He nodded, chewing. “A situation, eh?” he said.
Neither Charlie nor I responded. On his desk, I saw the Austin American-Statesman. Had the body on the greenbelt shown up in the paper yet?
“Hokay, then!” said John, seeming a bit nervous at our silence. “You going to be back today?”
“I don’t know,” said Charlie. His swagger had vanished. “Mom?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said.
John looked from me to my son. “Hokay, then,” he said, eyes narrowing as he sensed our worry and began to understand this was not a jovial situation.
“Thanks, John,” I said. “Goodbye.”
Charlie grabbed his bag from his locker and was texting before we reached the car. “They’re calling all of us,” he said.
“What?” I said.
“They know,” said Charlie, under his breath.
I broke my silence with effort. “They know what?” I asked.
He was reading his phone and scowling. “Oh my God,” he said. I did not repeat my question. I should have. I should have. I started the car and after a moment, the hot air pumping from the AC began to cool. “Mom,” said Charlie. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
This is where I could have become the mother I wanted to be, the one who listened without judgment, who allowed any confession and made room, allowed sadness and shame, all of it.
Spoiler alert: I did not become this person. Charlie was looking at me, almost willing me not to break contact with him. But my phone chirped and I glanced down. Whitney had texted: GOT YOU A LAWYER. DON’T TALK TO POLICE.
“Mom?” said Charlie. “Mom, there’s something I need to—”
“Charlie!” I said, awash in relief, cutting him off. “We’ve got a lawyer! He’s going to handle this.”
“A lawyer?” said Charlie.
“Don’t worry,” I told him.
“Mom, listen—” said Charlie, his voice rising.
“You’re fine,” I said. “We’re fine, honey. I’ll handle this.” I put my hand on his knee. “You can go back to work,” I said.
“Fuck you!” yelled Charlie.
I gasped, “Charlie!”
“You never listen to me!” he cried. His face was filled with rage. “You never want to hear anything! You don’t even want to know what’s actually going on. It’s bullshit!” Charlie opened the car door and got out, slamming it behind him. He sprinted toward the pool.
I got out of the car and ran after him. “Charlie!” I called. “Charlie!”
He turned the corner past the front desk and was out of sight. A teenage girl in a red guard suit with a head full of blond braids stared at me. “Can I help you?” she said. I stared at her nose ring, at her pale eyes.
“Charlie’s my son,” I said.
“Do you want me to…go get him?” asked the girl, seemingly taking pity on me.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “No,” I repeated.
“OK…” said the girl. I turned to walk back to my car. I felt humiliated, heartbroken. The girl called after me, “Have a nice day!”
-9-
Salvatore
THE DNA WARRANTS WERE ready. If Salvatore’s job had taught him anything, it was that every person was capable of darkness, even a group of seemingly innocent fifteen-year-old boys. Salvatore had been frustrated when every one of the lifeguards was walled off by their parents （and pricey defense lawyers）， but he understood—if one of his kids was involved with a dead body, he’d call the best attorney he could afford, too. Salvatore emailed the kids’ lawyers, all the paperwork attached.
He stood. Lucy Masterson’s body had been identified by her landlord, a man named Jay Cutler. Lucy had lived in a condominium complex not far from the greenbelt called The Gables. Salvatore’s team was interviewing the homeowners near where Lucy’s body was found, and he decided to visit her condo to see if there were any clues that might explain why she’d been found dead by the side of a muddy swimming hole.
Salvatore pulled into The Gables, a sprawling complex with not one single tree to shade its blindingly bright parking lot. Cutler led him to unit 33. “She never caused any trouble,” said the landlord, a forty-something man who wore jean shorts with a sleeveless T-shirt. “I think she worked at the Chuy’s over on Barton Springs Road.” Salvatore nodded. He was a big fan of the Tex-Mex institution, which was decorated with bright-colored booths and pictures of Elvis made from velvet.
Jay Cutler had the leathery skin of a man who spent a lot of time outdoors, and appeared to be wearing eyeliner. Salvatore quickly shuffled through his options of how to handle the guy. He tried for vulnerable confidant. “Thank you for your help identifying Lucy’s body,” said Salvatore. “That must have been very hard.”
Jay shrugged, closed off. Salvatore switched tack. “Did she have any close friends that you know of? Any regular visitors…maybe a boyfriend?” He wanted to establish how well this guy knew Lucy from the get-go. The eyeliner signaled gay to Salvatore, or maybe straight-but-artistic.
They reached Lucy’s apartment and the guy inserted his key. “Last weekend, she was grilling by the pool,” said Jay. “She must have had a friend over, right? Nobody grills by the pool alone, right?”
This question did not seem to require an answer. Salvatore handed Jay his card. “Will you call me if you think of anything else?”
“Sure, of course,” said Jay. He paused on the stairwell, not opening the condo, so Salvatore waited. （A classic “hand on the doorknob” revelation…it was a common phenomenon that Salvatore or a colleague would conduct a long interrogation and get nothing from a witness or suspect until the person got up to leave, and then—hand on the doorknob—started to spill.）
“She was really gorgeous,” said Jay, looking not at Salvatore but at Lucy’s rubber doormat. “I wondered if maybe she danced or something. You know, at the Yellow Rose.”
The Yellow Rose was a strip club on the outskirts of the city. It wasn’t as seedy as some of the clubs and “spas” Salvatore’s colleagues in trafficking had to frequent, but it was a bit run-down. Salvatore and Jacquie had gone there once, before they’d had kids, when they were a bit drunk and feeling frisky. They’d thought it would be transgressive and fun, but Salvatore just found it depressing. In order to enjoy yourself at the Yellow Rose you had to be able to silence the part of your brain that wondered about the dancers’ inner lives, what they had to do to turn on their smiles each night. Salvatore couldn’t silence that part of his brain.
“The Yellow Rose?” he said. “You mean you think she was a stripper?”
“I don’t know anything,” said Jay in an insinuating tone.
“What makes you think she may have worked in the clubs?”
“Nothing,” said Jay. “Nothing. A lot of these girls, though…” His voice trailed off. He looked at Salvatore pointedly, though what the point was, exactly, Salvatore wasn’t sure. Was he claiming that most waitresses were strippers? Or that many strippers lived in this particular condo complex?