We Begin at the End(77)

“You seen Milton?”

“Vacation.” Brandon looked like shit, dark glasses, stubble, feathered hair collapsed.

“You alright?”

“Leah didn’t tell you?”

“What?”

“Those two don’t even talk anymore, she probably doesn’t even know,” Brandon slurred it.

“Know what, Brandon?”

“Ed let me go.”

Walk took a step nearer and smelled the booze.

“Me and John and Michael.”

“I’m sorry.”

Brandon waved a hand, turned and walked unsteadily toward his house. “Falling market. Failing economy. Bullshit. Ed ran the place into the ground. Booze, the women. Used to go to The Eight more than me, and I lived in that place.”

Walk dragged a trash can over, stood on it, pulled himself over Milton’s side gate and dropped into the backyard, feeling his bones jar as he hit the ground.

He found the key under a false stone. Five years back Milton had taken in a stray, a skinny mongrel that he turned so fat it was put to death a year later. So much meat it went happy. Walk had agreed to feed the thing when Milton’s father passed.

Inside.

He smelled blood right off, guessed Milton secreted the scent wherever he sat. He saw a calendar on the wall, two weeks marked, even had a circle on the day he’d be opening up again.

“Milton,” he called it loud, in case the guy was bathing, the kind of sight that’d chase dreams with nightmare for all eternity.

Nothing in the living room.

He climbed the stairs, tried the guestroom. A mattress on the floor, no sheets. And then he came to the master.

It was neat, thick blanket on the bed, despite the warmth, an old dresser with mirror above, maybe the kind his mother had used. On the wall was the head of a deer, mounted on mahogany, the dead eyes made Walk wonder what kind of man wanted the thing watching over him like that.

There was a bookshelf, heavy with texts on hunting, traps, maps of the wild. Nothing on astronomy.

He walked over to the window, saw the telescope, the Celestron, and ran a finger along the back. The dust was thick, like he hadn’t used the thing in a year.

He leaned down, peered through and took a breath when he found the telescope not angled at the sky but on the house across the street.

On a single window.

The window to Star Radley’s bedroom.

He thought of Milton, always offering help, the Comanche, taking out her trash, giving Duchess cuts of meat to take home. Walk always had him down as good, misunderstood, a little off, but basically a decent man. He cursed under his breath as he began searching through drawers.

He found the suitcase beneath the bed, hauled it out and dumped it on top of the mattress.

Neighborhood Watch. Scrawled in marker pen across the top. There was order inside, the photos cataloged. They numbered in hundreds. Some were Polaroid, some better quality. He picked one up and saw Star in a state of undress, bare chest, just underwear. And that was the theme. In some she was clothed, working the yard, some had Duchess and Robin in view, clear they were not the focus. He turned from the nudes, Star bent over, Star undressing for bed.

“Fucking Milton.”

Some of the shots were old, ten years of watching. He noticed a couple with a guy she was seeing, Walk couldn’t quite recall the name. He guessed Milton hoped to catch them fucking, instead got a series of shots of Star kissing him goodnight then the guy retiring to the living room.

And then he stopped.

The file marked June 14th.

The day Star was murdered.

With a shaking hand he turned the pages, and cursed again when he saw they were blank.

He took a final look around, then called it in. Leah Tallow took it and sounded shocked when he told her.

He’d bring Milton in, just as soon as he found him.





32


THEY SETTLED INTO FRAGMENTED LIFE.

They trailed in silence each morning as Mary Lou and her brother collected friends on the walk to school. The group stared back and whispered and laughed. One time Duchess slipped on the ice, tore her jeans and cut her knee. They did not stop to help. She limped on in quiet, still holding her brother’s bag as well as her own.

Mrs Price added a plastic sheet to Robin’s bed. It rustled so loud each night he climbed in with Duchess.

They met with two couples.

The first, Mr. and Mrs. Kolene. Duchess knew right off that Shelly had worked hard to get them to the table, the table being a play area in the park on Twin Elms Avenue. Duchess pushed Robin on the swing while the Kolenes and Shelly sat on a park bench, drank a thermos of coffee and stared at them like they were attractions in a petting zoo.

“What the fuck are they looking at? They want us to do tricks or something?”

“Quiet, they might hear.”

Duchess took a tissue from her coat and wiped his nose, then went back to pushing the swing while Shelly smiled at her.

“The dude looks like a librarian.”

“Why?”

“Those glasses. He’s got a sweater with no sleeves. I think they’re too old to have kids naturally and now they want a second shot. Could be problems with his sperm, or maybe she’s barren as the Mojave.”

Robin stared over. “What’s barren?”

“Her parts have died off.”