The Herd(81)

“You’re kidding,” Gary gasped. Karen moaned and reached for him.

“Why don’t we all sit down,” Hana said. Rustling and squeaking as everyone yanked back kitchen chairs.

Again, I felt the instinct to pull back and let Hana do the talking, but instead I walked them through it: The strange posts in the Antiherd. The parking ticket the night of the crime. How he’d just grabbed his car keys and sped off mid-conversation, which was not exactly the behavior of an innocent man. Karen and Gary kept nodding blankly, their eyes dull as the room filled with the smell of root vegetables and fish.

“Let’s not jump to any conclusions,” Gary said when I’d finished.

“Does anyone smell burning?” Karen added, pushing her chair out noisily. We watched, stiff as ice sculptures, as she slid the trays out of the oven and swiped her potholder at the smoke. Gary rose and began pulling plates from a cabinet; without speaking, and with all the ease of a bunch of robots, we set the table, spooned things onto serving trays, found our seats again.

“Let’s say grace,” Gary said, and Hana, Mikki, and I exchanged frantic looks as the Walshes bowed their heads: Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts…

We passed the pepper. We remarked on the garlicky pistachio breading patted onto the salmon’s side. The Walshes asked about our New Year’s Eve plans and we answered, in turn. The three of us kept catching one another’s glances as our forks clanged against our plates. We were Norman Rockwell’s most fucked-up tableau yet: two healthy, round-faced parents, three beautiful young women, eating off pretty patterned china while the snow throbbed outside.

Gary half-stood to pour more wine into my goblet and Karen grabbed at the water glass he’d nearly tipped, and I felt a rush of cold, bracing as menthol: Behold these sweet, straitlaced Baby Boomers who’d opened their home to me. Who’d opened their home to Eleanor and her friends, too, and then somehow made it all go away when things fell apart. Did they see Jinny’s face every night? Was the guilt gnawing at them from inside?

“So, I think we’re gonna head back to New York first thing tomorrow,” Hana said, when we’d all given up pretending to eat, food flaked apart and pushed around our plates. “We’ll connect with the detectives there, and…get out of your hair.”

One would expect them to insist having us here was no trouble, even out of knee-jerk Catholic guilt. Instead they stared. Our facades were collapsing, solid outsides thawing and crumbling apart from head to toe.

“Cameron’s a good kid,” Gary announced, and we all turned to him. Mikki started to cry. “He’s a good kid.”

“Thank you so much for letting us be here,” Hana concluded.

Karen nodded slowly. “It’s been a long day. I’m going to head to bed. Gary, let’s go.”

“We’ll take care of cleaning up,” I added, rising to pile dishes.

Karen stared at me, then nodded. She and Gary shuffled away.

“What the fuck was that,” Hana hissed, once they were out of earshot.

“I thought that dinner was never going to end,” I said. “Clearly they cannot handle the idea of Cameron having anything to do with Eleanor’s death.”

“They’re close—he’s basically their surrogate son.” Mikki turned on the faucet and stuck a plate under the tap. Her tone confused me—was she still defending him? “They really don’t want it to be him.”

“Here’s what I don’t understand,” I said. “Obviously I barely know Cameron, way less than you two. But if he was driving down to New York to talk to Eleanor, why would he bring a scalpel? Or whatever sharp tool?”

“I don’t know.” Hana shook her head sadly. “We don’t know what she said, what went down. I don’t think it was planned, I really don’t.”

“But what about the graffiti?” Mikki added. “And this stolen phone? The original one, from back before—before any of this.”

I took this one. “I don’t think it was related. Some people really did just hate her. And the Herd. All of it.” I sighed. “Some people are just shitty.”

Hana dropped a fistful of silverware into the dishwasher. “Another thing I don’t understand: He knew she was trying to get a fake passport. He suspected she was getting ready to make a run for it.” She repositioned a spatula. “If he thought she was about to disappear, wouldn’t that be a pretty good outcome for him? She would leave town, she couldn’t pin Jinny’s death on him, he could even turn us all in and start that…memorial fund, if that’s what he wanted.”

I set a stack of serving dishes on the counter. “Could be. Or maybe he was lying about wanting to help Jinny’s family. For all we know, maybe he was helping Eleanor disappear. Driving down to personally deliver her starter kit for a new life.”

“Well, let’s hope they find him and he can tell us himself,” Hana said.

I leaned against the counter. Mikki was going to town with the pull-out faucet, fire-hosing dishes with total concentration.

“You know, if he does, you might have to face charges in relation to Jinny,” I said. “There’s no statute of limitations on this stuff.”

“We know.” Mikki nodded at the backsplash. Her face looked miserable, but her shoulders softened, like frozen meat defrosting.