daughter to us. It’s hard…”

“I understand,” Michael said, and he did. He lived in a world of crime and victims; he’d seen time and again how terrible a grief came with the realization that a loved one had committed a heinous crime. Ed and his wife were the forgotten victims in a case like this.

“He won’t talk to me,” Ed said. “He just sits there, staring at the wall.”

“To be blunt, Ed, that’s our real problem now. The only one doing the talking is the prosecuting attorney, and I don’t like what he’s saying. They’ve charged Keith with murder in the first degree, and they claim to have a witness who will testify that Keith confessed to the murder.”

Ed looked miserable. The man slumped in his chair. “He was such a good kid. Popular. Friendly. The kind of kid who asks you if you need help carryin’ in the groceries and how your day was. He dated lots of girls, cheerleader types, and had fun in high school, but when he met Emily, he knew right away she was the one.”

“When did it start going wrong?”

“What?”

“The marriage.”

“Oh. It never did.”

“Ed,” Michael said evenly. “Something went wrong.”

Ed looked down at his own hands. “We’ve asked ourselves that question a million times. Did he seem depressed? Did you ever hear them arguin’? Did he ever say he was unhappy? Our family has looked at it six ways to Sunday. They had a happy marriage; that’s what we think. She couldn’t wait for him to get home from Iraq. She wrote him every day.”

Michael looked up sharply. “Iraq? There’s no mention of him serving in Iraq in what I’ve got here. It just says he’s an honorably discharged marine.”

“He did two tours. When he came home the second time, he wasn’t the same.”

“What do you mean?”

“We all saw that he was changed. If you startled him—and that was easy to do—he could turn on you fast enough to take your breath away. I know he didn’t sleep much. Emily told me that he’d started keepin’ a loaded gun by the bed. God help me, I told her a man needed to protect his family.”