Real Bad Things(23)

“Oh, nothing. They both agreed they’d had too much to drink and apologized. The girlfriend left. But they’re still friends.” She hoped he wouldn’t ask for good old Grandpa’s name or number or address. She didn’t know but one of those off the top of her head. Hell, she wasn’t even sure if he was still alive.

He laughed. “That sounds like something I’d hear in my family.”

“We all got ’em.” Each passing minute, her nerves regrew their endings from the frazzled tethers they’d been when he’d shown her his badge. Maybe Maud’s finest would continue to do a poor job. Maybe they’d say to hell with it when they continued to not find any evidence—and how could they? Warren had been gone for what amounted to forever. What could they possibly scrape off a bunch of old bones? Though that didn’t explain why they hadn’t found evidence back then. Lord knows they left enough of it behind.

A fly buzzed near her ear. She probably looked deranged trying to get rid of it. “Are you really not going to arrest me?” She had only ever dreamed of her inevitable arrest, never that she could both confront what had happened and come out on the other side free.

“I thought about it. But then I found an eyewitness report buried in the files about a fight between your momma and Warren at a bar that same night. Did she say anything? Did Warren? Did you see anything on either one of them? Bruises? Blood?”

The only blood she’d seen was there when she arrived. Jason and Georgia Lee staring dumbstruck at where Warren’s body sprawled on the ground. There had been a head injury. But she hadn’t known how bad things were. Bad enough to put that body in a boat and say sayonara. Jane tried to remember anything odd about Diane but couldn’t. Diane’s entire existence was odd and unpredictable. “Not that I remember. But that whole night is a blur.”

“Because you weren’t there?” Silence. “Where was your brother that night?”

All those hopeful maybes began to swim with her dread. Every girlfriend she’d ever had had told her she didn’t know how to stop when she was ahead. “In the house,” she said and tried to keep the shake in her voice from escaping. She decided to keep her mouth shut for a change and wait for the questions.

“And he didn’t hear a thing?”

“I don’t know.” Ask him, she thought. She had switched from chewing on a nail to chewing on the cuticle, which now ripped and bled. “Sounds weird, but when you’re in that kind of situation, it almost becomes normal. I guess we got used to living in . . .” She didn’t want to use the word, to be associated with it. “Violence. Hard to distinguish one fight from the next. They all run together.” She had to get the conversation away from Jason. “Diane—” Mom. Fuck. She checked the building corners and lowered her voice. “My mom and I got into a lot of fights over Warren. She said I didn’t want her to be happy and that I made him lash out.”

“Did you?”

She paused at his meaning. “Maybe. I guess. I wanted her to stand up to him.” Like that time Jane had called Warren an asshole. She’d said it under her breath, walking away, back to the bedroom. Then, darkness. The pain wouldn’t come until after she woke up, Diane hovering over her, threatening Jane not to tell anyone what had happened or she’d regret it. Diane had told Jane, You shouldn’t have interfered in our affairs. Those were the words she’d used. “She wouldn’t. So I did.” As she said the words, she knew they were wrong. Classic victim blaming. So many times, Diane could’ve chosen the nice guy. But she’d always chosen the guy who would give them a hard time. She was always loaning some guy money, and they drank and smoked whatever she earned while Jane and Jason went to school in last year’s too-small clothes. Hard to have empathy for that.

“Did he hit her?”

Maybe it’d be better to leave out the truth, which is that they had beaten each other. “Sometimes.”

“Did she go to the police?”

Jane wanted to laugh. Things back then had been no different than they were now. “No. She thought he’d change.”

“They always do.” Much as she resented Diane, she still wanted to put her fist through his face. “Did he ever hurt you again?”

What if he did? Would that make what happened okay? One time is fine, two is too much? He’d also constantly complained about how she ate too much—even though there wasn’t much to eat—and took up too much space on the couch. How her hair clogged up the shower drain and polluted the bathroom sink. Told her she’d never survive on the streets because she was too ugly to sell herself.

That cursed fly sat on her arm, waiting. She smacked it and watched it fall to the ground. “He liked to ensure we never felt safe and that Diane never took her attention away from him.”

“And your brother? Did Warren hit him?”

“I’m not sure.”

Jason hadn’t taken kindly to Jane trying to lift his shirt to confirm her suspicions. There were times when Jane had thought Warren had hurt him because of how withdrawn he’d become. Episodes, Diane had called them. They’d gotten worse over the years. When he was little, Jason had been funny, outgoing. There were still moments—with her and Angie and Georgia Lee, with the handful of nerd friends he had at school but never brought home.