He wasn’t sure what happened to a soul when a person died in stages. His mother had died in stages. He supposed a soul was like a great fire, raging, roaring until nothing but embers remained, and embers weren’t enough to subsist on. It was better for a man—or a woman—to go completely, for the soul to not sit with the body, but to leap out and let go.
He had worried that his mother’s slow death had killed her spirit. He still worried about that. Was she free? He hoped she was. He wasn’t. But he hoped she was. And he hoped little Mary was. And Baby James too. Maybe his mother and his children were together. That thought had brought him comfort when nothing else could.
But he didn’t know how to comfort Dani Flanagan.
“They’re dead, aren’t they?” Dani asked. And he told her the truth. Yes. George and Aneta Flanagan were dead.
He thought how strange the girl was, asking something so unbearable with a soft and knowing voice. It made the hair rise on his neck, that calm composure, that emotionless statement. But then her eyes began to fill, and tears coursed silently down her cheeks. Shamed, he fished Bunny out of his pocket and handed it to her. He didn’t even think. Afterward, he would curse himself for giving up the precious possession, but he’d wanted to give the girl something. It was the day before her birthday. Ten years old, and she was even more alone than he.
So he gave her Mary’s pink rabbit.
It wasn’t very big. It fit in his pocket. He’d carried it for the last six months. Dani accepted the toy and gripped it tightly, almost desperately, in both hands.
She looked up at him, eyes still streaming, and twisted the cloth rabbit nervously between swipes at her seeping eyes.
Then she looked away, still clutching his offering, but a vacant look stole across her face. Shock. Poor kid was going into shock.
“Bunny,” she murmured.
“Yeah. It’s a bunny. A lucky rabbit. You hold on to that for a minute, until we figure out what’s going on, okay?”
“But this was Mary’s,” she said softly.
“What . . . what did you say?” he whispered.
She didn’t answer.
Of course, he’d misunderstood her. It was his own madness. His own grief. His own guilt. She looked up at him again, her gaze still blank. Her eyes had shaken him in the kitchen. The left one was a clear, pale blue, and the right one as brown as his own. Here, in the meager light, he couldn’t see the colors, but they glimmered, one much darker than the other.
“Do you have a d-daughter?” she asked.
His heart stilled in his chest. It happened every time. The same sensation. The same sinking in his belly and tightening in his throat.
“No,” he whispered. “No. Not anymore.”
“He’s a sweet bunny,” she said, stroking the nubby cloth. She brought the rabbit to her chest, like it comforted her, and pressed both hands over it, closing her eyes.
“The neighbor said she would take her, Malone. Family’s being contacted,” Murphy bellowed out the back door. He and Dani Flanagan both jerked at the sudden interruption. She opened her eyes again, and they locked on his.
“I want to see my mother and daddy, Mr. Malone. Please.”
“No, kid. I’m sorry. But no.”
“Please.”
He needed to get a few more answers and didn’t know how hard to press.
“Did you see what happened, Dani?”
“No. But you’re here. And they’re inside. And they would be calling for me if they could. They would be looking for me if they could. But they’re just lying there. Aren’t they?”
They wouldn’t be lying there much longer. Murphy had declared it a murder/suicide the moment he’d walked through the door, and the neighbor, a Mrs. Jana Thurston, had confirmed there was trouble between the Flanagans.
George Flanagan was violent. He runs with the lads of Kilgubbin. The North Side Gang, I think they call them. Vicious lot. There was always yelling and fighting coming from that house. Aneta came to me in tears more than once. I heard shots. He’s killed her, hasn’t he?
“I’ll take you next door to Mrs. Thurston,” he offered. He was the low man on the ladder. He always got the shit assignments. This was, by far, the worst he’d ever had.
“I don’t want to go to Mrs. Thurston,” Dani said. “She doesn’t like me or Mother.”
He frowned. “Why not?” Mrs. Thurston had made it sound like she and Aneta Flanagan were close friends. She’d had plenty to say about all of it, but none of what Malone had seen in that kitchen had made much sense to him.