Arlo and Gertie stayed frozen on the stoop.
“I want to help you,” Fred said. “But…”
Arlo walked back up the steps. Clapped his friend on the back, and when he saw that was welcome, he hugged him. Fred shook with quiet crying. Arlo held him. The distraction from his own burden was a relief. “I didn’t even tell you I’m sorry about your dog. I’m sorry about your dog, Fred… You take care of your wife. Don’t worry about another fucking thing.”
“We’re here if you need us, Fred,” Gertie said. “Anything. Both of you. I swear to God, I mean that.”
* * *
After Fred shut the door, they caught up to their kids. Julia squeezed her dad, hard. Larry took both their hands and walked between them, the way he liked to do when he was scared. Seeing her good, kind children in full flesh, a certainty came to Gertie Wilde: her husband was innocent.
Her relief was great, and so was her fury. She hated Rhea Schroeder more than she’d hated anyone in her life.
Rhea was sitting out front with Linda Ottomanelli and a glass of red wine, the half-filled bottle between them. She was still wearing yesterday’s black linen suit. Bitumen stretched out from the hole now in thick seams. It crossed under the sidewalk pavement and up again, daubing the yards.
“Gert,” Arlo barked in warning.
Gertie walked up 118’s wide, well-kempt slate. Rhea and Linda raised their eyes. Gertie’s speed increased. She stood before them. Linda looked away. Rhea did not. Between them was the note the Wildes had written, only someone had added to it and drawn over the words with the kind of red pen teachers use to grade papers:
MURDERING RAPING
Thinking of you.
FUCK
—The Wildes
There’s this thing that happens to people who’ve grown up with violence. It changes their hardwiring. They’re just slightly a different species, built more for survival than for social networking. They don’t react to threats like regular civilians. They do extremes. They’re too docile over small things but they go apeshit over the big stuff. In other words, they’re prone to violence.
Gertie approached Rhea now, when a shrewd person would have walked away, licked wounds, and if she was crafty, mounted a covert counterattack. But a switch inside Gertie had flipped. There wasn’t any going back.
“Fuck you, Rhea Schroeder. You beat that child and we both know it,” Gertie shouted. “I should have called the cops on you months ago.”
Linda gasped.
Gertie reared. With an awkwardly slow launch, she punched the concavity between Rhea’s chest and her shoulder. At first, Rhea did not fall back. The impact wasn’t great enough. But after a second, she pretended that it was, and slumped.
The people of Maple Street saw this. The adults and the teenagers and the Rat Pack children, even Julia and Larry.
Gertie didn’t wait for retaliation. She walked around the Schroeder house and yanked the Slip ’N Slide that was drying there, dragging it back to her own house. Her pretty dress that she’d worn for Shelly’s homespun funeral got mucked with dirt and oil. She stomped into her house, a public tantrum, leaving Julia and Larry and Arlo behind.
Back at the stoop, Rhea Schroeder followed Gertie with her eyes.
* * *
Once the neighbors witnessed Gertie’s act of violence, the impartial line they’d been trying to balance sprang firmly back to Rhea Schroeder’s side. Rhea had taken the blame for something that was entirely their fault. They felt responsible. It was true that she had a gossiping tongue, but in her kindness to every one of them, and in her inclusion of the terrible Wilde family for so long, she’d proven that she was a good person. The people of Maple Street owed her their loyalty.
They converged that night. They came outside to escape the stifling heat, and inevitably found themselves at the hole. Here, they discussed. This had happened: a child had died and even the police knew it wasn’t an accident. There was blame. A cancer was growing on Maple Street.
Linda Ottomanelli, who had considered herself Rhea’s best friend until Gertie Wilde moved in, was the first to suggest a brick. She hoped to get back into Rhea’s good graces. Supporting his wife, who’d been down lately, Dominick refined the idea. And then the Ponti men, plus the Hestias, who wanted to be of use, added their thoughts on how best to execute such a plan. Margie Walsh felt it should happen soon. Tonight.
“What do you think, Rhea?” Linda asked.
Rhea shook her head in sadness. “I can’t believe it’s come to this,” she said. “But I don’t see any other way.”