There was nothing else to tell, the boys had insisted. There was nothing else.
Still, a part of me felt nauseous, worried despite my assurances to Charlie.
He was quiet as he drove to work. Charlie had seemed down lately—I’d thought about trying to force some sort of heart-to-heart, but if I could avoid more awkward emotional conversations, I was all too ready to do so.
I wish I had made him tell me what he was thinking, what he was dealing with, who he loved. But I was weary. I had to walk three dogs in Northwest Hills before I could work on Sam’s cookbook. I didn’t want to contemplate the possibility that my son could be involved with a dead body. So I kept quiet, too.
Is it every mother’s impulse to look away—look anywhere else—rather than delve into jagged details? Do the mothers of convicted murderers believe that their children are guilty? I don’t think my mom even suspected I was planning a permanent escape.
There is a space, I think, between understanding that we are all alone—unknowable—and acknowledging this lonely truth. Some of us live forever in this space. I certainly tried.
* * *
—
CHARLIE HAD HAD HIS learner’s permit for nine months, and was due to get his license on his birthday, though we had only one car so it wouldn’t change his lifestyle much. He was saving for a car of his own, he’d told me: an electric car that wouldn’t hurt the Earth. I didn’t remind him that electricity came from somewhere, too.
“What are you doing after work?” I said. “Hanging out with Roma?” My son had been close to Xavier and his sister since infancy, though Roma seemed to be growing up faster than Charlie, with her heavy eyeliner, intimidating glare, and tiny skirts. For a while, I’d thought Charlie and Roma might be romantically involved, and though Roma was strange, I welcomed this possible union, even pushed it. But lately, Charlie had been resisting spending time with Whitney’s daughter.
Charlie had brought home a boy named Amir a few months before, someone he’d met at school, but Amir was cagey when I asked him where he lived and mentioned that he was a senior （not a sophomore like Charlie and “the ThreeMusketeers”）。 Later, I had a talk with Charlie about choosing friends who were right for him, and I hadn’t seen Amir since.
“Roma emailed me that she lost her phone, so she’s getting a new one and seeing a movie at the mall,” said Charlie. “But I got an extra shift at Deep Eddy, so I can’t go.” And then, as if he could sense the hurt I was sure I was hiding, he added, quickly, “I’m glad I have a job. It’s so much better to be real.”
“Oh, sweetie,” I said. “What would I do without you?”
He climbed from the car, opening the back door and grabbing his backpack. I got out of the passenger seat and he gave me a hug. “You’d be a mess, Mom,” he said. “You’d be lost.”
He gave me a smooch on the cheek to let me know he was kidding, but he was absolutely right. As I drove toward my dog-walking job, I thought idly about how empty my life would be without Charlie. I would do anything to keep him safe.
Anything.
-6-
Salvatore
SALVATORE HAD BARELY ENTERED his office before he heard about the body on the greenbelt. An anonymous 911 call had led EMTs to a dead woman by the side of an unnamed swimming hole off an unofficial trail in the middle of the Barton Hills neighborhood, where Salvatore had grown up. Cause of death was suspicious, so they wanted Salvatore to weigh in.
Salvatore put in a call to confer with Katrina as soon as possible. He made himself a cappuccino—the department had chipped in to get him a De’Longhi after he and Jacquie had canceled their anniversary trip to Rome so she could stay home for more chemo—and sipped from his dainty cup as he booted up his Dell computer. His guys made fun of his beautiful cups—joking that he should hold up his pinkie while he sipped—but the Nuova Points had been his grandmother’s. She’d been born in Naples, Italy, brought over kicking and screaming as a young bride, and had never stopped complaining about America in general and Austin in specific until the day she died. Every morning, Salvatore took a moment to hold a warm cappuccino and remember his loud and angry Nonna.
Nonna had lived to eighty-seven.
Using rage as fuel for living was a family tradition.
As he sipped, Salvatore read the daily reports from other agencies, federal and regional. He scrolled through wanted criminal reports, unidentified bodies, suspected car theft rings, and other assorted illegal operations. He caught up with paperwork, drank another cappuccino.
When Katrina paged him that she was ready, he got back in his car to head to the medical examiner’s office on Springdale.
Austin had opened the new facility in 2017, giving Katrina and her colleagues nine autopsy stations and even a CT scan machine. Katrina met him in one of the waiting rooms, her white lab coat so crisp she must have ironed it or picked it up that morning from the cleaners. She was of Pakistani descent, tall with chocolate-hued hair she wore in a low ponytail.
Salvatore himself bought suits in bulk at Men’s Wearhouse during their annual sale. Investigating homicides was a messy business: after one intense situation that had led to Salvatore’s shoes, socks, suit, tie, and even underwear getting soaked by blood, Jacquie had told him to just “get naked in the garage and don’t bring those nasty murder clothes into my house.” Understandably, she didn’t want the kids seeing him covered in gore, and she wasn’t interested in any laundry that might include brain matter.
Jacquie had stashed a bin of clean outfits from Thrift Town in the guest bathroom. She’d instructed Salvatore to enter via the garage, shower, and then greet the family in fresh pants and T-shirts, depositing his “horror movie clothes” directly in the wash…or even the trash can.
Although he’d been brought up to wear clothes until they fell apart, Jacquie had introduced him to the thrill of throwing things away. Sometimes, it felt as if he could toss the trauma of his days into the bin with the stained linens.
But the memories usually came back.
* * *
—
“OFFICIAL CAUSE OF DEATH is drowning,” said Katrina, bringing him back to himself. Salvatore could smell Katrina’s lotion, something clean and sensible, like Lubriderm. “But opiate levels in her bloodstream were three hundred nanograms per milliliter…”
“So she overdosed.”
“It’s hard to tell what happened. That’s why I called homicide.”
“Three hundred nanograms? There’s no way she was able to swim, right?”
“I’m not a detective,” said Katrina, “but if she drowned, she would have sunk, not ended up at the edge of the water.”
“So she wasn’t alone.” Salvatore inhaled. “And the 911 call was anonymous, untraceable phone. Did she have track marks?”
“None. And no evidence of any struggle.”
“How old is she?”
“Nineteen or twenty. No ID on her, no phone.”
“OK,” said Salvatore. APD was still searching the greenbelt trails for any belongings she may have left behind, and he’d ordered a sweep of all the trailhead parking areas. She could have lived in the neighborhood or parked a car nearby. Salvatore needed to get his team to begin interviewing possible witnesses and going door to door.